Question

Im experimenting with the espn public API and am trying to use their json to access NFL player information.

the json im accessing succesfully looks like:

{
"sports": [
    {
        "name": "football",
        "id": 20,
        "leagues": [
            {
                "name": "National Football League",
                "abbreviation": "nfl",
                "id": 28,
                "groupId": 9,
                "shortName": "NFL",
                "athletes": [
                    {
                        "id": 14466,
                        "firstName": "Isa",
                        "lastName": "Abdul-Quddus",
                        "fullName": "Isa Abdul-Quddus",
                        "displayName": "Isa Abdul-Quddus",
                        "shortName": "I. Abdul-Quddus",
                        "links": {
                            "api": {
                                "athletes": {
                                    "href": "http://api.espn.com/v1/sports/football/nfl/athletes/14466"
                                },
                                "news": {
                                    "href": "http://api.espn.com/v1/sports/football/nfl/athletes/14466/news"
                                },
                                "notes": {
                                    "href": "http://api.espn.com/v1/sports/football/nfl/athletes/14466/news/notes"
                                }
                            },
                            "web": {
                                "athletes": {
                                    "href": "http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/_/id/14466/isa-abdul-quddus?ex_cid=espnapi_public"
                                }
                            },
                            "mobile": {
                                "athletes": {
                                    "href": "http://m.espn.go.com/nfl/playercard?playerId=14466&ex_cid=espnapi_public"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    },
                    {
                        "id": 8645,
                        "firstName": "Hamza",
                        "lastName": "Abdullah",
                        "fullName": "Hamza Abdullah",
                        "displayName": "Hamza Abdullah",
                        "shortName": "H. Abdullah",
                        "links": {
                            "api": {
                                "athletes": {
                                    "href": "http://api.espn.com/v1/sports/football/nfl/athletes/8645"
                                },
                                "news": {
                                    "href": "http://api.espn.com/v1/sports/football/nfl/athletes/8645/news"
                                },
                                "notes": {
                                    "href": "http://api.espn.com/v1/sports/football/nfl/athletes/8645/news/notes"
                                }
                            },
                            "web": {
                                "athletes": {
                                    "href": "http://espn.go.com/nfl/player/_/id/8645/hamza-abdullah?ex_cid=espnapi_public"
                                }
                            },
                            "mobile": {
                                "athletes": {
                                    "href": "http://m.espn.go.com/nfl/playercard?playerId=8645&ex_cid=espnapi_public"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    },
                    {
                        "id": 11910,
                        "firstName": "Husain",
                        "lastName": "Abdullah",
                        "fullName": "Husain Abdullah",
                        "displayName": "Husain Abdullah",
                        "shortName": "H. Abdullah",
                        "links": {
                            "api": {
                                "athletes": {
                                    "href": "http://api.espn.com/v1/sports/football/nfl/athletes/11910"
                                },
                                "news": {
                                    "href": "http://api.espn.com/v1/sports/football/nfl/athletes/11910/news"
                                },
                                "notes": {
                                    "href": "http://api.espn.com/v1/sports/football/nfl/athletes/11910/news/notes"
                                }
                            } ........
                ]
            }
        ]
    }
],
"resultsOffset": 0,
"resultsLimit": 50,
"resultsCount": 3301,
"timestamp": "2013-01-06T19:30:17Z",
"status": "success"

}

and heres the html / javascript Im using:

$(document).ready(function(){

    $.getJSON("http://api.espn.com/v1/sports/football/nfl/athletes?apikey=MY-API-KEY-HERE&_accept=application/json",
    function(data){
      $.each(data["sports"], function(i,item){
         $("#infoDiv").append( [i] + " - " + item.name + "<br>" );    
      });
    });

});

i can get this to display 0 – football but cant use something like

$.each(data["sports"]["leagues"]["athletes"], function(i,item){
  $("#infoDiv").append( [i] + " - " + item.firstName + "<br>" );  

to access the individual athlete data such as item.firstName , etc.

i keep getting the following error:

TypeError: data.sports.leagues is undefined

what am I missing? I’m using this same code structure successfully with a couple of other API’s that provide json. the ESPN json is a little more complex in comparison though.

thanks for any light you can shed on this for me.

Answer 1

sports, leagues and athletes are arrays, for example: sports[0] is an object (the one with name=’football’)
You should iterate each like this (not tested):

$.each(data.sports, function(i,sport) {
    $.each(sport.leagues, function(i,league) {
        $.each(league.athletes, function(i,athlete) {
            $("#infoDiv").append( [i] + " - " + athlete.firstName + "<br>" );
        });
    });
});