Meetup.com Group's Members' Names Scraper

gistfile1.py

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import requests
import json


"""
FUNCTION: 
            scrapeMemberNames
PARAMETERS: 
            url : str
            do not forget quotation marks
            Utilize meetup.com's members API to access members database of groups.
            Input whatever parameters into API console 
                group_urlname: PyLadies (unique name in group's URL)
                page: 200 (number of entries to include)
                only: name (only return member name)
            Utilize returned signed URL
RETURNS:
            listonames : List of names to traverse through
        
EXAMPLE: 
            scrapeMemberNames('http://api.meetup.com/2/members?order=name&group_urlname=
                              PyLadiesTC&offset=0&format=json&only=name&page=40&sig_id=1
                              52684422&sig=86764dd082256d269eff311bf15fa8f7e3a865bd')
            output: [u'Alison Link',
                     u'Angie',
                     u'Anna Mandy', .....]

"""
def scrapeMemberNames(url):
    listonames = list() #create empty list; to return
    
    #extract all text from page
    rawdata    = requests.get(url).text
    #put all text into a BeautifulSoup Object
    souped     = BeautifulSoup(rawdata) 
    #isolate everything contained in <p></p>
    ptag       = souped.p.string 
    #convert json dictionary into python dictionary
    diction    = json.loads(ptag)
    #isolate data stored by 'results' key
    ourresults = diction['results']

    #loop through 'results' through every 'name' element and append each corresponding datum to list
    for name in ourresults:
        listonames.append(name['name'])
        
    return listonames

#Example code, lists all members of PyLadies
scrapeMemberNames('http://api.meetup.com/2/members?order=name&group_urlname=PyLadiesTC&offset=0&format=json&only=name&page=40&sig_id=152684422&sig=86764dd082256d269eff311bf15fa8f7e3a865bd')

how to list pyMNtos; we have to do it twice because we can only view 200 people at a time at 0 offset

list1 = scrapeMemberNames('http://api.meetup.com/2/members?order=name&group_urlname=PyMNtos-Twin-Cities-Python-User-Group&offset=0&format=json&only=name&page=400&sig_id=152684422&sig=ba4d85c4e5011daf022e75b9c7c59eecc9725eea')
list2 = scrapeMemberNames('http://api.meetup.com/2/members?order=name&group_urlname=PyMNtos-Twin-Cities-Python-User-Group&offset=1&format=json&only=name&page=200&sig_id=152684422&sig=51d8211c832624d64b177633ba4e402826df0fb2')

for name in list2:
list1.append(name)

list1