Live Departure Board Service (ldbs-json)

This is a node module that will interface to the National Rail Enquiries Live Departure Boards Service which powers the Live Departure Boards and the Live Departure Boards Staff Service which powers the Staff Version of the Live Departure Boards. More details can be found here:

• user service OpenLDBWS
• staff service OpenLDBSVWS

It is designed to deliver the XML data returned by both API's in JSON format.

Using the module

The first step is to install the module into your node project

• npm install -s ldbs-json

Then to test just do the following

const useStaffVersion = false;
const LiveDepartureBoardService = require('ldbs-json');
const token = "0000-0000-0000-0000"; // put a valid token here

// Set up the options for the call
const options = {
  numRows: 2,
  crs:"KGX",
};

// Now do the required query
// note that if in an async function you can use await rather that .then
const api = new LiveDepartureBoardService(token, useStaffVersion);
api.call("GetDepBoardWithDetails", options).then(board => {
  console.log(board);
});

There are 3 examples ( two STAFF versions and one USER version that can be found in the included examples directory of the project). The additional staff version is to access the Reference Data Enpoint calls (this example uses GetStationList).

This module is a continuation from my other module https://www.npmjs.com/package/ldbws-json which was only for use with the USER version of the OpenLDBWS web service.

Updates May 2020

This update has replaced the user of the request module and it now uses node-fetch. Some simple error checks on the return status of the API are now made and the examples have also been updated.

New Options for the api.call() method (Dec 2019)

The API will still work as it did but there are 2 new (optional) flags that can be past in when making an API call. The call now :

• api.call(method, options, useRef, withAttributes)

The parameters method and options are the same as they were but there are 2 new options useRef and withAttributes (both default to false so have no impact if not specified).

• useRef can be set to true so that a Staff API call can access the Reference Data Endpoint
• withAttributes can be set to true to stop the attributes being stripped from the result. NB: setting this to true will change the JSON data structure returned.

Acknowledgements

• The LDBS-JSON module is powered by National Rail Enquiries.