Constantly Check TwitchTV Viewer Count via REST API - php

Question

So basically what I want to do is to pull in the viewer count in real time for a stream that is currently live. I have a check to see if the stream is live or not. How do you go about pinging the API constantly to get the updated value so that I can send the updated value to the document in this case it would ultimately update a the $viewers variable that I've setup. If it makes a difference the application I'm making is using the CodeIgniter framework. Below is the code that I currently have to make the call. Right now I have to reload the page inorder to get the actual value and it's using cURL to make the API call.
class Streaming {
var $base_url = "https://api.twitch.tv/kraken/";
var $client_id = 'client_id_here';
public function load_stream_stats($channel) {
$curl = curl_init();
curl_setopt_array($curl, array( CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER => 1,
CURLOPT_URL => $this->base_url . 'streams/'. $channel .'?client_id=' . $this->client_id
)
);
$result = curl_exec($curl);
//makes sure that the cURL was excuted if not it generates the error stating that it didn't succeed.
if(!curl_exec($curl)){
die('Error: "' . curl_error($curl) . '" - Code: ' . curl_errno($curl));
} else {
//cURL Response worked
if(!empty($channel)) {
$return = json_decode($result);
if($return->stream == null) {
return;
// stream is offline no need to do anything
} else {
$stream_details = array('viewers' => $return->stream->viewers);
// $return->stream->viewers gives a number e.g. 1052
return $stream_details;
}
}
}
curl_close($curl);
}
}
The questioon in hand is how do I ping the TwitchtV API to get the updated viewer count from the REST API?

Answer 1

Working ajax is here. In the site_url/auto_update/broadcast/username I have a json value which contains the viewer count pulled from the API, so that I can auto update it. So encode the viewer count from the api and encode it into json then you can pull all the values.
<script type="text/javascript">
var viewers = <?= $viewers ?>;
var username = "<?= $username ?>";
var site_url = "<?= base_url() ?>";
var poll_interval = 3000;
</script>
<script type="text/javascript">
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#viewers').append(viewers);
setInterval(function(){
$.ajax({
url: site_url + "auto_update/broadcast/" + username,
type: "GET",
dataType: "json",
cache: false,
success: function(data) {
if (data == null) return;
var update_viewers = data['viewers'];
console.log(update_viewers);
$('#viewers').html(update_viewers);
}
});
}, poll_interval);
});
</script>
The AJAX calls the function that contains the newly updated viewer count, and then encodes it into json. I call this function every 3 seconds. If the client ID is appended then you don't get rate limited. Hope this helps someone out.
If you have any questions let me know and i'll try to help out the best I can!