Errors with Bulk Tip API

[jeresig]

I'm hitting some weird errors with the bulk tip API (see #1084).

Specifically I'm doing a request that looks like:

curl https://www.gittip.com/khanacademy/tips.json -u API_KEY: -X POST -d'[{"username":"mitsuhiko","platform":"gittip","amount":6.5},{"username":"kennethreitz","platform":"gittip","amount":1.5},{"username":"wycats","platform":"gittip","amount":6},{"username":"jashkenas","platform":"github","amount":12.25},{"username":"jezdez","platform":"gittip","amount":5.5},{"username":"whit537","platform":"gittip","amount":4},{"username":"epriestley","platform":"github","amount":6.25},{"username":"cloudhead","platform":"github","amount":4},{"username":"isaacs","platform":"gittip","amount":3.75},{"username":"scottgonzalez","platform":"gittip","amount":2.25},{"username":"dmethvin","platform":"gittip","amount":3.25},{"username":"rdworth","platform":"gittip","amount":2.75},{"username":"mxcl","platform":"gittip","amount":5.5},{"username":"mdo","platform":"gittip","amount":1.5},{"username":"fat","platform":"github","amount":1.75},{"username":"Stuk","platform":"github","amount":1},{"username":"marijnh","platform":"gittip","amount":1},{"username":"ariya","platform":"github","amount":1},{"username":"dangrossman","platform":"gittip","amount":1},{"username":"petehunt","platform":"github","amount":3},{"username":"jordow","platform":"github","amount":2.5},{"username":"kamaulynder","platform":"github","amount":0.5},{"username":"pv","platform":"github","amount":1},{"username":"wesm","platform":"gittip","amount":0.25}]'

(Where API_KEY is replaced with the API key.) I get back an empty body with no error message. Any insight into what might be going wrong?

[chadwhitacre]

Try POST -d'tips=...'?

[chadwhitacre]

Also, I was seeing float rounding errors, if you see that then do "amount": "1.25" (String instead of Number).

[chadwhitacre]

Aaaaaaand gittip is the only supported platform so far. :(

[chadwhitacre]

Looked into the POST body more. The API docs do say to POST back the same structure you GET, which is application/json, not application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

[chadwhitacre]

Okay, fixed it up. Now tips.json takes application/json, as in your original example. However, be sure to set the Content-Type or else we'll try to parse it as application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

curl https://www.gittip.com/khanacademy/tips.json \
    -u API_KEY: \
    -X POST \
    -d'[...]' \
    -H"Content-Type: application/json"

[jeresig]

Thank you for the fixes and clarification, Chad! I tweaked the docs some more to make the example work, as well (by default curl uses "application/x-www-form-urlencoded", which is what made me so confused). I just tried running my script and it works great!

If others ever run across this ticket and are interested, this is how you would do the POST using node.js and the request lib.

    request.post({
        url: "https://www.gittip.com/khanacademy/tips.json",
        json: payload,
        auth: {
            user: API_KEY,
            pass: ""
        }
    }, function(err, res, body) {
        console.log(err, res, body);
    });

[chadwhitacre]

Yay! Yeah, sorry, forgot to mention the curl default. :(