TheTVDB.com

Hi,

The xml file that you get to check for updates contains a list of show updates and of episode updates, but how to know if new episodes have been added to a show and get the corresponding id and description ?

Thanks
David

I am bumping this as I have the exact same problem. How can I tell from the updates files if a series has an updated episode added to it compared to my local database. Do I need to loop through every episode xml file to check if its seriesid exists in my database? This is the only way I can think of it but it seem very intensive.

Is there another way I am missing!?

Im also wondering a bit about this, the api wiki doesn't really tell.

Series:
What have to change in a series to make it end up in the update xml. Changed or new base information? Changed or new Actors? Changed or new Episode? Changed or new Banners?

Episode:
Only for updated episodes or also for brand new ones? Like the OP stated, if there isn't any new episodes listed in the update then we have to loop thrue the episode xml for each one of the Series that has been marked as updated?

Banner:
Not really that interesting, but is this for changes and updates or does new banners end up here as well?

Hoping someone can spread some light.

It looks like the episode update contains both new episodes and updates to existing, so it kinda works like you would expect it to really. Not sure about banners yet but I would assume it works the same as with the episodes. So if you update episodes and banners separately then I guess you can update Actors and the shows base information with the series update and you got it all covered.

Ok, but even if they're present in the xml. Those new episodes are only IDs, not '"inkable" to a serie. So kinda hard to insert in a database in our side unless we process all the new episodes.

They'll be changes with the new site but this api was never designed to use it the way you guys are trying. The whole point of the site was to provide info for files you have. We never intended for people to try to pull info for episodes they didn't have so there is no good way to figure out when a new episode is added because it wasn't suppose to matter.

The new api (no eta) will be more robust and you're welcome to use the current one the way you want now but it requires more work on your end as we don't provide an efficent way to handle this type of request right now.

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Thx Coco for the answer.

So, to find my way to do it. Will a serie be present in the update xml if one episode of this serie is updated/added ?

I just need this information, and i'm good to code.

Hi,

Do you have any news about the new API release date ?

Looping through all my series and checking if there is any changes on your side becomes heavy (bandwidth and server load on your side).

The idea of the Update.php with the previous time was so clever, but is useless if we don't have a full copy of your database (which I don't want).

If the new site and API is not released in a near future, maybe it would be better to update the current API to add the serie_id on each episode received from the Update.php. In that way, we could minimize further calls to your api and make the step 4 of your "Future Database Processing" usable in that case (http://www.thetvdb.com/wiki/index.php/Programmers_API).

Thank you in advance for your answer,

Kind regards,

+1

Any word on the new API?

Hi!

I got all the data for the shows I needed imported into my database, but now I am trying to figure out a way to regularly check if episodes/seasons have been added...
I can't quite figure out how to do so...
The update link seems to be giving a weird result with only episodes numbers.. Is there anyway to get the episodes id for a given show that have been added since a certain date?

Also what is the format of the date required in the uri http://www.thetvdb.com/api/Updates.php? ... ries&time= ?

thanks a lot