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https://github.com/dmarx/psaw

Python Pushshift.io API Wrapper (for comment/submission search)
https://github.com/dmarx/psaw

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Python Pushshift.io API Wrapper (for comment/submission search)

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README 

        
Python Pushshift.io API Wrapper (for comment/submission search)

===============================================================



**THIS REPOSITORY IS STALE** - Please consider using `PMAW `_ instead, as that tool is actively maintained



Detailed documentation for PSAW is available at: https://psaw.readthedocs.io/en/latest/



.. _installation:



Installation

------------



.. code-block:: bash



    pip install psaw



Description

-----------



A minimalist wrapper for searching public reddit comments/submissions via the pushshift.io API.



Pushshift is an extremely useful resource, but the API is poorly documented. As such, this API wrapper

is currently designed to make it easy to pass pretty much any search parameter the user wants to try.



Although it is not necessarily reflective of the current status of the API, you should

attempt to familiarize yourself with the Pushshift API documentation to better understand

what search arguments are likely to work.



* `API Documentation on github `_

* `Endpoints and parameter descriptions `_

* `/r/pushshift `_



Features

--------



* Handles rate limiting and exponential backoff subject to maximum retries and

  maximum backoff limits. A minimum rate limit of 1 request per second is used

  as a default per consultation with Pushshift's maintainer,

  `/u/Stuck_in_the_matrix `_.

* Handles paging of results. Returns all historical results for a given query by default.

* Optionally handles incorporation of ``praw`` to fetch objects after getting ids from pushshift

* If not using ``praw``, returns results in ``comment`` and ``submission`` objects whose

  API is similar to the corresponding ``praw`` objects. Additionally, result objects have

  an additional ``.d_`` attribute that offers dict access to the associated data attributes.

* Optionally adds a ``created`` attribute which converts a comment/submission's ``created_utc``

  timestamp to the user's local time. (may raise exceptions for users with certain timezone

  settings).

* Simple interface to pass query arguments to the API. The API is sparsely documented,

  so it's often fruitful to just try an argument and see if it works.

* A ``stop_condition`` argument to make it simple to stop yielding results given arbitrary user-defined criteria

* Commandline interface (CLI) for simplified usage outside of python environment.



WARNINGS

--------



* Using non-default sort may result in unexpected behavior.

* Default behavior is to continuously hit the pushshift api. If a query is taking

  longer than expected to return results, it's possible that psaw is pulling more data

  than you may want or is caught in some kind of loop.

* I strongly recommend prototyping queries by printing to stdout to ensure you're getting the

  desired behavior.



Demo usage (python)

-------------------



.. code-block:: python



    from psaw import PushshiftAPI



    api = PushshiftAPI()



Or to use pushshift search to fetch ids and then use praw to fetch objects:



.. code-block:: python



    import praw

    from psaw import PushshiftAPI



    r = praw.Reddit(...)

    api = PushshiftAPI(r)



100 most recent submissions

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



.. code-block:: python



    # The `search_comments` and `search_submissions` methods return generator objects

    gen = api.search_submissions(limit=100)

    results = list(gen)



First 10 submissions to /r/politics in 2017, filtering results to url/author/title/subreddit fields.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



The ``created_utc`` field will be added automatically (it's used for paging).



.. code-block:: python



    import datetime as dt



    start_epoch=int(dt.datetime(2017, 1, 1).timestamp())



    list(api.search_submissions(after=start_epoch,

                                subreddit='politics',

                                filter=['url','author', 'title', 'subreddit'],

                                limit=10))



Trying a search argument that doesn't actually work

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



According to the pushshift.io API documentation, we should be able to search submissions by url,

but (at the time of this writing) this doesn't actually work in practice.

The API should still respect the ``limit`` argument and possibly other supported arguments,

but no guarantees. If you find that an argument you have passed is not supported by the API,

best thing is to just remove it from the query and modify your api call to only utilize

supported arguments to mitigate risks from of unexpected behavior.



