script to extract data from thingspeak API

fetch_thingspeak.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
import urllib2,json
import datetime
from time import sleep
import sys

READ_API_KEY='YOUR_API_KEY'
CHANNEL_ID=YOUR_CHANNEL

start_time=datetime.datetime.strptime('2014-04-16 07:25:08 UTC','%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z')
results=1000 # fetch this many results (max 8000)

#extract data from thingspeak API, using multiple requests if necessary
#extracts from newest to oldest due to a quirk in the API 
# 'results' parameter gives the last n results in time range rather than the first
# so you will have to re-sort the results again afterwards..
def main():
    end_time=datetime.datetime.utcnow() # or set to desired value like above
    err_count=0
    while end_time > start_time:
        end_timestr=urllib2.quote(datetime.datetime.strftime(end_time,'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z'))
        conn = urllib2.urlopen("https://api.thingspeak.com/channels/%d/feeds.csv?results=%d&api_key=%s&end=%s" \
                               % (CHANNEL_ID,results,READ_API_KEY,end_timestr))

        if (conn.getcode()!=200):
          sys.stderr.write("http status code=%d" % (conn.getcode()))
          conn.close()
          err_count+=1
          if err_count>5:
            sys.stderr.write("too many errors, giving up")
            break

          sleep(10)
          continue

        err_count=0
        response = conn.read()
        data=response.split('\n')
        # print in reverse order
        data2=sorted(filter((lambda x:x!=''),data[1:]),reverse=True)
        if len(data2)<=0:
          sys.stderr.write( "no more data" )
          break
        for d in data2:
          print d
        #get the last (earliest) timestamp
        dtime=data2[-1].split(',')[0]
        # subtract 1 second to avoid duplicates
        end_time=datetime.datetime.strptime(dtime,'%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S %Z')-datetime.timedelta(seconds=1)
        #sys.stderr.write( "end_time= %s" % end_time)

        conn.close()
        sleep(5)

    sys.stderr.write("finished")



if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()