bbc-pid

Simple JavaScript API to validate Programme Identifier (PID) syntax and to compute BBC URLs.

BBC Programmes Identifiers 0.4 spec defines a PID as following:

Characters: digits 0-9 and lower case letters, less vowels.

Length: Minimum 8 digits. No defined maximum – they will grow as necessary.

For historical reasons there are some 15 character pids existing for World Service content.

Install

npm i --save bbc-pid

Use

var pid = require('bbc-pid');
var request = require('superagent');
 
request.get(pid('b062mzcw').programme).end(function(err, res){
  console.log(res.body.programme.short_synopsis);
});

API

pid(pid)

Returns programmatic URLs for a given PID. Expect a 301 redirect from the iplayer URL and a 404 if the PID does not match any programme at all.

pid('p01l1z04')
// {
//  programme: "http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062mzcw.json",
//  iplayer: "http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b062mzcw.json",
//  crid: "crid://bbc.co.uk/programmes/b062mzcw",
//  tag: "bbc:programme=b062mzcw"
// }
 
pid('thedoctor')
// Error: invalid pid
//  at script.js:xx
//  

pid.isValid(pid)

The underlying method used in pid() to validate if a given string is PID compliant.

pid.isValid('p01l1z04');
// -> true
 
pid.isValid('thedoctor');
// -> false