Quality Control Types

Returns details about a quality control (data attribute) flag

Request Format

https://api.synopticdata.com/v2/qctypes

Returns a list of the available data checks provided by both Synoptic Data and our third party providers. For an in-depth & technical description of the Synoptic Data data checks, you can read here. This service also provides some information from third party vendors. You can also explore currently available data checks here.

Acquiring data from this web service requires certain parameters. When encoding URLs, all parameters are separated using the ampersand (&) character and their value is indicated by an equal sign (=). Below is a list of accepted parameters.

• token (required), Your application’s API token. This is used to identify who is requesting API data. You are never required to use multiple tokens, but you can use as many as you need. Learn more in our tokens overview.

Optional Parameters

• shortname, Requests a data check by its short name. This is used to target a particular test. Example: shortname=sl_range_check

• id, An internal Synoptic ID number for a test or test. Example: id=1,2,3

The following example returns basic information about the Synoptic Range Check.

https://api.synopticdata.com/v2/qctypes?token=YOUR_TOKEN_HERE&shortname=sl_range_check

Response Format Parameters

• output (json [default], xml), Indicates the response format of the request. It’s recommended to use the JSON format which there are well supported parsing libraries in all major languages.

Request Response

JSON Format

The QC Types service will return its results in a single organized and self describing JSON object. At a minimum, every request will return a JSON object with a "SUMMARY" field.

An example JSON response would be:

{
  QCTYPES: [
    {
      SOURCE_ID: "1",
      SHORTNAME: "sl_range_check",
      ID: "1",
      NAME: "SynopticLabs Range Check"
    }
  ],
  SUMMARY: {
    DATA_PARSING_TIME: "0.0250339508057 ms",
    VERSION: "v2.21.0",
    TOTAL_DATA_TIME: "20.8718776703 ms",
    NUMBER_OF_OBJECTS: 1,
    RESPONSE_CODE: 1,
    RESPONSE_MESSAGE: "OK",
    METADATA_RESPONSE_TIME: "0.0208418369293 ms"
  }
}

• SUMMARY{}

  • NUMBER_OF_OBJECTS, (always returned) is a integer value of the number of stations returned.

  • RESPONSE_CODE, (always returned) is a numerical code indicating the status of the request.

    • “1” = “OK”

    • “2” = “Zero Results”

    • “200” = “Authentication failure”

    • “400” = “Violates a rule of the API”

  • RESPONSE_MESSAGE, (always returned) is a string explaining the RESPONSE_CODE.

• QCTYPES[]

  • SOURCE_ID, provider’s ID number. See table below.

  • SHORTNAME, short name description of data check.

  • ID, data check ID. This is the ID used in reporting data attributes.

  • NAME, formal name of data check.

Provider IDs