Question

I am very much new in working with roku and roku specific language( BasicScript ). I need to make api calls to some server to get the channels. I am not understanding how to do it in roku. Please suggest.

Answer 1

here is the direct way to do it without having to rely on the syntax of the code libraries that are included in your SDK:

Blocking Method (all program execution stops until the URL is retrieved):

url="http://myserver.com/anExampleQuery?getmydata&apikey=AX5GZP5LL45D987D0&format=XML"
xfer=createobject("roURLTransfer")
xfer.seturl(url)
data=xfer.gettostring()

Non Blocking Method where you can do other things while waiting for data:

url="http://myserver.com/anExampleQuery?getmydata&apikey=AX5GZP5LL45D987D0&format=XML"
xfer=createobject("roURLTransfer")
xfer.seturl(url)
port=createobject("roMessagePort")
xfer.setport(port)
timer=createobject("roTimeSpan")
timer.mark()
xfer.asyncgettostring()
while true    
    msg=wait(100,port) '100 millisecond pause
    if type(msg)="roUrlEvent" then

        if msg.getresponsecode()=200 then
            data=msg.getstring()
            headers=msg.getresponseheadersarray()
            exit while
        else
            xfer.asynccancel()
        end if
    else
        print "do something useful while we wait for data"   
    end if
    if timer.totalmilliseconds() > 500 then
        ?"timeout exceeded"
        exit while
    end if
end while
print "***************HEADERS******************"
for each header in headers
print header
end for
print "***************DATA*********************"
print data
print "****************************************"