{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,4,13]],"date-time":"2026-04-13T12:59:06Z","timestamp":1776085146276,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":15,"publisher":"Association for Computing Machinery (ACM)","issue":"12","content-domain":{"domain":["dl.acm.org"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Proc. VLDB Endow."],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,8]]},"abstract":"<jats:p>\n            Collecting structured data from Web APIs, such as the Twitter API, Yelp Fusion API, Spotify API, and DBLP API, is a common task in the data science lifecycle, but it requires advanced programming skills for data scientists. To simplify web data collection and lower the barrier to entry, API wrappers have been developed to wrap API calls into easy-to-use functions. However, existing API wrappers are not standardized, which means that users must download and maintain multiple API wrappers and learn how to use each of them, while developers must spend considerable time creating an API wrapper for any new website. In this demo, we present the Web Connector, which unifies API wrappers to overcome these limitations. First, the Web Connector has an easy-to-use program-ming interface, designed to provide a user experience similar to that of reading data from relational databases. Second, the Web Connector's novel system architecture requires minimal effort to fetch data for end-users with an existing API description file. Third, the Web Connector includes a semi-automatic API description file generator that leverages the concept of\n            <jats:italic toggle=\"yes\">generation by example<\/jats:italic>\n            to create new API wrappers without writing code.\n          <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.14778\/3611540.3611616","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,15]],"date-time":"2023-09-15T11:32:37Z","timestamp":1694777557000},"page":"4042-4045","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1145\/crossmark-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":1,"title":["Web Connector: A Unified API Wrapper to Simplify Web Data Collection"],"prefix":"10.14778","volume":"16","author":[{"given":"Weiyuan","family":"Wu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Simon Fraser University"}]},{"given":"Pei","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Simon Fraser University"}]},{"given":"Yi","family":"Xie","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Simon Fraser University"}]},{"given":"Yejia","family":"Liu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Simon Fraser University"}]},{"given":"George","family":"Chow","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Simon Fraser University"}]},{"given":"Jiannan","family":"Wang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Simon Fraser University"}]}],"member":"320","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,8]]},"reference":[{"key":"e_1_2_1_1_1","volume-title":"Retrieved","year":"2023","unstructured":"2023. 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Retrieved","year":"2023","unstructured":"2023. public-apis. Retrieved March 16, 2023 from https:\/\/github.com\/public-apis\/public-apis"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_8_1","volume-title":"Retrieved","year":"2023","unstructured":"2023. Tableau Web Data Connector. Retrieved March 16, 2023 from https:\/\/help.tableau.com\/current\/pro\/desktop\/en-us\/examples_web_data_connector.htm"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_9_1","unstructured":"2023. Tweepy. Retrieved March 16 2023 from https:\/\/www.tweepy.org\/"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_10_1","volume-title":"Retrieved","year":"2023","unstructured":"2023. Web Connector Survey. Retrieved March 16, 2023 from https:\/\/github.com\/sfu-db\/WebConnectorSurvey"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_11_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3313831.3376691"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_12_1","unstructured":"Katrin Braunschweig Julian Eberius Maik Thiele and Wolfgang Lehner. 2012. The State of Open Data Limits of Current Open Data Platforms."},{"key":"e_1_2_1_13_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.csi.2022.103657"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_14_1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/2094114.2094120"},{"key":"e_1_2_1_15_1","volume-title":"Advanced API Security","author":"Siriwardena Prabath","unstructured":"Prabath Siriwardena. 2020. OAuth 2.0 Security. In Advanced API Security. Springer, 287--304."}],"container-title":["Proceedings of the VLDB Endowment"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/pdf\/10.14778\/3611540.3611616","content-type":"unspecified","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2025,9,10]],"date-time":"2025-09-10T22:35:18Z","timestamp":1757543718000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/dl.acm.org\/doi\/10.14778\/3611540.3611616"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,8]]},"references-count":15,"journal-issue":{"issue":"12","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,8]]}},"alternative-id":["10.14778\/3611540.3611616"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.14778\/3611540.3611616","relation":{},"ISSN":["2150-8097"],"issn-type":[{"value":"2150-8097","type":"print"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2023,8]]},"assertion":[{"value":"2023-08-01","order":3,"name":"published","label":"Published","group":{"name":"publication_history","label":"Publication History"}}]}}