How to extract a random post from a random subreddit? (Reddit API)

Question

I'm trying to extract a random posting from a `random` `subreddit` in one api call, and I can't figure out how. Is this possible, and if not, how would I accomplish this with multiple api calls and minimum overhead? The following request returns a random `subreddit`. ``` http://www.reddit.com/r/random.json ``` Contrary to what one might expect from the `json` extension, the data returned from the call is a complete webpage with markup, which is not what I want. The same request with an actual `subreddit` is shown below. ``` http://www.reddit.com/r/apple.json ``` This request yields the apple `subreddit` in `json` format. In order to retrieve 5 postings from the apple `subreddit` the following api call can be made. ``` http://www.reddit.com/r/apple/comments.json?limit=5 ``` I figured I could apply the above api call to the `random` url - as shown below. ``` http://www.reddit.com/r/random/comments.json?limit=5 ``` This works as expected, yet the result is not in `json` format. It is a c…

Accepted Answer

Update

In the time since my original response, /r/random has been updated to preserve extensions, so you can also now avoid having to manually process the `Location` header:

```
$ curl http://www.reddit.com/r/random.json
{
"data": {
    "after": "t3_1ubf3e", 
...
```

Original response

http://www.reddit.com/r/random results in a redirect to a random subreddit, but does not preserve extensions. At this time, the best way to achieve your goal would be to examine the response for the `Location:` header, and then perform a request to the JSON endpoint for that subreddit.

For example, using curl:

```
$ curl --include http://www.reddit.com/r/random
HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily
Location: http://www.reddit.com/r/cocktails/
...
```

reddit says you should checkout the "cocktails" subreddit, so request the JSON data for that subreddit:

```
$ curl http://www.reddit.com/r/cocktails/.json
{
"data": {
    "after": "t3_1ubf3e", 
...
```

How to extract a random post from a random subreddit? (Reddit API)

Solution

Problem