iterative macro only runs once

[plshelpits2023]

hello

I am downloading json data using an api call i have built in alteryx. In the API call, i have to declare page size, which i am setting to 500, to get 500 records. then i need to add page index. for page index, i have tried iteration engine, that is, to add 1 to the page index with every iteration. However, i get only 500 records.

[Felipe_Ribeir0]

Hi @plshelpits2023 

Iterative macros are a little tricky to configure, so if possible, i personally like to avoid them. This seems to be a case where you can avoid it.

1-I suppose that if you make one first call to the API, it will return the total number of pages inside of the response.

2-Knowing the total number of pages, you can use the Generate Rows tool to generate 1 only row of url/parameters for each API call, and then the download tool can deal iteratively with each one of them.

Hope this is useful, debug iterative macros is boring.

[plshelpits2023]

sorry, this api url does not show us total number of pages. we will do error check on response, if it errors out, then break out of iteration.

i can use the generate rows. the only check we will have is when items len is 0 that means no more data on remaining pages.

[plshelpits2023]

see below. If i put 100 pageindex, it will keep checking each page to see if any data exists.

How can i break out of this loop when index 4, no more data exists?

[plshelpits2023]

any help will be appreciated

[Felipe_Ribeir0]

Hi @plshelpits2023 

This problem is solved inside of this macro, and i believe that you can adapt the idea to your case: https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Community-Gallery/SurveyGizmo-Alchemer-API-GET-survey-data/ta-p/999...

Basically, there is a filter that see if the JSON response contains a specific value (for this case, "data."). If it do not, then we know that the macro needs to stop, and the append tool will not let the next iteration happen.