Python Pushshift.io API Wrapper (for comment/submission search) =============================================================== .. _installation: Installation ------------ .. code-block:: bash pip install psaw At present, only python 3 is supported. 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, I recommend you attempt to familiarize yourself with the Pushshift API documentation to better understand what search arguments are likely to work. The documentation is distributed across several locations: * `API Documentaion on Google Docs `_ * `API Documentation on github `_ * `/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. * 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. * Adds a ``created`` attribute which converts a comment/submission's ``created_utc`` timestamp to the user's local time. * Extremely 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. * Limited support for pushshift's ``aggs`` argument. * A ``stop_condition`` argument to make it simple to stop yielding results given arbitrary user-defined criteria Demo usage ---------- .. code-block:: python from psaw import PushshiftAPI api = PushshiftAPI() 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 count comments mentioning trump each hour in past week ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Replicating the example from the pushshift documentation: https://api.pushshift.io/reddit/search/comment/?q=trump&after=7d&aggs=created_utc&frequency=hour&size=0 I haven't really experimented much with this functionality of the API, so I figured the simplest way to support it would be to just disable most of the bells and whistles provided by the API wrapper when the ``aggs`` argument is provided (i.e. paging, converting the result to a namedtuple for dot notation attribute access). .. code-block:: python api = PushshiftAPI() gen = api.search_comments(q='trump', after='7d', aggs='created_utc', frequency='hour', size=0, ) result = next(gen) 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) License ------- PSAW's source is provided under the `Simplified BSD License `_. * Copyright (c), 2018, David Marx