Chapter 4. Working with Serialized Data Structures
In this chapter, we will develop greater skills while working with nested lists and dictionaries by manipulating JavaScript Object Notation (JSON) structured data. Our artifact of interest is raw Bitcoin account data that contains, among other things, a list of all sent and received transactions. We will access this dataset using a web application programming interface (API) and parse it in a manner conducive to analysis.
APIs are created for software products and allow programmers to interface with the software in defined ways. Publically accessible APIs are not always available for given software. When available, they expedite code development by offering methods to interact with the software, as the APIs will handle lower level implementation details. Developers implement APIs to encourage development of supporting programs and, additionally, control the manner in which other developer's code interacts with their software...