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Best way to get Amazon page and product information

I want to get Amazon page and product information from their website so I work on a future project. I have no experience with APIs but also saw that I would need to pay in order to use Amazon's. My current plan was to use a WebRequest class which basically takes down the page's raw text and then parse through it to get what I need. It pulls down HTML from all the websites I have tried except amazon. When I try and use it for amazon I get text like this...
??èv~-1?½d!Yä90û?¡òk6??ªó?l}L??A?{í??j?ì??ñF Oü?ª[D ú7W¢!?É?L?]â  v??ÇJ???t?ñ?j?^,Y£>O?|?I`OöN??Q?»bÇJPy1·¬Ç??RtâU??Q%vB??^íè|??ª?
Can someone explain to me why this happens? Or even better if you could point me towards a better way of doing this? Any help is appreciated.
This is the class I mentioned...
public class WebRequest {
protected String url;
protected ArrayList<String> pageText;
public WebRequest() {
url = "";
pageText = new ArrayList<String>();
}
public WebRequest(String url) {
this.url = url;
pageText = new ArrayList<String>();
load();
}
public boolean load() {
boolean returnValue = true;
try {
URL thisURL = new URL(url);
BufferedReader reader = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(thisURL.openStream()));
String line;
while ((line = reader.readLine()) != null) {
pageText.add(line);
}
reader.close();
}
catch (Exception e) {
returnValue = false;
System.out.println("peepee");
}
return returnValue;
}
public boolean load(String url) {
this.url = url;
return load();
}
public String toString() {
String returnString = "";
for (String s : pageText) {
returnString += s + "\n";
}
return returnString;
}
}

It could be that the page is returned using a different character encoding than your platform default. If that's the case, you should specify the appropriate encoding, e.g:
new InputStreamReader(thisURL.openStream(), "UTF-8")
But that data doesn't look like character data at all to me. It's too random. It looks like binary data. Are you sure you're not downloading an image by mistake?
If you want to make more sophisticated HTTP requests, there are quite a few Java libraries, e.g. OkHttp and AsyncHttpClient.
But it's worth bearing in mind that Amazon probably doesn't like people scraping its site, and will have built in detection of malicious or unwanted activity. It might be sending you gibberish on purpose to deter you from continuing. You should be careful because some big sites may block your IP temporarily or permanently.
My advice would be to learn how to use the Amazon APIs. They're pretty powerful—and you won't get yourself banned.

How to access a variable stored in an online file

Am still new to Android in some stuff and I want to do something that I do on my php script which is kind of a SAAS. There I have some line of code that runs online to check for new update of my cms when the use opens the admin dashboard.
I want to do the same with my android app by maybe saving a txt file on a github repository like
http://github.com/wasiro/myapp/version.txt
which I will be updating when i make a major app update
Where i save something like 1.0.9.734 so that my app can get the variable and use it to inform my user that there is a new update alternatively
currenty i have this on my code
public static final String BaseUrl = "http://github.com/wasiro/myapp/version.txt";
Any assistance on achieving this would help alot and if there are better ways to do it please enlighten me.
Don't confuse this to JSON because I want to use GitHub to store my variable like I do with my phone script
Edit:
When I tried this instead of the variable in the file being extracted and read it was the path to the file that got on the way of the code

I think everyone is too quick to brush the question aside to being a duplicate instead of understanding what is all about? So sad this is what the SO community has become.
Your issue is to open a file located elsewhere.
private class myStreamReader extends AsyncTask<String, Void, String> {
String str = "";
#Override
protected String doInBackground(String... params) {
try {
URL url = new URL("http://github.com/wasiro/myapp/version.txt");
BufferedReader in = new BufferedReader(new InputStreamReader(url.openStream()));
str = in.readLine();
in.close();
} catch (MalformedURLException e) {
} catch (IOException e) {
}
return "Executed";
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(String result) {
//do something here
httpStuff.setText(str);
}
#Override
protected void onPreExecute() {}
#Override
protected void onProgressUpdate(Void... values) {}
}

How to know if a specific app comes to foreground?

Check if an app, for example, Instagram is started by user.
Note: My app is targeting lollipop and above versions in android

Yeah the only way you can do it is through the Accessibility Service. Look at this page to understand how to create it. https://developer.android.com/training/accessibility/service.html They will also need to enable the service via the services -> accessibility screen.
AccessibilityEvent.TYPE_WINDOW_STATE_CHANGED you can probably interrogate the package in front to figure out if Instigram is on top.
You definitely don't want to use getRunningTasks since the function was modified in Android 5.0+

I figured out that I can do this by using usage access feature.
#TargetApi(Build.VERSION_CODES.LOLLIPOP)
public static String getForegroundProcess(Context context) {
String topPackageName = null;
UsageStatsManager usage = (UsageStatsManager) context.getSystemService(Context.USAGE_STATS_SERVICE);
long time = System.currentTimeMillis();
List<UsageStats> stats = usage.queryUsageStats(UsageStatsManager.INTERVAL_DAILY, time - 1000*1000, time);
if (stats != null) {
SortedMap<Long, UsageStats> runningTask = new TreeMap<Long,UsageStats>();
for (UsageStats usageStats : stats) {
runningTask.put(usageStats.getLastTimeUsed(), usageStats);
}
if (runningTask.isEmpty()) {
return null;
}
topPackageName = runningTask.get(runningTask.lastKey()).getPackageName();
}
if(topPackageName==null) {
Intent intent = new Intent(Settings.ACTION_USAGE_ACCESS_SETTINGS);
context.startActivity(intent);
}
return topPackageName;
}
Now continuously check if the desired app is in the foreground.
String fg=getForegroundProcess(getApplicationContext());
if(fg != null && fg.contains("com.instagram.android")){
//Instagram is in foreground
}else {
}
I continuously run the above code with a job service.Which is available for
lollipop and above.

