Thanks so much, Emilie!
The API I’m working with returns some pretty simple JSON data. Initially, unaware of Max’s ability to interact with APIs, I made a simple Python script that pulled data from that API, extracted just two chunks of it, and deposited those chunks into two separate txt documents. This would then loop every 5 seconds until I quit. Within Max, I used a combo of filewatch and text to pull that data in, line by line, in real time (basically whenever the text docs would get updated).
This was all kinda cludgey and I looked into ways of doing everything within Max or at least getting rid of the dumb txt files. Then I learned about Max’s API function with maxurl. I had a bit of trouble parsing out exactly what I wanted from the returned JSON (it’s far easier with Python). You can use Javascript within Max, but I don’t know much JS. Instead, I was able to use a bunch of zl.slice and some regex to get exactly what I needed. I’d suggest spending some time with the maxurl help docs and that should get you going.
Feel free to shoot me a PM as well and I’m happy to talk in a bit more detail (unless others are interested in my process, then I’m also happy to share publicly). Perhaps a separate thread on data sonification methods would be ideal in the Process subcategory?
