#MCommunity JSON API

A simple API that connects to the MCommunity LDAP and returns information that is publicly available on MCommunity in JSON format to use in whatever way you can imagine. The API is publicly accessible from http://mcommunity-api.herokuapp.com/ if you don't wish to use a local copy.

##The Usage

Requests can be sent to the api very easily. For example:

http://mcommunity-api.herokuapp.com/?uniqname=pkabra

http://mcommunity-api.herokuapp.com/?firstname=P*&surname=Kabra

Will return information, that is publicly available, about me.

##Request Attributes Only publicly available information can be requested from the API. You can request the following data through GET.

The following variables will always contain data.

• uniqname for Uniqname
• firstname for first name
• surname for last name
• title for searching "Title" ie. Undergraduate/Graduate etc.
• affiliations for searching affiliations with departments eg. Computer Science
• mail for umich email address (not much use)

The following variables may not contain data. As such if you query them, the return may exclude some entries. (Look at considerations)

• address for home address (Note: Could be private)
• workaddress for work address
• phone for telephone number
• mobile for mobile number (Note: Could be private)

##Return Attributes Data will be returned in JSON format.

Two attributes are returned in the first level of JSON.

• count which is the number of entries returned
• data which contains the returned entries

The following information is returned in the data attribute, if available. Note, if data is restricted or contains nothing it will not return.

• uniqname for Uniqname
• fullname for full name
• firstname for first name
• surname for last name
• title for "Title" ie. Undergraduate/Graduate etc.
• affiliations returns affiliations with departments eg. Computer Science (Note: Returns array of affiliations)
• address for home address (Note: Could be private)
• workaddress for work address
• phone for telephone number
• mobile for mobile number (Note: Could be private)
• mail for umich email address (not much use)

##Considerations

Any requested data that is queried acts as an AND statement. Therefore entries may be excluded. For example uniqname=pkabra&firstname=John will return no data as no entry will be found with both Uniqname=pkabra and Firstname=John (that uniqname is mine and my firstname is Pratik, not John).

Private data is equivilant to that data not existing. Therefore, if I query my address, there will be no returned data as my home address is private.

Wildcards can be used. Example firstname=p* or firstname=*p or even firstname=*p*.

The affiliations attribute returns affiliations with departments eg. (Computer Science) as an array of data. As such the format is similar to the way the entire list of students is returned. The first element is the "count" which contains the total number of affiliations returned. The second element is "data" which contains the actual list of affiliations. Exactly the same way as the list of students is returned.

##Limits

• Active directory will only return a maximum of 350 entries to anonymous users. Your query may return even more results, but you will only receive the first entries. (Trying to workaround but introducing multiple queries. Feel free to come up with a solution yourself.)

• UMIDs are restricted data, reserved only for administrative users. Therefore, you cannot query UMIDs.

##Dependencies

• Requires Apache mod_ldap
• Requires php_ldap
• Requires php_json