NationScript is a Node.js library that is meant to make interactions with the NationStates API beginner-friendly ‒ taking care of rate-limiting, adding full typing to API responses, and providing a variety of enums for easy requests-building and understanding of responses ‒ while also offering additional methods and customisation for API interactions to support more advanced and/or niche use cases.
NationScript is tailored to version 12
of the NS API and supports all endpoints it offers.
NationScript is available via npm:
npm install nationscript
Before making any requests to the API, be sure to set a custom user agent that allows NationStates staff to contact you in case anything goes wrong with your script:
const { NS } = require('nationscript');
NS.setAgent('Tepertopia Example Script');
Doing so is mandatory and NationScript will not execute any (although allow preparation of) requests before a user agent has been set.
To begin building a request, use one of the functions on the NS
object ‒ each of them returns a
request subclass instance specifically adjusted to the API endpoint it is expected to address:
API Endpoint | Instantiation Function |
---|---|
Nations | nation |
Regions | region |
World | world |
World Assembly | wa |
Cards (Single) | cardDetails |
Cards (World) | cards |
Commands |
issue , dispatchAdd , dispatchEdit , dispatchRemove , giftCard , rmb
|
Telegrams | tg |
Data Dumps |
nationsFromDump , regionsFromDump , cardsFromDump
|
Miscellaneous |
v (Version), ua (UserAgent) |
After instantiating it, you can chain additional function calls on the request instance in order to add shards or other special parameters to the request:
let n = NS.nation('Tepertopia')
.shard(NationShard.REGION, NationShard.CENSUS) // Requesting custom shards, for which then a
.setCensusScales(CensusScale.RELIGIOUSNESS); // special parameter (e.g. census scale) is set
In this case, use of the NationShard
and CensusScale
enums is made ‒ NationScript offers shard
enums for all shardable request types (nation, region, world, wa, cardDetails, and cards), in
addition to a variety of other enums for string or number ID values that generally help to craft
requests to or read responses from the API.
If you're requesting a nation private shard or want to execute a nation private command, you need
to authenticate the request at some point before executing it. The NSCredential
class offers an
organised way of storing login and session PIN information for a nation, and is used whenever
authentication is required:
let login = new NSCredential('Example Nation', 'password', 'autologin');
let n = NS.nation('Example Nation')
.shard(NationPrivateShard.PING)
.authenticate(login);
let c = NS.issue(123, login); // Commands must be authenticated at instantiation already.
The NSCredential
instance that is used for authentication automatically gets its pin
property
updated whenever an authenticated request to the API is successful.
Once you've fully built your desired request, send it to the API:
let nationData = await n.send(); // Returns a Promise fulfilled by a Nation object
Responses from the API are converted to custom object types according to what you requested ‒ all of them fully defined using JSDoc, so you can just use your editor's intellisense without having to memorise the exact makeup of API responses:
console.log(nationData.region); // Print the name of the nation's region
for(let scale of nationData.census) // Print the score and world-wide rank of the nation
console.log(`Scored ${scale.score} on scale ${scale.id} (rank #${scale.rankWorld})`);
NationScript also offers alternative ways of getting the data you want!
If you'd like to build your requests in a more low-level way, the .custom()
function of the NS
object got your back! It instantiates a very basic ParameterRequest
, on which you're able to use
the .setArgument(key, val)
function to add shards or any other additional parameter for the API:
let custom = await NS.custom()
.setArgument('region', 'the_south_pacific') // Names will NOT be converted automatically here!
.setArgument('q', 'flag+messages')
.setArgument('offset', '5')
.send('REGION'); // Automatic response parsing requires you to specify the expected root tag.
The .setArgument(key, val)
function is also available on all of the specialised request classes,
so it's possible to mix and match in any way you want!
Using the .raw()
function instead of .send()
on any request instance enables you to receive the
raw response from the API in place of the automatic conversion to NationScript objects:
let response = await NS.nation('Tepertopia').raw();
This will return an IncomingMessage
instance (from the node native http
module), which contains
everything from headers to the response body (in the form of a readable stream).
Finally, if you'd just like to use NationScript to build request bodies in an easier fashion while
still handling everything regarding communication with the API yourself, you can simply get the
assembled request body from any request object by using its .getBody()
function:
let body = NS.nation('Tepertopia')
.shard(NationShard.CENSUS)
.setCensusScales(CensusScale.RELIGIOUSNESS)
.getBody();
console.log(body); // 'nation=tepertopia&q=census&scale=32'
In addition to the different ways of usage, you can also change a number of settings to adapt NationScript to your specific use case:
If you would like to rate-limit your requests to the NS API externally, you can disable the built-in rate-limiter of NationScript:
NS.setUseRateLimit(false);
NS.setUseRateLimit(true); // ... and re-enable it any time you'd like!
You can configure NationScript to use a specific version of the NS API in requests, like so:
NS.setUseVersion(11);
NS.setUseVersion(null); // This will make all calls to the latest API version.
By default, all requests are made in API version 12
(as of coding, the latest version) in order
to ensure safe conversion of API response XML to the NationScript custom object types.
When querying Daily Data Dumps in the DumpMode.DOWNLOAD
, DumpMode.DOWNLOAD_IF_CHANGED
, or
DumpMode.LOCAL_OR_DOWNLOAD
modes, NationScript will save and look for local copies of the queried
Data Dump in a folder called nsdumps
in the directory from which the respective script is being
executed. You can set an alternative folder to contain local Dump copies instead:
NS.setDumpDirectory('/path/to/directory');
The full documentation (both for internal modules and the intended user interface) is available here on GitHub Pages.
NationScript is licenced under the Mozilla Public License 2.0.