Xeno Canto API

A TypeScript wrapper for the Xeno Canto API with no dependencies.

Introduction

A Node.js implementation with TypeScript support for the xeno-canto.org API 2.0. It provides an easy way to search for various bird and wildlife sound recordings.

Install

To install, run the following command in your terminal:

npm install xeno-canto-api-ts

Usage

Import

To use xeno-canto-api-ts in your Node.js project, you need to import it as follows:

import * as XenoCanto from "xeno-canto-api-ts";

Simple Search

You can pass a string query to the search method like this:

const result = await XenoCanto.search({ query: "Owl" });
// Do something with result

or

XenoCanto.search({ query: "Owl" }).then((result) => {
  // Do something with result
});

If the search is successful, the search method will return an object with the following properties:

• url: The query URL used for the search
• rawResponse: The original Response object from the fetch
• xrResponse: An XCResponse object that contains the fetched data

You can access the data like this:

console.log(result.rawResponse.status); //Response status code, e.g., 200
console.log(result.xcResponse.numRecordings); // Total number of recordings
console.log(result.xcResponse[XCResponseKey.numRecordings]); // Same as above, but use the defined enum as key
console.log(result.xcResponse.recordings[0].file); // The first recording result's sound file download URL
console.log(result.xcResponse[XCResponseKey.recordings][0][XCRecordingKey.file]); // Same as above, but use the defined enum as key

Advanced Search

You can pass a XCQueryOption object to the search method like this:

// Create options
const options: XenoCanto.XCQueryOption = {
  query: "Eagle", // Required
  grp: "birds", // Optional
  cnt: "United States", // Optional
  // ...
};

const result = await XenoCanto.search(options);

• Some of the XCQueryOption properties accepts operators such as =, >, < or -. For example, the recording length property len can accept 10, ">120" or "=19.8".
• The options list can accept additional properties that are not specified in the current API documentation in case of future updates. Note that the API will disregard any non-existing query parmeters.

Multiple Pages

For results that have multiple pages, you can pass the page parameter to the search method:

// Create options
const options: XenoCanto.XCQueryOption = {
  query: "Eagle",
  grp: "birds",
  cnt: "United States",
  // ...
};

// Begin initial search
console.log("Fetching page 1...");
const result = await XenoCanto.search(options);

// Print first recording data from response
console.log(result.xcResponse.recordings[0]);

// Wait for 1 second (to prevent rate limit)
await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 1000));

// Check if there are more pages
const totalPages = result.xcResponse.numPages;
if (numPages > 1) {
  // Loop through rest of the pages
  for (let currentPage = 2; currentPage < totalPages; currentPage++) {
    // Begin next search
    console.log(`Fetching page ${currentPage}/${totalPages}...`);
    const result = await XenoCanto.search({ ...options, page: currentPage }); // Here we pass the original query and options with a new page

    // Print first recording data from response
    console.log(result.xcResponse.recordings[0]);

    // Wait for 1 second (to prevent rate limit)
    await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 1000));
  }
}

Additional Options

The wrapper also provides additional options by passing a AdditionalSearchOption object to the search method

Change API Base URL

For development purpose, the Base URL can be changed as follows:

// Create options
const options: XenoCanto.XCQueryOption = {
  query: "Owl",
};
const additionalOptions: XenoCanto.AdditionalSearchOption = {
  baseUrl: "https://run.mocky.io/v3/9f08db9a-cfba-4b1d-8c4a-765932f6cf3b", // A custom URL that will return a example JSON data
};

const result = await XenoCanto.search(options, additionalOptions);

Other Usages

Custom Data Fetching

If you wish to implement your own data retrieval methods instead of using the default Fetch API, you can utilize the constructQueryUrl and convertJsonToXCResponse methods:

const options: XenoCanto.XCQueryOption = {
  query: "Owl",
};
const customUrl = XenoCanto.constructQueryUrl("/custom-endpoint/", options); // This will returns string `/custom-endpoint/?query="Owl"`
// Your implementation to retrieve the JSON data...
const xcResponse = XenoCanto.convertJsonToXCResponse(json); // If the JSON format is correct, this will convert it to type `XCResponse` which has type hinting

Query Parameters / Response's Key Names

To get the query parameters names / response JSON key names of the Xeno Canto API, you can use the XCQueryNameDefinition, XCResponseNameDefinition and XCRecordingNameDefinition enum, for example, XCQueryNameDefinition.recwill return the string rec.

Limitation

Due to the API limitation, only English queries are supported, and the query should based on scientific or common names. You may refer to the IOC World Bird List - Multilingual Version for looking up and mapping the corresponding names.

Resources

Please refer to the documentation for details and API references.

To learn more about the Xeno Canto's query parmeters, see https://xeno-canto.org/explore/api and https://xeno-canto.org/help/search.

To build this package from source, please refer to the wiki page.