Fetch all a user's Last.fm scrobbles by paging through their recent tracks

fetch.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
"""
Fetch all a user's Last.fm scrobbles by paging through their recent tracks

Usage: ./fetch.py <username> [<start_page> [<end_page>]]

Be aware: You may end up with duplicated data if the user is scrobbling
when you fetch for tracks. Make sure you check for dupes when you process
the XML later
"""
import urllib, sys, os, errno

# Change these if you like
OUTDIR = '../data/_ignore/scrobbles/'
API_KEY = 'b25b959554ed76058ac220b7b2e0a026' # Good ole test key

def get_page(user, page = 1):
    url = 'http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0/?%s' % urllib.urlencode(dict(
        method  = 'user.getrecenttracks',
        user    = user,
        api_key = API_KEY,
        limit   = 200,
        page    = page
    ))
    try:
        tracks = urllib.urlopen(url)
    except IOError:
        # Try once more in case of flaky connections
        tracks = urllib.urlopen(url)
    return tracks.read()

args = sys.argv[1:]
user = args[0]

# Get start and end from arguments
if len(args) > 1:
    start = int(args[1])
else:
    start = 1
if len(args) > 2:
    end = int(args[2])
else:
    # Fetch a page and use the <recenttracks totalPages> attribute
    import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
    tree = ET.fromstring(get_page(user))
    end = int(tree.find('recenttracks').get('totalPages'))

print 'fetching pages %s till %s for %s' % (start, end, user)

# Create the output directory if needed
outdir = '%s%s' % (OUTDIR, user)
try:
    os.makedirs(outdir)
except OSError, exc: # Python >2.5
    if exc.errno == errno.EEXIST:
        pass
    else: raise

# Loop through the pages, fetch XML and write to disk
for page in range(start, end + 1):
    print '%s: %s of %s' % (user, page, end)
    out = open('%s/%s.xml' % (outdir, page), 'w')
    out.write(get_page(user, page))
    out.close()
print 'done fetching for %s' % user