README.md

Open Civic Data API Python Wrapper

This module provides the opencivicdata.package module, a set of bindings to work with the Open Civic Data API.

Quickstart

Most users will want to use the pre-configured Sunlight OCD API client, which reads your Sunlight API key from the same location as python-sunlight does.

Just set either the SUNLIGHT_API_KEY envvar, or write out your key to ~/.sunlight.key.

from opencivicdata.api import SunlightOCDAPI
api = SunlightOCDAPI()
for person in api.people_by_lat_lon(42.35, -71.06):
    print(person)

Available Clients

There are 3 built-in clients to the Open Civic Data API bindings, one without any built-in configuration (the opencivicdata.api.OCDAPI class) as a general use client, one for the Open Civic Data Vagrant deploy client (the opencivicdata.api.client.VagrantOCDAPI class), and one for the Sunlight Open Civic Data API (the opencivicdata.api.SunlightOCDAPI class)

OCDAPI

This client takes two arguments, host and apikey. If the API doesn't require an API Key, feel free to not pass in apikey.

# To test the API server running locally
from opencivicdata.api import OCDAPI
api = OCDAPI(host="http://localhost:8000")

VagrantOCDAPI

This client takes only one optional argument, apikey, with a hardcoded host pointing to http://10.42.2.102, the Vagrant API host as seen in the vagrant-opencivicdata.org config.

SunlightOCDAPI

This client takes a single optional argument, apikey, with a hardcoded host pointing to https://api.opencivicdata.org.

Internally, this will use SUNLIGHT_API_KEY, if set, as the API Key. If no such environment variable is set, it will use the content of ~/.sunlight.key as the API key.

If an API key is passed in to apikey, this will override all of the above.

Quick Start

Basic Usage

Register for a Sunlight API Key, and put the API key in a file at ~/.sunlight.key, or export it into the env as SUNLIGHT_API_KEY.

Iterate over a page of people

from opencivicdata.api import SunlightOCDAPI
api = SunlightOCDAPI()
for person in api.people():
    print(person['name'])

Iterate over all people

from opencivicdata.api import SunlightOCDAPI
api = SunlightOCDAPI()
people = api.people()
while people.has_next():
    for person in people:
        print(person['name'])
    people = people.next()

Query people by lat/lon

from opencivicdata.api import SunlightOCDAPI
api = SunlightOCDAPI()
for person in api.people_by_lat_lon(42.35, -71.06):
    print(person)