ridvikpal/rainydayconsoleclientapi

RainyDay is a simple weather application that provides complete weather information built in Java. This is the console client and API, excluding the GUI.

RainyDay (Console Client/API)

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• RainyDay (Console Client/API)
  • Introduction
  • Features
    • Current Weather
    • Forecasted Weather
    • Astronomy
    • Searching Weather Database
  • Data Organization
    • Organization Diagram
  • Using The API In Your Own Code
    • Current Weather Via API
    • Forcasted Weather Via API
    • Astronomy Via API
    • Location Search Via API

Introduction

RainyDay is a simple weather application that provides complete weather information built in Java. It utilizes the free RESTful WeatherAPI as the information source and utilizes the gson library for JSON serialization and deserialization. This version is purely a console client; it doesn't include the JavaFX GUI that the general RainyDay Application has. This version is essentially a fully-functional higher level API built off of WeatherAPI that allows for seamless weather data retrieval in Java:

In addition to simply viewing the weather data, it also provides stores the data in separate classes. Therefore, this code from those classes can be easily modified for use in any application requiring weather information. Therefore, the classes in the console version are the backbone of the GUI vesion.

Features

All the features and their associated commands are shown upon application startup. These features are CURRENT, FORECAST, ASTRONOMY, SEARCH. Of course, you can also exit the application with EXIT. Additionally, the commands are case-insensitive. This means that forecast is the same as FORECAST, similar to SQL commands. Note that whenever a location is required for a command, it can be provided in the following forms and is case-insensitive:

Type	Example
City Name	Toronto
Specific City Name	toronto-ontario-canada
Postal Code	90210
IP Address	192.158.1.38
Longitude/Latitude	38.8/-77.03

Current Weather

The current weather data for a location can be found with the CURRENT command. This command takes in a location.

Forecasted Weather

The forecasted weather can be found with the FORECAST command. Since I'm using the free version of WeatherAPI, the program is limited to viewing only up to 3 days from the current day with a forecast request. This can be improved if you replace the key with an upgraded account key in the Connection.java file. This command takes in a location and then the number of days to forecast. This command gets both the current weather and the forecasted weather.

Astronomy

Weather-related astronomy can be found with the ASTRONOMY command. This command takes in a location and a date to get the astronomy for.

Searching Weather Database

The WeatherAPI database can be searched for using the SEARCH command. This command is useful to figure out the complete name for the location you want to get information for. It takes in a partial location term (see above for definition of a location term):

Data Organization

As mentioned, the data from WeatherAPI is deserialized into various classes, and these classes are modular and portable such that they can be used in any application for weather data. These classes are organized into levels as a hierarchy. These classes are:

Class	Description	Level	Parent Classes
Weather	Stores all weather information from the API	1	None
AutoCompleteElement	Stores the location search information	1	None
Location	Stores location information	2	Weather
Current	Stores all current weather information	2	Weather
Forecast	Stores all forecasted weather information	2	Weather
Astronomy	Stores all weather astronomy information	2	Weather
Alert	Stores all emergency weather alerts	2	Weather
Astro	Stores the weather astronomy	2.5	Astronomy, ForecastDay
AlertSubClass	Subclass for Alert class	2.5	Alert
ForecastDay	Stores the forecast for a specific day	2.5	Forecast
Condition	Stores the current weather condition information	3	Current, Hour, Day
AirQuality	Stores the air quality information	3	Current, Hour, Day
Hour	Stores the weather for particular hour in the forecast	3	ForecastDay
Day	Stores the weather for a particular day	3	ForecastDay

Organization Diagram

The classes can be better represented in the following diagram:

Using The API In Your Own Code

Really, the code in this console client can be used as a higher level API for any weather data you may want for your own developed application. All the data is nicely organized in the class structure above, so it should be really easy for you to implement in your own applications. First, simply create a Connection object (from package org.rainyday), which will allow you to use the various features RainyDay has to offer via its methods:

private static Connection rainyDayAPIConnection = new Connection();

Then, you can call the corresponding API method you would like for the corresponding feature, and use the getter methods on the returned object to get the data you would like.

Current Weather Via API

To get the current weather, simply use the getCurrentWeather() method. This method takes in a location and will return a Weather object with the data:

// get the current weather for Toronto, Ontario, Canada
private Weather currentWeather = rainyDayAPIConnection.getCurrentWeather("Toronto");

// For example, get the current temperature in degrees celsius
double currentTemp = currentWeather.getCurrent().getTemp_c();

Forcasted Weather Via API

To get the current weather and the forecasted weather, use the getForecast() method. This method takes in a location and the # of days forward you want to get the data for, ranging from 1-3, and returns a Weather object:

// get the forecasted weather for Toronto, Ontario, Canada for 3 days
private Weather forecastedWeather = rainyDayAPIConnection.getForecastedWeather("Toronto", 3);

// get the current temperature at 10:00 AM for tomorrow
double futureTemp = forecastedWeather.getForecast().getForecastday().get(1).getHour().get(10).getTemp_c();

Astronomy Via API

To get the weather astronomy for a location, use the getAstronomy() method. This method takes in a location and a date, to return a weather object. Note by default astronomy data is included in the getForecast() API call as well:

// get the weather astronomy for Toronto, Ontario, Canada on July 21, 2023
private Weather astronomyData = rainyDayAPIConnection.getAstronomy("Toronto", "2023-07-21");

// get the sunrise time for 2023-07-21
private String sunriseTime = astronomyData.getAstronomy().getAstro().getSunrise();

Location Search Via API

To search the WeatherAPI database for a specific location, use the getAutocompleteTerm() method. This method takes in a keyword and returns an ArrayList<AutoCompleteElement> with all the matched locations.

// search with the keyword "Jacks"
private ArrayList<AutoCompleteElement> matchedLocations = rainyDayAPIConnection.getAutoCompleteTerm("Jacks");

// get the first matched term
matchedLocations.get(0).getName();