SunLightLabs API

people.convertId

Convert between one ID and another, e.g. given an input VoteSmart ID, return the equivalent GovTrack ID

These are the different ID types available:

Name	Description
entity_id	The common ID being promoted by the SunlightLabs
CRPcandID	The Center For Responsive Politics' candidate ID
WashPost_ID	Washington Post's ID for this person
VoteSmart_ID	Project Vote Smart's Id for this person
FEC_ID	Federal Electoral Commission's ID for this person
BioGuide_ID	BioGuide's ID for this person
Eventful_ID	Eventful's ID for this person

Arguments

These are all $_GET parameters.

id (required)

An ID of any of the types above. (This is the actual ID not its type.)

fromcode (required)

one of the codes above specifiying what type of input ID this is

tocode (required)

one of the codes above specifiying what type of output ID is desired

apikey (required)

your individual API key

metadata (optional)

&metadata=true provides detail about source, last update of the information etc. Click here for details

output (optional)

&output=json is set by default. You can also use &output=xml

Example Call

http://api.sunlightlabs.com/people.convertId.php?id=N00004643&fromcode=CRPcandID&
tocode=GovTrack_ID&apikey=23kj234kjb3kjbcl87ds

says take the ID "N00004643" which is of type "CRPcandID" and convert it to a "GovTrack_ID".

Example Response

The output is a JSON string with the original ID and the result ID:

{ "CRPcandID": "N00004643", "GovTrack_ID": "300005"}

For XML:

<results>
  <CRPcandID>N00004643</CRPcandID>
  <GovTrack_ID>300005</GovTrack_ID>
</results>

Error Codes

If there is an error: a plain text string will be returned:

0: no data

No data found for that entity for that output type

1: entity not found

This could be because the ID is not of type 'fromcode' or it may be that that person is not in the 110th Congress

100: invalid API key

The API key was invalid

101: API key not valid for this method

Not permitted to call this particular method with this particular API key

200: invalid input code

Unrecognized fromcode

300: invalid output code

Unrecognized tocode