darkskyjs

darkSkyjs

A javascript api for darksky.net

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Features

This package is designed to provide :

• A simple API for making multiple simultaneous requests
• A promised-based request that only returns data when all requests are successful
• A callback that outputs the data
• Valid current, daily and weekly weather data

It differs from the original library in three ways:

• It only accepts, and returns, arrays of locations/conditions - this is a breaking change
• Each get function's name matches the property name of what the DarkSky service returns
• New or deprecated data points have been included or excluded respectively (see updates section below)

Note

Consider using DarkSkyJS-Lite which has no dependencies and is around half the size of this module. The lite version does not include the getForecastToday and getForecastWeek methods and consequently only supports currently - this means no hourly or daily data is returned.

Recent updates

14/10/2019 In v0.3.0 there's improved error checking for the PROXY_SCRIPT URL - Invalid URLs now return warning. The response JSON is also checked for validity.

29/11/2017 The following data points were added:

• apparentTemperatureHigh
• apparentTemperatureHighTime
• apparentTemperatureLow
• apparentTemperatureLowTime
• temperatureHigh
• temperatureHighTime
• temperatureLow
• temperatureLowTime

And the following deprecated ones removed:

• apparentTemperatureMax
• apparentTemperatureMaxTime
• apparentTemperatureMin
• apparentTemperatureMinTime
• temperatureMax
• temperatureMaxTime
• temperatureMin
• temperatureMinTime
• windGustTime

Getting Started

If you haven't already, create a developer account here https://darksky.net/dev/.

It is recommended you install via NPM where dependencies will be loaded automatically.

npm install darkskyjs

darkskyjs is configured to work with both AMD and CJS applications.

If you're using Webpack, Browserify or some other CJS module loader simply require the module like so

var Darksky = require('darkskyjs');

or using ES6 import, like so

import Darksky from 'darkskyjs'

and use the Darksky constructor like so:

var darkSky = new DarkSky()

You can then use one of the three methods listed below to retrieve location specific weather data.

• getCurrentConditions
• getForecastToday
• getForecastWeek

If you're using Require.JS you will need to download momentjs and es6-promise.

A server side proxy is required for this to work. So create a file that will contain your key and be careful not to commit it to a public code base.

Here's an example PHP one. Replace the value of $api_key with your valid key.

<?php
// File Name: proxy.php

$api_key = 'b962d5ee80be5293a234b69fb975629c';

$API_ENDPOINT = 'https://api.darksky.net/forecast/';
$url = $API_ENDPOINT . $api_key . '/';

if(!isset($_GET['url'])) die();
$url = $url . $_GET['url'];
$url = file_get_contents($url);

print_r($url);

Location data

darkskyjs can handle multiple location requests. Simply pass in an array of requests (to one of the three methods listed above) to get data for multiple locations.

Each request must comprise of two key/value pairs: latitude and longitude. Optionally you can pass in a place name as a reference which will be returned should the request be successful e.g.

[{latitude: 51.507351, longitude: -0.127758, name: 'London'}]

If you don't pass an array it will create one for you, but it's best to do so for consistency and to avoid confusion as an array is what you'll get back.

Returned data

This API returns a set of functions that allow you to access the raw data, rather then the raw data itself. Each function is named in exactly the same way as its respective data point e.g. ozone() will return the value for ozone.

getCurrentConditions returns an array of condition arrays. Each array represents one of locations you requested data for.

getForecastToday and getForecastWeek return nested arrays, one for each supplied location. Within that array is an array for each hour when using getForecastToday or one for each day when using getForecastWeek.

In order to match the locations that were supplied with what's returned it is recommended that the name property be used. A callback is then used to supply the returned data. For example:

darkSky.getCurrentConditions(
  [
    // location object(s)
    {
      latitude: 51.507351,
      longitude: -0.127758,
      name: 'London'
    }
  ],
  // callback
  function(conditions) {
    for (var i = 0, length = conditions.length; i < length; i++) {
      if (conditions[i].name === 'London') {
        console.log(conditions[i].cloudCover());
      }
    }
  }
);

Dependencies

DarkSkyJS uses moment.js to handle date/time data and ES6 Promises Polyfill to handle the requests via promises

• Ref: https://www.npmjs.com/package/moment
• Ref: https://www.npmjs.com/package/es6-promise

Plans

Add a method for retrieving alerts

Updates archive

The following data points have been added since 29/07/2017:

• moonPhase
• precipAccumulation
• apparentTemperatureMax
• apparentTemperatureMaxTime
• apparentTemperatureMin
• apparentTemperatureMinTime
• precipIntensityMax
• precipIntensityMaxTime
• temperatureMaxTime
• temperatureMinTime
• uvIndex
• uvIndexTime
• windGust
• windGustTime