The Google Refine Python Client Library provides an interface to communicating with a Google Refine server.
Project description
The Google Refine Python Client Library provides an interface to communicating with a Google Refine server.
Currently, the following API is supported:
project creation/import, deletion, export
facet computation
text
text filter
numeric
blank
starred & flagged
… extensible class
‘engine’: managing multiple facets and their computation results
sorting & reordering
clustering
transforms
transposes
single and mass edits
annotation (star/flag)
column
move
add
split
rename
reorder
remove
reconciliation
reconciliation judgment facet
guessing column type
querying reconciliation services preferences
perform reconciliation
Configuration
By default the Google Refine server URL is http://127.0.0.1:3333 The environment variables GOOGLE_REFINE_HOST and GOOGLE_REFINE_PORT enable overriding the host & port.
In order to run all tests, a live Refine server is needed. No existing projects are affected.
Installation
(Someone with more familiarity with python’s byzantine collection of installation frameworks is very welcome to improve/”best practice” all this.)
Install dependencies, which currently is urllib2_file:
sudo pip install -r requirements.txt
Ensure you have a Refine server running somewhere and, if necessary, set the envvars as above.
Run tests, build, and install:
python setup.py test # to do a subset, e.g., --test-suite tests.test_facet
python setup.py build
python setup.py install
There is a Makefile that will do this too, and more.
TODO
The API so far has been filled out from building a test suite to carry out the actions in David Huynh’s Refine tutorial which while certainly showing off a wide range of Refine features doesn’t cover the entire suite. Notable exceptions currently include:
reconciliation support is useful but not complete
undo/redo
Freebase
join columns
columns from URL
Contribute
Patches welcome! Source is at https://github.com/PaulMakepeace/refine-client-py
Useful Tools
One aspect of development is watching HTTP transactions. To that end, I found Fiddler on Windows and HTTPScoop invaluable. The latter won’t URL-decode nor nicely format JSON but the Online JavaScript Beautifier will.
Credits
Paul Makepeace, author, <paulm@paulm.com>
David Huynh, initial cut
Artfinder, inspiration
Some data used in the test suite has been used from publicly available sources,
louisiana-elected-officials.csv: from http://www.sos.louisiana.gov/tabid/136/Default.aspx
us_economic_assistance.csv: “The Green Book”
eli-lilly.csv: ProPublica’s “Docs for Dollars” leading to a Lilly Faculty PDF processed by David Huynh’s ScraperWiki script
