How do I get data from the Bitfinex web API using javascript

Question

Here is a link to their API documentation

I would like to practice web programming by creating a bitcoin price ticker from scratch. My plan is to serve a script that makes api calls to exchanges to display the data. This will mean I only have to serve the script, not handle the data server-side.

I know that part of programming is learning from documentation, but the docs from bitfinex are very sparse and I couldn't find a tutorial.

I created an index.html to test my javascript. It returns a console error:

XMLHttpRequest cannot load https://api.bitfinex.com/v1/pubticker/:last_price. 
No 'Access-Control-Allow-Origin' header is present on the requested resource.
Origin 'null' is therefore not allowed access.

Here is the full index.html:

<html>

<head>

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.8.3/jquery.min.js">
</script>
</head>

<body>
<script>
$.getJSON("https://api.bitfinex.com/v1/pubticker/:last_price",
    function(data, status){
      alert("price: "+data +" status: " + status);
    }
)
</script>
Thank you stack exchange
</body>

Your question appears to be one of implementation rather than design (the 'how do I debug this'). As such it doesn't really fit into P.SE well (please see the help center for more about the questions that are within P.SE's scope). — user289086, Commented Jul 22, 2014 at 21:40

user149341user149341 · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-26 22:13:45Z

1

You can't — at least, not with Javascript. That API is not configured to allow calls from Javascript running on other web sites. You will need to call this API from a script running on your web server.

(Also, for what it's worth, the :symbol token in the URL is supposed to be replaced with the symbol of the ticker you're trying to look up, e.g. /v1/pubticker/BTCUSD for BTC/USD exchange prices.)

answered Jul 26, 2014 at 22:13

user149341

Add a comment |

Dave Scotese · Accepted Answer · 2015-07-12 18:16:04Z

If you run a webserver with SSL on it (as Duskwuff said, "You will need to call this API from a script running on your web server.") then you can deploy the following file to it:

<?php
$func = $_GET['fn'];
if(in_array($func,array('getBfx')))
{
    $func();
}

function getBfx()
{
    $a = $_GET['api'];
    echo "objData = ".file_get_contents($a);
}
?>

Then you can include the script from the URL to which you deployed it, with ?func=getBfx&api=https://api.bitfinex.com/v1{Whatever} tacked onto the end of it. I didn't have to escape that URL, but you might.

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