KP Astrology REST API

In today’s post I want to share my experience in implementing a set of REST API calls for Astrology. The series on iLangGen will resume after this.

Online Astrologer in India

As readers of this column probably know, I am the author of an Astrology software called KPAstro. You can read about it here. First released in the year 2004, KPAstro has been widely accepted by KP (Krishnamurti Padhdhati) astrologers all over the world, thanks to its rich set of features and accurate calculations. The product currently runs on Windows platforms. Interestingly, over the past year I have received several emails (and some calls) from software developers asking me to expose the core functionality as API so that they can use the service to build apps for multiple devices. In fact, last week a developer from Kerala called me and spoke at length as to why building the API is a great idea. It was then that I thought I should take this suggestion seriously.

I started developing KPAstro in 2003 soon after I completed a course on KP system in Chennai. At that time, there was just one popular DOS-based software for KP system, and so I thought I should develop one for Windows. Over the past thirteen years, I have been gradually adding features based on my own evolution (as an astrology enthusiast) and the feedback from users of the software. The code is 100% C++ (Visual Studio) and uses third-party libararies for GUI, etc.

In order to get started, I spent a few days last week reviewing the existing functionality and decided on a core set of features (even this will be implemented in stages) to expose via REST. In terms of the compiler/tool to use, I chose Embarcadero RAD Studio C++ Builder 10.2.1 Tokyo for this exercise. I could have chosen VS 2015/2017 too (in fact, I might switch to that later).

Rahu Mahadasha Career

It was quite straightforward to take the sources and rebuild for this new project. The following screens show the initial steps in RAD Studio project creation.