api.py

"""
Stub for script to query API
"""

from urllib2 import Request, urlopen, URLError
import json
import logging
from time import sleep

URL_STUB = "http://website.com/api?q="
API_KEY = ""

# set logging level to DEBUG
logging.basicConfig(level=logging.DEBUG)

def build_url(query_words, rows, start):
    """
    """
    url = URL_STUB
    url += "%20".join(query_words)
    url += "&start=" + str(start)
    url += "&rows=" + str(rows)
    url += "&output=json"

    logging.debug("Built URL: %s", url)

    return url

def query_api(query_url):
    request = Request(query_url)
    try:
        response = urlopen(request)
        response_json = json.loads(response.read())
        return response_json
    except URLError, e:
        print 'Got an error code:', e


# Main logic of module
query = ['word1','word2']

num_rows = 50
start = 0
while True:
    url = build_url(query, num_rows, start)
    results = query_api(url)

    if results == []:
        break
    else:
        for result in results:
            # Do something with each result.
            pass

    start += len(result)