Launchpad Help > API > Examples

This page has a bunch of examples of how to use launchpadlib and the Python APIs. Think of it like a cookbook that you can add your favourite recipe to.

If this duplicates launchpadlib or API/Uses too much, then please merge or edit pages as needed.

Find out if your launchpadlib version is recent enough (>= 1.5.1)

   import launchpadlib
   print(launchpadlib.__version__)

1.5.1 or above is the answer you're looking for; almost all subsequent examples assume you have at least that recent a launchpadlib.

Hello Launchpad!

Before an API client can do anything, it needs to login to Launchpad. There are three possibilities:

• "Anonymous login", which does not require user interaction but of course gives you only read-only access to public data
• Access level requested by the client: the user must confirm they want to allow that level of access
• Access level specified by the user. This may be confusing if the client program expects to be able to write but it's not allowed.

Ever wanted to have Launchpad greet you by your own name? Now you can, in the comfort of your own home.

   from launchpadlib.launchpad import Launchpad
   launchpad = Launchpad.login_with('hello-world', 'production')
   print('Hello, %s!' % launchpad.me.display_name)

The hello-world bit is the name of the application and 'production' means connect to the production server.

If your app is only going to read public data from launchpad, and not write it you can make the process more user-friendly by telling Launchpad that you only care about reading public data.

   from launchpadlib.launchpad import Launchpad
   launchpad = Launchpad.login_anonymously('just testing', 'production')

See also guide to app login.

Does a bug have a release target?

   from launchpadlib.launchpad import Launchpad
   
   def has_target(bug, series):
       series_url = str(series)
       for task in bug.bug_tasks:
           if str(task).startswith(series_url):
               return True
       return False
   
   launchpad = Launchpad.login_with('hello-world', 'production')
   b = launchpad.bugs[324614]
   ubuntu = launchpad.distributions["ubuntu"]
   jaunty = ubuntu.getSeries(name_or_version="jaunty")
   has_target(b, jaunty)
   ### ==> should evalute to True

Listing the current package versions in a particular distroseries

   from launchpadlib.launchpad import Launchpad
   
   launchpad = Launchpad.login_with('hello-world', 'production')
   ubuntu = launchpad.distributions["ubuntu"]
   archive = ubuntu.main_archive
   series = ubuntu.current_series
   archive.getPublishedSources(exact_match=True, source_name="apport", distro_series=series)[0].source_package_version
   ### ==> should return u'0.123'

Get dsc-files for sources in an archive

   import re

   ### See previous examples for how to get an archive.

   def get_dsc(archive):
       re_version = re.compile(r"^\d+\:")
       x = archive.getPublishedSources()
       for i in x:
           version = i.source_package_version
           version = re_version.sub("", version, 1)
           yield "%s~%s/+files/%s_%s.dsc" \
               %(archive.web_link, archive.owner.name, i.source_package_name, version)

Copy an old version of a package into your PPA for a newer release

Sometimes you want to build the older version of a package from an earlier Ubuntu release on the newest Ubuntu. You can use the API to easily copy the old release's version into your PPA where it can be re-published.

   from launchpadlib.launchpad import Launchpad
   
   launchpad = Launchpad.login_with('hello-world', 'production')
   ubuntu = launchpad.distributions["ubuntu"]
   archive = ubuntu.main_archive
   jaunty = ubuntu.getSeries(name_or_version="jaunty")
   jaunty_apport = archive.getPublishedSources(exact_match=True, source_name="apport", distro_series=series)[0]
   jaunty_apport.source_package_version
   ### ==> should return u'0.123'
   ppa = launchpad.me.getPPAByName(name="foobar")
   ppa.copyPackage(
      from_archive=archive,
      include_binaries=True, 
      source_name="apport",
      to_pocket=jaunty_apport.pocket, 
      to_series="karmic", 
      version=jaunty_apport.source_package_version)

Cache Launchpad credentials per application

This one is for older launchpadlibs. If you are using a current version, just replace the code below with Launchpad.login_with.

From <https://launchpad.net/hydrazine> - use your own application name.

   def create_session():
       lplib_cachedir = os.path.expanduser("~/.cache/launchpadlib/")
       hydrazine_cachedir = os.path.expanduser("~/.cache/hydrazine/")
       rrd_dir = os.path.expanduser("~/.cache/hydrazine/rrd")
       for d in [lplib_cachedir, hydrazine_cachedir, rrd_dir]:
           if not os.path.isdir(d):
               os.makedirs(d, mode=0700)

       hydrazine_credentials_filename = os.path.join(hydrazine_cachedir,
           'credentials')
       if os.path.exists(hydrazine_credentials_filename):
           credentials = Credentials()
           credentials.load(file(
               os.path.expanduser("~/.cache/hydrazine/credentials"),
               "r"))
           trace('loaded existing credentials')
           return Launchpad(credentials, service_root,
               lplib_cachedir)
           # TODO: handle the case of having credentials that have expired etc
       else:
           launchpad = Launchpad.get_token_and_login(
               'Hydrazine',
               service_root,
               lplib_cachedir)
           trace('saving credentials...')
           launchpad.credentials.save(file(
               hydrazine_credentials_filename,
               "w"))
           return launchpad

Get date a user joined a team

This is an example of using team_membership details

def get_join_date(team, user):
    team = launchpad.people[team]
    members = team.members_details
    for member in members:
        if member.member.name == user:
            return member.date_joined
    return None

print(get_join_date("zeitgeist", "thekorn"))
### ==> should return a datetime.datetime object like  2009-06-14 18:01:10.511369+00:00

Turn on debugging output

import httplib2
httplib2.debuglevel = 1

This enables detailed traces of requests launchpadlib makes. This can be worthwhile for debugging issues or optimizing performance. (See also bug 520219 asking for better logging here.)

Get a useful error message from launchpadlib

Recent versions of launchpadlib include useful information in the str() of the exception object, so you don't need to do this

Because launchpadlib is just a simple wrapper for an HTTP API, when the Launchpad server raises an error, this appears on the client side as an HTTP error. However, there is useful information to be had!

   1 try:
   2     do_something_errorful()
   3 except HTTPError as e:
   4     # e.content has the actual Launchpad error.
   5     print(e.content)

Fetching an object's raw JSON

Launchpadlib provides a nice Python wrapper around JSON objects, but it does allow you to directly access the JSON itself. Each launchpadlib object has a self_link property which you can use to view the JSON in a regular web brower, but you can not do this while using launchpadlib's access permissions. This recipe shows you how to fetch the JSON for an object with the same permissions as the currently running script.

We can use the semi-private _browser member of the current Launchpad object to grab the raw JSON using the current authentication. We can pass a launchpadlib object's self_link URL to the browser, the same as launchpadlib itself does.

   1 from launchpadlib.launchpad import Launchpad
   2 
   3 launchpad = Launchpad.login_with('lplib.cookbook.json_fetcher', 'production', '.lplib-json_fetcher-cache')
   4 
   5 # Our authenticated browser object
   6 browser = launchpad._browser
   7 
   8 def get_person_as_json(person_name):
   9     person = launchpad.people[person_name]
  10     if not person:
  11         # Oops, this person does not exist.
  12         return None
  13     
  14     return browser.get(person.self_link)

Get the type of requested code review

The trick here (bug 526362) is that the review type is actually an attribute of the pending review, and the pending review is recorded as a 'vote' with no vote or comment. So you need to iterate the votes attribute of the merge proposal.