The Pololu API is a way for Pololu distributors and other interested customers to download information about our products, in JSON, CSV, or YAML format. For the most part, it mirrors information that is already available on our website, but in a format that is easy to read into a computer program. As an example, click here to view the API data for the 3pi+ 2040 robot. It looks basically like this:
{
"links": {
"self": "https://www.pololu.com/api/v2/product/5001.json"
},
"data": {
"type": "product",
"id": "5001",
"attributes": {
"name": "3pi+ 2040 Robot - Standard Edition (30:1 MP Motors), Assembled",
"on_website_date": "2023-05-24",
"unavailable_notes": "",
"on_sale_through": null,
"stock_available": 15,
"non_stock": false,
"maximum_order": 315,
"modification_time": "2023-05-24T16:02:06.000-07:00",
"status": "Active and Preferred",
"rohs3_compliant": "yes",
"weight_ounces": "5.4",
"size_1_inches": "4.6",
"size_2_inches": "4.2",
"size_3_inches": "2.2",
"free_shipping_usa": true,
"free_add_on_shipping_usa": false,
"suggested_schedule_b_code": "8542.31.0000",
"suggested_hs_code": "854231",
"short_description": "<p>The Pololu 3pi+ 2040 robot is a palm-sized, high-performance mobile platform based on the Raspberry Pi RP2040 MCU...",
"web_page": "<h2>Overview</h2>\n<p>The 3pi+ 2040 is a versatile, high-performance, user-programmable robot that measures just 9.7 cm (3.8″)...",
"url": "https://www.pololu.com/product/5001",
"bar_codes": [
{
"bar_code": "!a\"X9",
"start_selling_year": null,
"stop_selling_year": null
}
],
"prices": [
{
"quantity": 1,
"regular_price": 159.95
},
{
"quantity": 5,
"regular_price": 147.15
}
]
},
"relationships": {
"main_picture": {
"data": {
"type": "picture",
"id": "0J12003"
}
}
}
},
"included": [{
{
"links": {
"self": "https://www.pololu.com/api/v2/picture/0J12003.json"
},
"type": "picture",
"id": "0J12003",
"attributes": {
"url": "https://a.pololu-files.com/picture/0J12003.1200.jpg?afe1131c6d71cc10bc34d0244f259d84",
"caption": "3pi+ 2040 Robot.",
"has_watermark": false
}
},
{
"links": {
"self": "https://www.pololu.com/api/v2/specification/0J25188.json"
},
"type": "specification",
"id": "0J25188",
"attributes": {
"parameter_name": "processor",
"text_value": "RP2040 @ 125 MHz",
"footnote": ""
}
}
}]
}The Pololu API follows the JSON API specification, a general-purpose specification for "hypermedia"-style APIs returning JSON data over HTTP. Most importanly, this means that the data includes links to other API requests, so you can explore the data without constantly consulting the API documentation.
The Pololu API is intended for importing large amounts of data into your own database. Typical uses might be:
- Downloading our entire product catalog as a starting point for your own.
- Doing a daily check of all of our products for changes.
- Downloading stock information hourly to update availability information for your own customers.
It should be okay to send a series of several queries as quickly as the server can respond to them, but the API is not fast or reliable enough for real-time use on a live website, so you should be running these queries and updates as background tasks. Also, security restrictions make it impossible for web pages to query the API directly with Javascript, but see the demos folder for a way to get around this for testing purposes.
While we make an effort to ensure that the API data is accurate, there is a possibility for bugs or human error to introduce mistakes. If you rely on the data being correct, you are doing so at your own risk. We recommend checking all data returned by the API before using it in your own system.
API data may be copyrighted by Pololu and/or other parties. When we grant you access to the API, that does not imply any permission or license to distribute copyrighted content.
To get access to the API, please email us a request. We will set you up with an API key, which is a long hexadecimal number displayed on your account page. Visiting any API URL requires you to authenticate with the API key as your user name and a blank password.
Do not share your API key with anyone outside of your team. Future updates to the API may give you the ability to place orders or make other requests using your API key, so it is important to keep it private. If you would like to reset or cancel your key, please let us know.
You can try it out by loading the URL for the 3pi+:
https://www.pololu.com/api/v2/product/5001.json
Username: Your API key.
Password: Blank.
We support three different data formats:
- JSON: https://www.pololu.com/api/v2/product/5001.json
- YAML: https://www.pololu.com/api/v2/product/5001.yaml
- CSV: https://www.pololu.com/api/v2/product/5001.csv
JSON is the standard for JSON API and probably
the best choice for anyone using our API within their own custom
software. One potential point of confusion is that special HTML
characters in JSON strings are encoded with unicode escape sequences,
so you will see \u003cblockquote\u003e instead of <blockquote>.
While this is not required, it is a standard security precaution to
reduce the risk of cross-site scripting attacks. Use a standard JSON
parsing library, which is available in just about
any language,
and strings will be converted automatically to Unicode HTML.
YAML is a human-readable data exchange format. For additional readability, we encode strings within YAML using format=flowed. We do not recommend this format for automatic processing, but it might be useful for debugging or for tracking changes with text-based diffs.
CSV is a very limited data format provided for use with spreadsheets. Long strings containing newlines (like web pages) are particularly difficult to handle with CSV and in typical spreadsheet software, so we recommend limiting the fields if you need to use CSV (see "Sparse fieldsets", below).
Note: Some versions of Microsoft Excel are only capable of
handling multi-line fields in a CSV if you save the data as a .csv
file and open it by double-clicking. Doing a "text import" from
within Excel will cause data corruption.
Some requests return long lists of entries; these lists are paginated to reduce load on the servers and make it possible for you to get a result for each request in a reasonable amount of time.
Pagination is described
in the JSON API documentation;
basically, you use the next link provided in each result to go to
the next page. Using sparse fieldsets, as described in the next
section, will sometimes allow you to load more records on each page.
The Pololu API uses the optional numerical arguments page[limit] and
page[offset] to specify the number of items per page and the initial
offset.
In many applications you will only be interested in a few of the fields we have available, so downloading the entire API result is a waste of time. "Sparse fieldsets" is a feature of JSON API that lets you simplify your results, restricting them to just the fields you want. For example, this query fetches the pricing, name, and main picture of the 3pi:
https://www.pololu.com/api/v2/product/5001.yaml?fields[product]=name,prices,main_picture
You can also read the JSON API documentation for for information on sparse fieldsets.
You can limit your result set by adding a filter parameter, which is
a comma-separated list of record IDs to return. For example, this
query returns the stock of our A-Star Mini boards:
Please make sure to read the description of each field that you are planning to use in the pages below:
The current version of the API is v2; this is indicated by the "v2" in the request URLs. We may add features and fix bugs without changing the version number, but if we need to make changes that we expect to break existing code, we will make those changes under a new version number at a new URL, so that the old URLs can continue to work.
- 2016 Apr 21: Added export codes; fixed incorrect type of related products.
- 2016 Mar 11: Pololu API v2 released.