Sports API

Ruby on Rails API providing JSON data about professional athletes.

Endpoints

/api/basketball
/api/baseball
/api/football

All current NBA, MLB, and NFL players

/api/players/#{sport}?first=#{firstname}&last=#{lastname}

Look up an individual player by sport

Sample URL

/api/players/baseball?first=MIKE&last=TROUT

JSON Response

{
  players: [
    {
      id: 970,
      name_brief: "M. T.",
      first_name: "Mike",
      last_name: "Trout",
      position: "CF",
      age: 26,
      average_position_age_diff: "-0.94"
    }
  ]
}

Notes

I only imported the relevant columns from the given api. It occurred to me after that another interpretation of the instructions may have been to import all columns, but I didn't think this would have much effect on my overall implementation, so I left that as is.
I created a database column, and stored information for name_brief on import. Redundantly I added a method to each sport's class to show both my (simple) approach to the problem, and to see how treating each sport as a sub class of players could allow for easy displaying of the same data in different ways for each sport as desired.
Also included are a handful of RSpec tests to provide some baseline assurances that the api was responding to requests as expected.
My single player api endpoint is slightly different from the instructions. I name spaced the results of querying by sport and first/last name into a players array, consistent with the other endpoints. Doing search by name could lead to multiple results (Im looking at you Brandon Marshalls) so again I left the project as is when I realized I may have diverged a bit from the instructions.

Update

Added following method to the Player model:

def self.import_players
  sport = self.name
  api = "http://api.cbssports.com/fantasy/players/list?version=3.0&SPORT=#{sport.downcase}&response_format=JSON"
  response = JSON.parse(HTTParty.get(api))
  response["body"]["players"].each do |player|
    next unless player["pro_status"] == "A"
    brief = format_name_brief(player["firstname"], player["lastname"])
    Player.create(
      first_name: player["firstname"],
      last_name: player["lastname"],
      name_brief: brief,
      position: player["position"],
      age: player["age"].to_i,
      type: sport,
    )
  end
end

Associated formatting methods to each sport's class, such as:

def self.format_name_brief(first_name, last_name)
  "#{first_name[0]}. #{last_name[0]}."
end

And a new validation:

validates :last_name, uniqueness: { scope: [:first_name, :age, :position] }

Importing players to the database can be handled from the console with #{Sport}.import_players

NGewirtz / Sports-API