Question

I’m just beginning to learn about python/django. I know PHP, but I wanted to get to know about this framework. I’m trying to work with yelp’s API. I’m trying to figure out what to do when someone brings in a new file into the project.

In their business.py they have this:

import json
import oauth2
import optparse
import urllib
import urllib2

parser = optparse.OptionParser()
parser.add_option('-c', '--consumer_key', dest='consumer_key', help='OAuth consumer key (REQUIRED)')
parser.add_option('-s', '--consumer_secret', dest='consumer_secret', help='OAuth consumer secret (REQUIRED)')
parser.add_option('-t', '--token', dest='token', help='OAuth token (REQUIRED)')
parser.add_option('-e', '--token_secret', dest='token_secret', help='OAuth token secret (REQUIRED)')
parser.add_option('-a', '--host', dest='host', help='Host', default='api.yelp.com')
parser.add_option('-i', '--id', dest='id', help='Business')
parser.add_option('-u', '--cc', dest='cc', help='Country code')
parser.add_option('-n', '--lang', dest='lang', help='Language code')


options, args = parser.parse_args()

# Required options
if not options.consumer_key:
  parser.error('--consumer_key required')
if not options.consumer_secret:
  parser.error('--consumer_secret required')
if not options.token:
  parser.error('--token required')
if not options.token_secret:
  parser.error('--token_secret required')

if not options.id:
  parser.error('--id required')

url_params = {}
if options.cc:
  url_params['cc'] = options.cc
if options.lang:
  url_params['lang'] = options.lang


path = '/v2/business/%s' % (options.id,)


def request(host, path, url_params, consumer_key, consumer_secret, token, token_secret):
  """Returns response for API request."""
  # Unsigned URL
  encoded_params = ''
  if url_params:
    encoded_params = urllib.urlencode(url_params)
  url = 'http://%s%s?%s' % (host, path, encoded_params)
  print 'URL: %s' % (url,)

  # Sign the URL
  consumer = oauth2.Consumer(consumer_key, consumer_secret)
  oauth_request = oauth2.Request('GET', url, {})
  oauth_request.update({'oauth_nonce': oauth2.generate_nonce(),
                        'oauth_timestamp': oauth2.generate_timestamp(),
                        'oauth_token': token,
                        'oauth_consumer_key': consumer_key})

  token = oauth2.Token(token, token_secret)
  oauth_request.sign_request(oauth2.SignatureMethod_HMAC_SHA1(), consumer, token)
  signed_url = oauth_request.to_url()
  print 'Signed URL: %s\n' % (signed_url,)

  # Connect
  try:
    conn = urllib2.urlopen(signed_url, None)
    try:
      response = json.loads(conn.read())
    finally:
      conn.close()
  except urllib2.HTTPError, error:
    response = json.loads(error.read())

  return response

response = request(options.host, path, url_params, options.consumer_key, options.consumer_secret, options.token, options.token_secret)
print json.dumps(response, sort_keys=True, indent=2)

Its very lengthy, I appologize for that. But my concern is what do I do with this? They’ve set up a def request() in here, and I’m assuming that I have to import this into my views?

I’ve been following the django documentation of creating a new app. In the documentation they’ve set up a bunch of def inside the views.py file. I’m just confused as to how am I supposed to make this work with my project? If I wanted to search for a business in the URL, how would it send the data out?

Thanks for your help.

Answer 1

This is a command line script that makes http requests to the yelp api. You probably don’t want to make such an external request within the context of a main request handler. Well, you could call a request handler that makes this call to yelp. Let’s see …

You could import the request function and instead of invoking it with command line options, call it yourself.

from yelp.business import request as yelp_req

def my_request_handler(request):
    json_from_yelp = yelp_req(...
    # do stuff and return a response

Making this kind of external call inside a request handler is pretty meh though (that is, making an http request to an external service within a request handler). If the call is in ajax, it may be ok for the ux.

This business.py is just an example showing you how to create a signed request with oauth2. You may be able to just import the request function and use it. OTOH, you may prefer to write your own (perhaps using the requests library). You probably want to use celery or some other async means to make the calls outside of your request handlers and/or cache the responses to avoid costly external http io with every request.