Not sure how YQL (Yahoo Query Language) has escaped my attention for so long, as it seems so useful.

YQL lets you query any of the Yahoo's APIs using a SQL-like syntax. For me this came in handy when I wanted to create a simple stock-tracking mobile app.

In JavaScript I could get the stock quote for Google's stock as JSON, like so:

function getStock(symbol){
  var YQL="select * from yahoo.finance.quotes where symbol ='"+symbol+"'";
  var URL="http://query.yahooapis.com/v1/public/yql?q=" + escape(YQL) + "&format=json";

  //Do an AJAX call to the above URL to get the JSON back.
}

To see what the JSON look like see it on the console.

When it comes to using it in mobile apps, if you use Titanium then you can use the YQL wrapper and write code like this:

Titanium.Yahoo.yql(
 "select * from yahoo.finance.quotes where symbol = 'GOOG'", 
 function(e) {  
  var data = e.data;
  //Do what you like with the data JSON object
 }
);

All very useful.

Recent Blog Posts

185

Why The Silence? | Blog Mon, Jun 17th 2013 8:00a Jake Howlett Wow. More than 2 months since I last blogged. Which is the longest period of silence this site has ever seen. What gives? Is codestore dead? Does anyone care? Well a couple of you do. Enough to email me and ask if I'm ok. One even to say it's like he's "missing a friend", which was nice. One asked if I was still alive and I had to resist temptation of replying in the guise of my widow. The simple reason is I'm just way too busy to find the time to write on here. I'm working weekends and s [read] Keywords: domino email microsoft sharepoint

274

Mapping Document Collections To Views | Blog Thu, Apr 11th 2013 4:00a Jake Howlett It's now a couple of months since I wrote about a Super Useful Set of LotusScript Wrapper Classes, which I've written about on and off since February. Today I want to share a few more extensions I've made to them, which help massively when it comes to getting documents from views. Imagine the following use scenario: Dim factory As New CustomerFactory() Dim coll As CustomerCollection 'Let's get a collection from a view Set coll = factory.GetAll() 'Or you could to this Set coll = factory [read] Keywords: domino lotusscript notes database

246

Making Google Apps For Business Behave Like a Mail Client | Blog Wed, Apr 3rd 2013 4:16a Jake Howlett So, I mentioned that I've moved to a new PC and, for the first time in years, I didn't install a dedicated Mail client/app. Instead I'm using direct web access to Google Apps For Business (posh name for paid-for Gmail). The one thing I never liked about using Email in a browser is that I constantly close and re-open the browser. Thus, in effect, closing my email client, which I then have to remember to re-open. Now though I've made it seem like a real app. You can do this using Chrome's "a [read] Keywords: application email google

140

Documenting Your LotusScript Classes | Blog Wed, Mar 27th 2013 4:00a Jake Howlett Just a quick LotusScript tip: Hopefully you've been inspired by my recent adventures in creating custom LotusScript classes. If so, you'll have noticed that, when creating your own properties and methods in these classes that they get their own comments added in. For example, if you type "property get foo as string" and then press return, you'll see something like this:%REM Property Get Foo Description: Comments for Property Get %END REM Property Get Foo As String End Property Domino De [read] Keywords: domino lotusscript properties

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The Perfect Desk Quest - 2013 Update | Blog Tue, Mar 26th 2013 6:20a Jake Howlett It must be time for another update on how my desk is evolving towards the elusive "perfect desk". Previous updates here. Here's my desk now, following a recent overhaul: The two main differences from before: The Lenovo T400 laptop and its docking station have gone and the left-most monitor has moved positions to be on the right. My desk needs to not only keep up with the way I work, but also the changes of the times. I decided it was time I got "with the times" and "embrace the cloud" an [read] Keywords: domino lotus notes database development email laptop microsoft office outlook server vm

160

Updating Glyphicons in Bootstrap | Blog Thu, Mar 21st 2013 4:00p Jake Howlett Using Bootstrap, whenever I want to an icon to an element, I simply write HTML like this: Add New And I get something like this: The choice of icons is documented here and the icons themselves are based on Glyphicons "halflings". All is good. However, recently I found myself wanting to use an icon to show that a document had some attachments. Naturally, I wanted a paperclip. Just like a magnifying glass denotes searching, a paperclip denotes a file attachment. Who knows why! To my sur [read] Keywords: css twitter

105

Easy Access to Sub-Collections of the DocumentWrapper Class | Blog Wed, Mar 20th 2013 12:30p Jake Howlett My favourite feature of the Wrapper Classes I keep going on about is the ready access they can give to any given class's related sub-classes. For example, let's say you have an object based on the Customer class and you want to find all their Invoices. Wouldn't it be nice to write code like this in a WQO agent:Dim customer As Customer, invoice As Invoice Set customer = New Customer(web.document) If customer.Invoices.Count > 0 Then Set invoice = customer.Invoices.getFirst() While Not i [read] Keywords: agent properties

105

Easy Access to Sub-Collections of the DocumentWrapper Class | Blog Wed, Mar 13th 2013 4:20a Jake Howlett My favourite feature of the Wrapper Classes I keep going on about is the ready access they can give to any given class's related sub-classes. For example, let's say you have an object based on the Customer class and you want to find all their Invoices. Wouldn't it be nice to write code like this in a WQO agent: Dim customer As Customer, invoice As Invoice Set customer = New Customer(web.document) If customer.Invoices.Count > 0 Then Set invoice = customer.Invoices.getFirst() While Not [read] Keywords: agent properties

91

Creating New Documents Based on the DocumentWrapper Class | Blog Mon, Mar 11th 2013 7:20a Jake Howlett So far, we've seen how to "wrap" an existing document inside a custom class, which is based on the DocumentWrapper subclass. But the document we wrap doesn't have to exist. We can use the DocumentWrapper classes to handle creation of new documents. Imagine that, anywhere in your LotusScript, you could write this: Set invoice = New Invoice(web.database.CreateDocument) invoice.Number = factory.GetNextInvoiceNumber() invoice.Value = 12345.98 invoice.Save() Wouldn't that be cool!? It's quite [read] Keywords: lotusscript database properties

158

Extending The LotusScript Wrapper Classes | Blog Fri, Mar 8th 2013 3:03a Jake Howlett The wrapper classes I blogged about in February went down a lot better than I thought they might. So, taking it further. Let's extend the DocumentWrapper class some more. Since first writing about them on here I've been busy using and extending them as I go. Here are a few examples of some of the properties I've added Simple Helper Properties Some very simple properties: WebLink, UNID and IsNew. Property Get WebLink As String WebLink = "/" + Replace(web.database.Filepath, "", "/" [read] Keywords: domino lotusscript database properties