I am interested in finding out how and what I can do using API's with processing. Is there a really basic API somewhere online that would be a good starting point?

Cheers, L.

Do you mean API as Application Programming Interface
Perhaps you mean libraries In that case, you have some explanations in Libraries and on most pages hosting the libraries.
Otherwise, perhaps you need to reformulate your request.

I think what you are looking for is a way to read a webservice. A webservice is data packed in XML. Webcheck has a webservice, but it's commercial. There are others for free, depending on where you are.

To read a webservice, just call its URL. You will then get XML back, that you can parse with the XMLElement Object


So here's a concrete example (using Googles ubiquitous services for everything).

Call http://www.google.co.uk/ig/api?weather=London

The answer will be something like:

Code:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<xml_api_reply version="1">
  <weather module_id="0" tab_id="0" mobile_row="0" mobile_zipped="1" row="0" section="0" >
    <forecast_information>
    .....
    </forecast_information>
    <current_conditions>
      <condition data="Drizzle"/>
      <temp_f data="37"/>
      <temp_c data="3"/>
      <humidity data="Humidity: 93%"/>
      <icon data="/ig/images/weather/rain.gif"/>
      <wind_condition data="Wind: NE at 5 mph"/>
    </current_conditions>
    <forecast_conditions>
    <day_of_week data="Thu"/>
    .......
    </forecast_conditions>
    </weather>
</xml_api_reply>
 

Webservices may have a limit to the number of calls you can do in a day. So for testing, just save the response in a file and parse the file, like in the XMLElement Object example.