sunlightlabs / python-capitolwords
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Description: python client library for interacting with Capitol Words API
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Clone URL: git://github.com/sunlightlabs/python-capitolwords.git
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file LICENSE Mon Dec 15 08:19:15 -0800 2008 first commit, non-direct import from python-usp... [jamesturk]
file MANIFEST.in Mon Dec 15 08:19:15 -0800 2008 first commit, non-direct import from python-usp... [jamesturk]
file README.rst Tue Oct 06 12:26:08 -0700 2009 updated some test data [jamesturk]
file capitolwords.py Fri Jan 30 11:42:59 -0800 2009 bumping docs up to 0.3.0 [jamesturk]
file setup.py Fri Jan 30 11:42:59 -0800 2009 bumping docs up to 0.3.0 [jamesturk]
file test_capitolwords.py Mon Dec 15 14:21:34 -0800 2008 updated documentation, uploaded to pypi [jamesturk]
README.rst

python-capitolwords

Python library for interacting with Capitol Words API.

Capitol Words provides access to the most commonly used words in Congressional Record each day. (http://www.capitolwords.org/api/)

python-capitolwords is a project of Sunlight Labs (c) 2009 Written by James Turk <jturk@sunlightfoundation.com>.

All code is under a BSD-style license, see LICENSE for details.

Homepage: http://pypi.python.org/pypi/python-capitolwords/

Source: http://github.com/sunlightlabs/python-capitolwords/

Requirements

python >= 2.4

simplejson >= 1.8 (not required with python 2.6, will use built in json module)

Installation

To install run

python setup.py install

which will install the bindings into python's site-packages directory.

Usage

All that is required to start using the API is for it to be imported, no API key is required for Capitol Words.

Import capitolwords:

>>> import capitolwords
All Capitol Words API methods return a WordResult object with three attributes:
  • word - a word in question
  • word_date - a particular date [not available for lawmaker]
  • word_count - the number of times word was said

dailysum

dailysum(word, year, month=None, day=None, endyear=None, endmonth=None, endday=None)

dailysum returns a list of records given a word and a series of days.

Using dailysum to find out how many times 'transparency' was said on May 22nd 2008:

>>> wr = capitolwords.dailysum('transparency', 2008, 5, 22)[0]
>>> print wr.word_count
47

Using dailysum to find out how many times 'transparency' was said in May 2008:

>>> for wr in capitolwords.dailysum('transparency', 2008, 5):
...     print wr.word_date, wr.word_count
2008-05-23 3
2008-05-22 47
2008-05-21 13
2008-05-20 18
2008-05-19 25
2008-05-15 22
2008-05-14 22
2008-05-13 17
2008-05-12 10
2008-05-08 8
2008-05-07 11
2008-05-06 6
2008-05-05 1
2008-05-02 1
2008-05-01 11

Using dailysum to find out how many times 'transparency' was said for all days in a given range of days:

>>> for wr in capitolwords.dailysum('transparency', 2008, 4, 3, 2008, 4, 10):
...     print wr.word_date, wr.word_count
2008-04-10 7
2008-04-09 8
2008-04-08 5
2008-04-07 4
2008-04-03 8

wordofday

dailysum(year=None, month=None, day=None, endyear=None, endmonth=None, endday=None, maxrows=1)

wordofday returns a list of records representing the most commonly used words for given dates.

Using wordofday to get the top 5 words for April 3rd, 2008:

>>> for w in capitolwords.wordofday(2008, 4, 3, maxrows=5):
...     print w.word, w.word_count
sergeant 1707
housing 1382
director 976
corporal 899
mortgage 867

Using wordofday to get the top words for every day in May 2008:

>>> for w in capitolwords.wordofday(2008, 5):
...     print w.word, w.word_count, w.word_date
conrad 3 2008-05-29
recess 3 2008-05-27
name 146 2008-05-23
defense 2411 2008-05-22
tax 1110 2008-05-21
assistance 1005 2008-05-20
assistance 645 2008-05-19
food 40 2008-05-16
iraq 586 2008-05-15
budget 756 2008-05-14
assistance 1402 2008-05-13
oil 546 2008-05-12
housing 1417 2008-05-08
insurance 591 2008-05-07
insurance 631 2008-05-06
day 95 2008-05-05
housing 82 2008-05-02
health 879 2008-05-01

Using wordofday to get the word of day across a given range:

>>> for w in capitolwords.wordofday(2008, 4, 3, 2008, 4, 10):
...     print w.word, w.word_count, w.word_date
energy 589 2008-04-10
health 380 2008-04-09
energy 264 2008-04-08
housing 540 2008-04-07
energy 244 2008-04-04
sergeant 1707 2008-04-03

lawmaker

lawmaker(lawmaker_id, year=None, month=None, day=None, endyear=None, endmonth=None, endday=None, maxrows=1)

lawmaker returns a list of records representing a lawmakers most said words

lawmakers are referenced by their Bioguide ID. Bioguide IDs can be obtained from the Sunlight Labs API.

[Note: the word_date attribute of the records is not populated as it does not apply to this method]

Using lawmaker to get the words Mitch McConnell said the most on October 10th, 2008:

>>> for w in capitolwords.lawmaker('M000355', 2008, 12, 12, maxrows=5):
...     print w.word, w.word_count
dole 23
women 16
elizabeth 13
included 11
north 11

Using lawmaker to get the words Mitch McConnell said the most across a given range:

>>> for w in capitolwords.lawmaker('M000355', 2008, 4, 3, 2008, 4, 10, maxrows=5):
...     print w.word, w.word_count
lance 24
iraq 21
home 21
colombia 19
nominee 17