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 3.0. 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
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Usage

Note: An API Key is required for Xeno-Canto API v3. You can obtain one by visiting your Account Page.

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";
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Simple Search

You can pass a filter option (e.g., English name) to the search method like this:

const result = await XenoCanto.search({
  key: "{YOUR_API_KEY}"
  en: "Owl",
});
// Do something with result
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or

XenoCanto.search({
  key: "{YOUR_API_KEY}"
  en: "Owl",
}).then((result) => {
  // Do something with result
});
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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.recordings[0].file); // The first recording result's sound file download URL
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Advanced Search

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

// Create options
const options: XenoCanto.XCQueryOption = {
  key: "{YOUR_API_KEY}", // Required
  en: "Eagle", // Search by English name
  grp: "birds", // Optional
  cnt: "United States", // Optional
  // ...
};

const result = await XenoCanto.search(options);
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• 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 = {
  key: "{YOUR_API_KEY}",
  en: "Eagle",
  grp: "birds",
  cnt: "United States",
};

// Initial search to get total pages
console.log("Fetching page 1...");
const initialResult = await XenoCanto.search(options);
const totalPages = initialResult.xcResponse.numPages;

console.log(initialResult.xcResponse.recordings[0]);

// Fetch remaining pages if any
if (totalPages > 1) {
  for (let i = 2; i <= totalPages; i++) {
    console.log(`Fetching page ${i}/${totalPages}...`);
    
    // Pass updated page number while keeping other options
    const result = await XenoCanto.search({ ...options, page: i });
    console.log(result.xcResponse.recordings[0]);

    // Rate limit precaution
    await new Promise((resolve) => setTimeout(resolve, 1000));
  }
}
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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 = {
  key: "{YOUR_API_KEY}",
  en: "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);
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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 = {
  key: "{YOUR_API_KEY}",
  en: "Owl",
};
const customUrl = XenoCanto.constructQueryUrl("/custom-endpoint/", options); // This will returns string `/custom-endpoint/?key="{YOUR_API_KEY}"&query=en:"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
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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.