CALLBYMEANING.md

Call By Meaning Functionality

Basic Information

You can ask the server to run a function for you or give you the description and source code of a function by providing the desired inputs and outputs. To do that you must send a POST request to cbm/call with an object that contains the desired parameters in the body of the request. Note that in order to get a correct result, the relevant function in the database doesn't necessarily have to have exactly the same parameters. For example if it returns time in seconds and you ask for clock in hours it will automaticly do the conversion before sending you the result. The result will be in the expected format. If the requested function does not exist or a unit conversion can't be made, the server will send an appropriate message and a status code 418. What the server knows for each function is documented here.

params Object

The full format of the object that should be included in the request is below:

{
  'inputConcepts': ['concept1', 'concept2'[, ...]],
  'inputUnits': ['unit1', 'unit2'[, ...]],
  'inputVars': [var1, var2[, ...]],
  'outputConcepts': ['concept1', 'concept2'[, ...]],
  'outputUnits': ['unit1', 'unit2'[, ...]]
}

If any of the above isn't applicable, for example if you ask for a function with no inputs, it can be omitted.

Note that this must be in the body of the request.

Example

const request = require('request');
const uri = 'https://call-by-meaning.onrender.com/cbm/call';
let bday = new Date(1993, 2, 24);
let params = {
  'inputConcepts': 'date',
  'inputUnits': 'date',
  'inputVars': bday,
  'outputConcepts': 'star_sign',
  'outputUnits': 'word'
};
let req = request.post(uri, {form: params}, function (err, response, body) {
  console.log('I was born on 23rd of March and that makes me an %s!', body);
});
// yes, Date() in javascript is weird.