Question

I am attempting to query the twitter search engine (search.twitter.com), convert the results into json, and then prepare the results as a csv for a research project. I am a python novice, but I have managed to code 2/3 of the program myself. However, I have a difficult time converting my json file into the csv format. I have tried various suggested techniques without success. What am I doing wrong here?

Here is what I have so far:

import twitter, os, json, csv

qname = raw_input("Please enter the term(s) you wish to search for: ")
date = int(raw_input("Please enter today's date (no dashes or spaces): "))
nname = raw_input("Please enter a nickname for this query (no spaces): ")
q1 = raw_input("Would you like to set a custom directory? Enter Yes or No: ")

if q1 == 'No' or 'no' or 'n' or 'N':
    dirname = 'C:\Users\isaac\Desktop\TPOP'

elif q1 == 'Yes' or 'yes' or 'y' or 'Y':
    dirname = raw_input("Please enter the directory path:")

ready = raw_input("Are you ready to begin? Enter Yes or No: ")
while ready == 'Yes' or 'yes' or 'y' or 'Y':
    twitter_search = twitter.Twitter(domain = "search.Twitter.com")
search_results = []
for page in range (1,10):
    search_results.append(twitter_search.search(q=qname, rpp=1, page=page))
    ready1 = raw_input("Done! Are you ready to continue? Enter Yes or No: ")
    if ready1 == 'Yes' or 'yes' or 'y' or 'Y':
        break

ready3 = raw_input("Do you want to save output as a file? Enter Yes or No: ")
while ready3 == 'Yes' or 'yes' or 'y' or 'Y':
    os.chdir(dirname)
    filename = 'results.%s.%06d.json' %(nname,date)
    t = open (filename, 'wb+')
    s = json.dumps(search_results, sort_keys=True, indent=2)
    print >> t,s
    t.close()
    ready4 = raw_input("Done! Are you ready to continue? Enter Yes or No: ")
    if ready4 == 'Yes' or 'yes' or 'y' or 'Y':
        break

ready5 = raw_input("Do you want to save output as a csv/excel file? Enter Yes or No: ")
while ready5 == 'Yes' or 'yes' or 'y' or 'Y':
    filename2 = 'results.%s.%06d.csv' %(nname,date)
    z = json.dumps(search_results, sort_keys=True, indent=2)
    x=json.loads(z)

    json_string = z
    json_array = x

    columns = set()
    for entity in json_array:
        if entity == "created_at" or "from_user" or "from_user_id" or "from_user_name" or "geo" or "id" or "id_str" or "iso_language_code" or "text":
            columns.update(set(entity))

    writer = csv.writer(open(filename2, 'wb+'))
    writer.writerow(list(columns))
    for entity in json_array:
        row = []
        for c in columns:
            if c in entity: row.append(str(entity[c]))
            else: row.append('')

Answer 1

After some searching around, I found the answer here: http://michelleminkoff.com/2011/02/01/making-the-structured-usable-transform-json-into-a-csv/

The code should look something like this:(if you are search the twitter python api)

filename2 = '/path/to/my/file.csv'
writer = csv.writer(open(filename2, 'w'))
z = json.dumps(search_results, sort_keys=True, indent=2)
parsed_json=json.loads(z)
#X needs to be the number of page you pulled less one. So 5 pages would be 4.
while n<X:
 for tweet in parsed_json[n]['results']:
     row = []
     row.append(str(tweet['from_user'].encode('utf-8')))
     row.append(str(tweet['created_at'].encode('utf-8')))
     row.append(str(tweet['text'].encode('utf-8')))
     writer.writerow(row)
 n = n +1

Thanks Everyone for the help!