fetch files from a public gist

getagist.py

#!/usr/bin/env python

__license__ = 'http://www.opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.php (MIT)'
__author__  = 'Andrea Baresi'

from urllib2 import Request, urlopen
import sys
import json

METADATA_URL = 'http://gist.github.com/api/v1/json/%s'
CONTENT_URL = 'http://gist.github.com/raw/%s/%s'

def getURL(url):
  req = Request(url)
  response = urlopen(req)
  print url, 'fetched'
  return response.read()

if __name__ == '__main__':
  if len(sys.argv) > 1 and sys.argv[1].isdigit():
    gistid = sys.argv[1]
    metadata = json.loads(getURL(METADATA_URL % (gistid,)))
    for filename in metadata['gists'][0]['files']:
      content = getURL(CONTENT_URL % (gistid, filename))
      with open(filename, 'wb') as fh:
        fh.write(content)
  else:
    print 'give me a gist_id'