Basic Blog Resources of Blogger API v3

Blog Resource is one of resources that operating on Blogger API v3. This resource contain three types in access a blog of a user of Blogger. Each type has different result in JSON script, you can use it depend on your condition. Before you learn this, at least you have API Console of Blogger. On this article, I also give you the JSON property output of each type. So that you can access and take decision, where type you want to use for your application.

Like what we talked above, the three types of Blog Resources is:

1. listByUser: this type will retrieve blogs of a user. No matter how many blogs you was mad.
2. get: this type will retrieve info of your specific blog based on blog ID. This type can also retrieve your latest posts. 
3. getByUrl: this type is almost same with get type. The different is this type retrieve your specific blog using URL of your blog that you want to check. And this type can't retrieve your latest posts.

Ok, we will discuss it one by one

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A. listByUser

If you want to use this type, you should know the ID of your blogger account. But if you join your blogger profile with your G+ (googleplus) profile, then your truly ID will hard to know again. Then you can solve this will give self property on HTTP request. Below is two ways of HTTP request how to use listByUser

GET https://www.googleapis.com/blogger/v3/users/userId/blogs

or by using

GET https://www.googleapis.com/blogger/v3/users/self/blogs

Output of this HTTP request is an array of items. The number of array very depend on how many blogs you have. Below is the result of JSON ouput

{
 "kind": "blogger#blogList",
 "items": [
  {
   "kind": "blogger#blog",
   "id": "FISTBLOGID",
   "name": "TITLEOFFIRSTBLOG",
   "description": "DESCRIPTIONOFFIRSTBLOG",
   "published": "FIRSTTIMETHISBLOGISCREATED",
   "updated": "LATESTUPDATEOFTHISBLOG",
   "url": "URLOFFISTBLOG",
   "selfLink": "SELFLINKOFFIRSTBLOG",
   "posts": {
    "totalItems": 23,
    "selfLink": "SELFLINKPOSTSOFFIRSTBLOG"
},
   "pages": {
    "totalItems": 2,
    "selfLink": "SELFLINKPAGESOFFIRSTBLOG"
},
   "locale": {
    "language": "in",
    "country": "",
    "variant": ""
}
}
 ]
}

B. get

Different with listByUser, you don't need to know ID of blogger user. This type will retrive blog information based on ID of a blog. This type is also able to retrive your latest posts. If you want to get latest post, what you should to do is just add maxPosts on HTTP request method. On our early posts, that is http://www.threelas.com/2012/12/learn-basic-blogger-api-v3.html, we gave a demo about this type. Below is HTTP request method for this type

GET https://www.googleapis.com/blogger/v3/blogs/blogId

And if you are using maxPosts (example is 1 post), then the HTTP request above become

GET https://www.googleapis.com/blogger/v3/blogs/blogId?maxPosts=1

If you are using the first HTTP request method, then the JSON output become

{
 "kind": "blogger#blog",
 "id": "BLOGID",
 "name": "BLOGNAME",
 "description": "BLOGDESCRIPTION",
 "published": "TIMEOFBLOGWASCREATED",
 "updated": "LATESTUPDATED",
 "url": "URLOFBLOG",
 "selfLink": "SELFLINKURLOFBLOG",
 "posts": {
  "totalItems": TOTALPOSTS,
  "selfLink": "SELFLINKURLOFPOSTS"
},
 "pages": {
  "totalItems": TOTALPAGES,
  "selfLink": "SELFLINKURLOFPAGES"
},
 "locale": {
  "language": "en",
  "country": "",
  "variant": ""
}
}

However, when you use second HTTP request method, the output become

{
 "kind": "blogger#blog",
 "id": "BLOGID",
 "name": "BLOGNAME",
 "description": "BLOGDESCRIPTION",
 "published": "TIMEOFBLOGWASCREATED",
 "updated": "LATESTUPDATE",
 "url": "BLOGURL",
 "selfLink": "SELFLINKOFBLOG",
 "posts": {
  "totalItems": TOTALPOSTS,
  "selfLink": "SELFLINKOFPOSTS",
  "items": [
   {
    "kind": "blogger#post",
    "id": "LATESTPOSTID",
    "blog": {
     "id": "BLOGID"
},
    "published": "TIMEOFPOSTWASCREATED",
    "updated": "LATESUPDATEPOST",
    "url": "POSTURL",
    "selfLink": "SELFLINKLATESTPOST",
    "title": "TITLEOFLATESTPOST",
    "content": "CONTENTOFLATESTPOST",




    "author": {
     "id": "IDOFPOSTAUTHOR",
     "displayName": "NAMEOFPOSTAUTHOR",
     "url": "GOOGLEPLUSAUTHORURL",
     "image": {
      "url": "IMAGEOFAUTHOR"
}
},
    "replies": {
     "totalItems": "TOTALCOMMENTS",
     "selfLink": "SELFLINKCOMMENTS"
},
    "labels": [
     "FIRSTLABEL",
     "SECONDLABEL"
]
}
]
},
 "pages": {
  "totalItems": TOTALPAGES,
  "selfLink": "SELFLINKPAGES"
},
 "locale": {
  "language": "en",
  "country": "",
  "variant": ""
}
}

C. getByUrl

Like what we had explained above, that this type only need URL of a blog. Then this type will retrive blog information. Result of this JSON output is almost same with listByUser. The most different between both are getByUrl only retrive one blog, but listByUser will retrieve all blog of a user. Below is the result of getByUrl JSON

{
 "kind": "blogger#blog",
 "id": "BLOGID",
 "name": "BLOGNAME",
 "description": "BLOGDESCRIPTION",
 "published": "THEFIRSTTIMEBLOGWASPUBLISHED",
 "updated": "LATESTUPDATE",
 "url": "BLOGURL",
 "selfLink": "SELFLINKBLOG",
 "posts": {
  "totalItems": TOTALPOSTS,
  "selfLink": "SELFLINKPOST"
},
 "pages": {
  "totalItems": TOTALPAGES,
  "selfLink": "SELFLINKPAGES"
},
 "locale": {
  "language": "en",
  "country": "",
  "variant": ""
}
}
After you read our explanation about Blog Resources of Blogger API v3. Now, time to learn trick of these types and example code. But, don't to fast. Learn it again, then we will give to you on the next posts.