Python code like curl

Question

in curl i do this:

curl -u email:password http://api.foursquare.com/v1/venue.json?vid=2393749

How i can do this same thing in python?

Answer 1

Use pycurl

• http://pycurl.sourceforge.net/

There is a discussion on SO for tutorials

• http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1997066/what-good-tutorials-exist-for-learning-pycurl

A typical example:

import sys
import pycurl

class ContentCallback:
        def __init__(self):
                self.contents = ''

        def content_callback(self, buf):
                self.contents = self.contents + buf

t = ContentCallback()
curlObj = pycurl.Curl()
curlObj.setopt(curlObj.URL, 'http://www.google.com')
curlObj.setopt(curlObj.WRITEFUNCTION, t.content_callback)
curlObj.perform()
curlObj.close()
print t.contents

Answer 2

Here's the equivalent in pycurl:

import pycurl
from StringIO import StringIO

response_buffer = StringIO()
curl = pycurl.Curl()

curl.setopt(curl.URL, "http://api.foursquare.com/v1/venue.json?vid=2393749")

curl.setopt(curl.USERPWD, '%s:%s' % ('youruser', 'yourpassword'))

curl.setopt(curl.WRITEFUNCTION, response_buffer.write)

curl.perform()
curl.close()

response_value = response_buffer.getvalue()

Answer 3

I'm more comfortable running the command line curl through subprocess. This avoids all of the potential version matching headaches of python, pycurl, and libcurl. The observation that pycurl hasn't been touched in 2 years, and is only listed as suppported through Python 2.5, made me wary. -- John

   import subprocess

   def curl(*args):
        curl_path = '/usr/bin/curl'
        curl_list = [curl_path]
        for arg in args:
            curl_list.append(arg)
        curl_result = subprocess.Popen(
                     curl_list,
                     stderr=subprocess.PIPE,
                     stdout=subprocess.PIPE).communicate()[0]
        return curl_result

    answer = curl('-u', 'email:password', 'http://api.foursquare.com/v1/venue.json?vid=2393749')