Python Diffbot API Client

Preface

Identify and extract the important parts of any web page in Python! This client currently supports calls to Diffbot's Automatic APIs and Crawlbot.

Installation To install activate a new virtual environment and run the following command:

$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Configuration

To run the example, you must first configure a working API token in config.py:

$ cp config.py.example config.py; vim config.py;

Then replace the string "SOME_TOKEN" with your API token. Finally, to run the example:

$ python example.py

Usage

Article API

An example call to the Article API:

diffbot = DiffbotClient()
token = "SOME_TOKEN"
version = 2
url = "http://shichuan.github.io/javascript-patterns/"
api = "article"
response = diffbot.request(url, token, api, version=2)

Product API

An example call to the Product API:

diffbot = DiffbotClient()
token = "SOME_TOKEN"
version = 2
url = "http://www.overstock.com/Home-Garden/iRobot-650-Roomba-Vacuuming-Robot/7886009/product.html"
api = "product"
response = diffbot.request(url, token, api, version=version)

Image API

An example call to the Image API:

diffbot = DiffbotClient()
token = "SOME_TOKEN"
version = 2
url = "http://www.google.com/"
api = "image"
response = diffbot.request(url, token, api, version=version)

Analyze API

An example call to the Analyze API:

diffbot = DiffbotClient()
token = "SOME_TOKEN"
version = 2
url = "http://www.twitter.com/"
api = "analyze"
response = diffbot.request(url, token, api, version=version)

Crawlbot API

To start a new crawl, specify a crawl name, seed URLs, and the API via which URLs should be processed. An example call to the Crawlbot API:

token = "SOME_TOKEN"
name = "sampleCrawlName"
seeds = "http://www.twitter.com/"
api = "analyze"
sampleCrawl = DiffbotCrawl(token,name,seeds=seeds,api=api)

Omit "seeds" and "api" to load an existing crawl, or create a crawl as a placeholder.

To check the status of a crawl:

sampleCrawl.status()

To update a crawl:

maxToCrawl = 100
upp = "diffbot"
sampleCrawl.update(maxToCrawl=maxToCrawl,urlProcessPattern=upp)

To delete or restart a crawl:

sampleCrawl.delete()
sampleCrawl.restart()

To download crawl data:

sampleCrawl.download() # returns JSON by default
sampleCrawl.download(data_format="csv")

To pass additional arguments to a crawl:

sampleCrawl = DiffbotCrawl(token,name,seeds,apiUrl,maxToCrawl=100,maxToProcess=50,notifyEmail="support@diffbot.com")

Testing

First install the test requirements with the following command:

$ pip install -r test_requirements.txt

Currently there are some simple unit tests that mock the API calls and return data from fixtures in the filesystem. From the project directory, simply run:

$ nosetests