2018.05.16

Query TMDB for movie and tv info on the commandline

Christopher Peterson Blog cli, code, Ruby

You know TMDB (The Movie DataBase)? It’s like IMDB, but without being awful.

tl;dr: I made a cli TMDB query tool in Ruby and here it is with documentation: https://github.com/decipher-media/tmdbget

As part of our podcast website migration from WordPress to Jekyll, I’m coding in a bunch of functionality that I’ve wanted for a while. The first one: a cli utility to fetch movie metadata into (semi-)structured data.

So here it is

https://github.com/decipher-media/tmdbget

Grab some API keys form TMDB and it’s easy-peasy to get some movie and tv metadata:

bundle exec tmdbget.rb --key [TMDB API KEY] 'the terminator'

1	bundle exec tmdbget.rb --key [TMDB API KEY] 'the terminator'

To get something like:

{
  "The Terminator": {
    "vote_count": 5259,
    "id": 218,
    "video": false,
    "vote_average": 7.4,
    "title": "The Terminator",
    "popularity": 21.31828,
    "poster_path": "/q8ffBuxQlYOHrvPniLgCbmKK4Lv.jpg",
    "original_language": "en",
    "original_title": "The Terminator",
    "genre_ids": [
      28,
      53,
      878
    ],
    "backdrop_path": "/6yFoLNQgFdVbA8TZMdfgVpszOla.jpg",
    "adult": false,
    "overview": "In the post-apocalyptic future, reigning tyrannical supercomputers teleport a cyborg assassin known as the \"Terminator\" back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, whose unborn son is destined to lead insurgents against 21st century mechanical hegemony. Meanwhile, the human-resistance movement dispatches a lone warrior to safeguard Sarah. Can he stop the virtually indestructible killing machine?",
    "release_date": "1984-10-26",
    "release_year": "1984"
  }
}

{

"The Terminator": {

"vote_count": 5259,

"id": 218,

"video": false,

"vote_average": 7.4,

"title": "The Terminator",

"popularity": 21.31828,

"poster_path": "/q8ffBuxQlYOHrvPniLgCbmKK4Lv.jpg",

"original_language": "en",

"original_title": "The Terminator",

"genre_ids": [

28,

53,

878

"backdrop_path": "/6yFoLNQgFdVbA8TZMdfgVpszOla.jpg",

"adult": false,

"overview": "In the post-apocalyptic future, reigning tyrannical supercomputers teleport a cyborg assassin known as the \"Terminator\" back to 1984 to kill Sarah Connor, whose unborn son is destined to lead insurgents against 21st century mechanical hegemony. Meanwhile, the human-resistance movement dispatches a lone warrior to safeguard Sarah. Can he stop the virtually indestructible killing machine?",

"release_date": "1984-10-26",

"release_year": "1984"

}

Check the help output for full and up-to-date functionality details, including a flag for interactive mode for when you’re less than confident that you’ll get the right answer. 🤓