IGDB

Communicate with the Internet Game Database API quickly and easily with the igdb package. With the igdb client, you can retrieve extensive information on any number of video games, characters, companies, media, artwork and much more. Every IGDB API endpoint is supported!

If you would like to help the Go igdb project, please submit a pull request - it's always greatly appreciated.

Installation

If you do not have Go installed yet, you can find installation instructions here. Please note that the package requires Go version 1.13 or later for module support.

To pull the most recent version of igdb, use go get.

go get github.com/Henry-Sarabia/igdb

Then import the package into your project as you normally would.

import "github.com/Henry-Sarabia/igdb"

Now you're ready to Go.

Usage

Creating A Client

Before using the igdb package, you need to have an IGDB API key. If you do not have a key yet, you can sign up here.

Create a client with your API key to start communicating with the IGDB API.

client, err := igdb.NewClient("YOUR_API_KEY", nil)

If you need to use a preconfigured HTTP client, simply pass its address to the NewClient function.

client, err := igdb.NewClient("YOUR_API_KEY", &custom)

Services

The client contains a distinct service for working with each of the IGDB API endpoints. Each service has a set of service functions that make specific API calls to their respective endpoint.

To start communicating with the IGDB, choose a service and call its service function. Take the Games service for example.

To search for a Game, use the Search service function.

games, err := client.Games.Search("zelda")

To retrieve several Games by their IGDB ID, use the List service function.

games, err := client.Games.List([]int{7346, 1721, 2777})

The rest of the service functions work much the same way; they are concise and behave as you would expect. The documentation contains several examples on how to use each service function.

Service functions by themselves allow you to retrieve a considerable amount of information from the IGDB but sometimes you need more control over the results being returned. For this reason, the igdb package provides a set of flexible functional options for customizing a service function's API query.

Functional Options

The igdb package uses what are called functional options to apply different query parameters to service function's API call. Functional options themselves are merely first order functions that are passed to a service function.

Let's walk through a few different functional option examples.

To set the limit of the amount of results returned from an API query, pass SetLimit to the service function.

games, err := client.Games.Search("megaman", SetLimit(15))

As you can see, you simply need to pass the functional option as an argument to the service function.

To offset the results returned from an API call, pass SetOffset to the service function.

games, err := client.Games.Search("megaman", SetOffset(15))

SetOffset is used to iterate through a large set of results that cannot be retrieved in a single API call. In this case, the first 15 results are ignored so we effectively iterated through to the next set of results by 15.

To set the order of the results returned from an API call, pass SetOrder much in the same way as the previous examples.

games, err := client.Games.Search("megaman", SetOrder("popularity", igdb.OrderDescending))

SetOrder is used to specify in what order you want the results to be retrieved in and by what criteria. Here, SetOrder will retrieve the results with the highest popularity first.

The remaining functional options are not unlike the examples we covered and are further described in the documentation.

Functional Option Composition

More often than not, you will need to set more than one option for an API query. Fortunately, this functionality is supported through variadic functions and functional option composition.

First, service functions are variadic so you can pass in any number of functional options.

chars, err := client.Characters.Search(
    "mario",
    SetFields("id", "name", "games"),
    SetFilter("gender", "1"),
    SetLimit(5), 
    )

This API call will search the Characters endpoint using the query "mario", filter out any character that does not have a gender code of 1 (which in this case represents male), retrieve the id, name, and games fields, and return only up to 5 of these results.

Second, the igdb package provides a ComposeOptions function which takes any number of functional options as its parameters, composes them into a single functional option, and returns that composed functional option.

popularOpt := igdb.ComposeOptions(
    igdb.SetLimit(5),
    igdb.SetFields("name"),
    igdb.SetOrder("popularity", igdb.OrderDescending),
)

This call to ComposeOptions creates a single functional option that will allow you to retrieve the names of the top 5 most popular games when passed to the appropriate service function.

Functional option composition allows you to create custom functional options that can be reused in different API calls.

Taking the previous example, this can be done in the following way.

PS4, err := c.Games.Index(
        popularOpt,
        igdb.SetFilter("platforms", igdb.OpEquals, "48"),    // filter out games not on PS4
    )

XBOX, err := c.Games.Index(
        popularOpt, 
        igdb.SetFilter("platforms", igdb.OpEquals, "49"),    // filter out games not on XB1
    )

This example has two service function calls that each utilize the previously composed functional option in the same way but for different platforms. The first function retrieves the top 5 most popular PS4 games while the second function retrieves the top 5 most popular XB1 games.

Functional option composition reduces duplicate code and helps keep your code DRY. You can even compose newly composed functional options for even more finely grained control over similar API calls.

Examples

The repository contains several example mini-applications that demonstrate how one might use the igdb package.

• Mini Applications
• Documentation Examples

If you have used the igdb package for a project and would like to have it featured here as a reference for new users, please submit an issue and I'll be sure to add it.

Contributions

If you would like to contribute to this project, please adhere to the following guidelines.

• Submit an issue describing the problem.
• Fork the repo and add your contribution.
• Add appropriate tests.
• Run go fmt, go vet, and golint.
• Prefer idiomatic Go over non-idiomatic code.
• Follow the basic Go conventions found here.
• If in doubt, try to match your code to the current codebase.
• Create a pull request with a description of your changes.

Again, contributions are greatly appreciated!

Special Thanks

• You for your interest
• John for the IGDB Gopher
• Peter for the "Thank You" Gopher
• Dave Cheney for his article on functional options
• The DiscordGo and Go Spotify projects for inspiring me to create my own open source package for others to enjoy
• The Awesome Go project for so many references to admire
• The awesome people in the IGDB community who are always open to questions