What the data for this category looks like
Special steel market data comes from daily market statistics released by the China Special Steel Enterprise Association, transaction data from domestic major special steel spot trading markets, and ex-factory price quotations published by key steel mills. Data aggregation for each trading day is completed within one hour after market close. Each single data entry includes the following fields: special steel grade, specification model, daily transaction average price, previous trading day average price, price change range, daily transaction volume, origin information, and data update timestamp. For field units: transaction average price uses yuan/ton, transaction volume uses tons, and price change range is presented as a percentage.
What Constraints These Characteristics Impose on HTTP Interfaces and External Systems
The multi-variety, multi-dimensional nature of special steel market data requires HTTP interfaces to support combined queries using multiple parameters such as grade, specification, and origin. Without this support, external systems cannot accurately pull target category data. The fixed daily update schedule requires interface polling intervals to align with the data update cycle. This prevents frequent calls that return empty data or duplicate content. Special steel data uses unified units of yuan/ton and tons. External systems must configure unit conversion rules in advance to avoid confusion with unit logic used for other steel categories. Additionally, the volume of data returned in a single batch is large. Interfaces must support pagination parameters to limit the number of entries returned per request. This prevents external systems from timing out due to data overload. Some special steel data sources only offer authorized interfaces. API keys must be configured for authentication to ensure compliant data access.
Configuration Settings
| Configuration Item | Recommended Value | Rationale |
|---|---|---|
external_api_poll_interval | 3600 seconds | Matches the fixed daily update schedule of special steel market data, avoids frequent calls returning duplicate or empty data |
external_api_filter_fields | ["special_steel_grade", "specification", "origin"] | Adapts to the demand for multi-dimensional category filtering of special steel, accurately pulls target special steel category data |
external_api_page_size | 50 entries | Controls the volume of data returned per interface call, prevents external systems from triggering timeouts due to data overload |
api_key_duration_limit | 7 days | Balances security and usability for non-commercial version API keys, limits the valid duration of the key |
external_api_auth_type | api_key | Adapts to the authentication rules of most special steel market data sources, enables compliant data access |
external_api_unit_parse | Enabled | Unifies the unit formats of yuan/ton and tons for special steel data, prevents unit parsing errors in external systems |
The parameter values provided on this page are common recommended starting points for configuration. Actual values are affected by material form, data volume, and business rules. Specific issues require individual analysis. It is recommended to test on your own samples before finalizing settings.
Three Common Mistakes
- Symptom: Interface calls return
403 Forbiddenerrors, or key expiration prompts. Cause: Valid duration and usage count limits for non-commercial version API keys are not configured. This leaves keys with long valid durations posing security risks, or excess calls are blocked. - Symptom: Interface returns empty data fields, or abnormal unit display. Cause: The
external_api_unit_parseconfiguration is not enabled. The unit formats of yuan/ton and tons for special steel data are not unified. This causes external systems to fail to correctly parse field content. - Symptom: Multiple interface calls return duplicate daily market data. Cause: Polling interval is set to less than 3600 seconds, which is earlier than the special steel data update time. This leads to repeated acquisition of unupdated old data.
How to Confirm the Configuration Is Complete
- Call the configured HTTP interface, pass preset filter parameters, check if the returned results include complete market information for the target special steel category.
- View interface call logs, confirm that the time interval of each request matches the configured value of
external_api_poll_interval, with no abnormally frequent call behavior. - Initiate calls using valid, expired, and invalid API keys respectively, verify that the authentication logic works normally and complies with the configured security rules.
- Connect to the parsing module of the external system, check if the received special steel data uses yuan/ton and tons as unit formats uniformly, with no parsing exceptions.
Question material comes from public community discussions. Configuration values are common starting points and should be measured against your own samples. Verified on 2026-09-14.