.. code-block:: python



    url = 'http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/mike-flynn-russia-ties-investigation-235272'

    url_results = list(api.search_submissions(url=url, limit=500))



    len(url_results), any(r.url == url for r in url_results)

    # 500, False



All AskReddit comments containing the text "OP"

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



Use the ``q`` parameter to search text. Omitting the ``limit`` parameter does a full

historical search. Requests are performed in batches of size specified by the

``max_results_per_request`` parameter (default=500). Omitting the "max_reponse_cache"

test in the demo below will return all results. Otherwise, this demo will perform two

API requests returning 500 comments each. Alternatively, the generator can be queried for additional results.



.. code-block:: python



    gen = api.search_comments(q='OP', subreddit='askreddit')



    max_response_cache = 1000

    cache = []



    for c in gen:

        cache.append(c)



        # Omit this test to actually return all results. Wouldn't recommend it though: could take a while, but you do you.

        if len(cache) >= max_response_cache:

            break



    # If you really want to: pick up where we left off to get the rest of the results.

    if False:

        for c in gen:

            cache.append(c)



Using the ``aggs`` argument to summarize search results

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



When an aggs parameter is provided to a search method, the first result yielded by the generator

will contain the aggs result.



.. code-block:: python



    api = PushshiftAPI()

    gen = api.search_comments(author='nasa', aggs='subreddit')

    next(gen)

    #  {'subreddit': [

    #    {'doc_count': 300, 'key': 'IAmA'},

    #    {'doc_count': 6, 'key': 'space'},

    #    {'doc_count': 1, 'key': 'ExposurePorn'},

    #    {'doc_count': 1, 'key': 'Mars'},

    #    {'doc_count': 1, 'key': 'OldSchoolCool'},

    #    {'doc_count': 1, 'key': 'news'},

    #    {'doc_count': 1, 'key': 'pics'},

    #    {'doc_count': 1, 'key': 'reddit.com'}]}

    len(list(gen)) # 312



Using the ``redditor_subreddit_activity`` convenience method

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



If you want to profile a redditors activity as in the ``aggs`` example, the

``redditor_subreddit_activity`` provides a simple shorthand for profiling a user by the subreddits

in which they are active, counting comments and submissions separately in a single call,

and returning Counter objects for commenting and posting activity, respectively.



.. code-block:: python



    api = PushshiftAPI()

    result = api.redditor_subreddit_activity('nasa')

    result

    #{'comment':

    #   Counter({

    #      'ExposurePorn': 1,

    #      'IAmA': 300,

    #      'Mars': 1,

    #      'OldSchoolCool': 1,

    #      'news': 1,

    #      'pics': 1,

    #      'reddit.com': 1,

    #      'space': 6}),

    # 'submission':

    #   Counter({

    #      'IAmA': 3,

    #      'ISS': 1,

    #      'Mars': 1,

    #      'space': 3,

    #      'u_nasa': 86})}



Using the ``stop_condition`` argument to get the most recent submission by a bot account

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



.. code-block:: python



    gen = api.search_submissions(stop_condition=lambda x: 'bot' in x.author)



    for subm in gen:

        pass



    print(subm.author)

    

Collecting results in a ``pandas.DataFrame`` for analysis

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



.. code-block:: python



    import pandas as pd

    

    df = pd.DataFrame([thing.d_ for thing in gen])



Special Convenience Attributes

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^



Consider the following simple query:



.. code-block:: python



    gen = api.search_submissions(subreddit='pushshift')

    thing = next(gen)

    

Special attributes:



* ``thing.d_`` a dict containing all of the data attributes attached to the thing (which otherwise would be accessed via dot notation). One specific convenience this enables is simplifying pushing results into a pandas dataframe (above).

* ``api.metadata_`` The metadata data provided by pushshift (if any) from the most recent successful request. The most useful metadata attributes, IMHO, are:



  * ``api.metadata_.get('shards')`` - For checking if any shards are down, which can impact the result cardinality.

  * ``api.metadata_.get('total_results')`` - The database-side count of how many total items were found in the query and should be returned after paging through all results. Users have encountered rare edge cases that don't return all expected results, probably due to more than 500 items sharing the same timestamp in a result range. See `issue #47 `_ for progress resolving this behavior.



Demo usage (CLI)

----------------



For CLI documentation, run



.. code-block::



    psaw --help



License

-------



PSAW's source is provided under the `Simplified BSD License

`_.



* Copyright (c), 2018, David Marx