Java - How to Retrieve and use a single value from azure mobile services in Android

I am new to azure but i know certain things like how to retrieve and store data to azure , i followed azure official documentation for this purpose.
Link is Here - https://azure.microsoft.com/en-in/documentation/articles/mobile-services-android-get-started-data/
But the problem is, this tutorial is only showing How to retrieve and use Data from azure using Adapters and Lists . I want to know , How can i retrieve a single value from azure mobile services and how to use it in android.
Plzz provide me both backend code (if there is any) and java code for this . THANKS in advance

I got it solved. No need to create a custom API.
Just follow the basics , Here is the code :-
final String[] design = new String[1];
private MobileServiceTable<User> mUser;
mUser = mClient.getTable(User.class);
new AsyncTask<Void, Void, Void>() {
#Override
protected Void doInBackground(Void... params) {
try {
final MobileServiceList<User> result =
mUser.where().field("name").eq(x).execute().get();
for (User item : result) {
// Log.i(TAG, "Read object with ID " + item.id);
desig[0] = item.getDesignation(); //getDesignation() is a function in User class ie- they are getters and setters
Log.v("FINALLY DESIGNATION IS", desig[0]);
}
} catch (Exception exception) {
exception.printStackTrace();
}
return null;
}
#Override
protected void onPostExecute(Void aVoid) {
super.onPostExecute(aVoid);
designation.setText(desig[0]);
}
}.execute();
DON'T forget to create a class User for serialization and all. Also you should define the array .
FEEL FREE to write if you got it not working.
EDIT :-
design[0] is an array with size 1.
eq(x) is equal to x where , x variable contains username for which i want designation from database (azure).

You can do this with a custom API. See this link: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/mobile-services-how-to-use-server-scripts/#custom-api
Code looks like this:
exports.post = function(request, response) {
response.send(200, "{ message: 'Hello, world!' }");
}
It's then reachable at https://todolist.azure-mobile.net/api/APIFILENAME.
If you want to access a table you can do something like:
exports.post = function(request, response) {
var userTable = tables.getTable('users');
permissionsTable
.where({ userId: user.userId})
.read({ success: sendUser });
}
function sendUser(results){
if(results.length <= 0) {
res.send(200, {});
} else {
res.send(200, {result: results[0]});
}
}
You can then follow the instructions for using the API on your Android client here: https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/mobile-services-android-call-custom-api/
How your app is written will change how this code works/looks, but it looks something like:
ListenableFuture<MarkAllResult> result = mClient.invokeApi( "UsersAPI", MarkAllResult.class );
That invokes the API. You need to write the class and Future to handle the results. The above page explains this in great detail.

The most optimal solution would be to create an api on your server which accepts an ID to return an single object/tablerow.
In your android app, you only have to call:
MobileServiceTable<YourClass> mYourTable;
mClient = new MobileServiceClient(
"https://yoursite.azurewebsites.net/",
mContext);
mYourTable = mClient.getTable(YourClass.class);
YourClass request = mYourTable.lookUp(someId).get();
// request -> https://yoursite.azurewebsites.net/tables/yourclass/someId
YourClass should have the same properties as the object on the server.

YouTube API v3 Not Displaying Exceptions

I just started using YouTube API for Java and I'm having a tough time trying to figure out why things don't work since exception/stack trace is no where to be found. What I'm trying to do is to get list of videos uploaded by current user.
GoogleTokenResponse tokenFromExchange = new GoogleTokenResponse();
tokenFromExchange.setAccessToken(accessToken);
GoogleCredential credential = new GoogleCredential.Builder().setJsonFactory(JSON_FACTORY).setTransport(TRANSPORT).build();
credential.setFromTokenResponse(tokenFromExchange);
YouTube.Channels.List channelRequest = youtube.channels().list("contentDetails");
channelRequest.setMine(true);
channelRequest.setFields("items/contentDetails,nextPageToken,pageInfo");
ChannelListResponse channelResult = channelRequest.execute();
I don't see anything wrong with this code and also tried removing multiple things, but still not able to get it to work. Please let me know if you have run into a similar issue. The version of client library I'm using is v3-rev110-1.18.0-rc.

YouTube API has some working code and you can use it.
public static YouTubeService service;
public static String USER_FEED = "http://gdata.youtube.com/feeds/api/users/";
public static String CLIENT_ID = "...";
public static String DEVELOPER_KEY = "...";
public static int getVideoCountOf(String uploader) {
try {
service = new YouTubeService(CLIENT_ID, DEVELOPER_KEY);
String uploader = "UCK-H1e0S8jg-8qoqQ5N8jvw"; // sample user
String feedUrl = USER_FEED + uploader + "/uploads";
VideoFeed videoFeed = service.getFeed(new URL(feedUrl), VideoFeed.class);
return videoFeed.getTotalResults();
} catch (Exception ex) {
Logger.getLogger(YouTubeCore.class.getName()).log(Level.SEVERE, null, ex);
}
return 0;
}
This simple give you the number of videos a user has. You can read through videoFeed using printEntireVideoFeed prepared on their api page.