Google Sheets API "update" method Http Error 400

Question

I am trying to make a python script that reads and writes to a google spreadsheet. I've basically copied the python quickstart script at https://developers.google.com/sheets/quickstart/python and modified it using the reference at https://developers.google.com/resources/api-libraries/documentation/sheets/v4/python/latest/.

Everything works fine with the "get" method shown in the quickstart script. I can read the sheet with no errors. To use "update" instead of "get" (write to the sheet instead of read it), I removed the .readonly portion of the scope url. I also replaced the get() method with update() and included body as an argument in the update() method with a json object containing the values encoded with json.dumps. This was all according to the second reference above.

I get an HttpError 400 every time for "invalid data".

Code:

import httplib2
import os
import json

from apiclient import discovery
import oauth2client
from oauth2client import client
from oauth2client import tools

try:
    import argparse
    flags = argparse.ArgumentParser(parents=[tools.argparser]).parse_args()
except ImportError:
    flags = None

# If modifying these scopes, delete your previously saved credentials
# at ~/.credentials/sheets.googleapis.com-python-quickstart.json
SCOPES = 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets'
CLIENT_SECRET_FILE = 'client_secret.json'
APPLICATION_NAME = 'Google Sheets API Python Quickstart'


def get_credentials():
    """Gets valid user credentials from storage.

    If nothing has been stored, or if the stored credentials are invalid,
    the OAuth2 flow is completed to obtain the new credentials.

    Returns:
        Credentials, the obtained credential.
    """
    home_dir = os.path.expanduser('~')
    credential_dir = os.path.join(home_dir, '.credentials')
    if not os.path.exists(credential_dir):
        os.makedirs(credential_dir)
    credential_path = os.path.join(credential_dir,
                                   'sheets.googleapis.com-python-quickstart.json')

    store = oauth2client.file.Storage(credential_path)
    credentials = store.get()
    if not credentials or credentials.invalid:
        flow = client.flow_from_clientsecrets(CLIENT_SECRET_FILE, SCOPES)
        flow.user_agent = APPLICATION_NAME
        if flags:
            credentials = tools.run_flow(flow, store, flags)
        else: # Needed only for compatibility with Python 2.6
            credentials = tools.run(flow, store)
        print('Storing credentials to ' + credential_path)
    return credentials

def main():
    """Shows basic usage of the Sheets API.

    Creates a Sheets API service object and prints the names and majors of
    students in a sample spreadsheet:
    https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1BxiMVs0XRA5nFMdKvBdBZjgmUUqptlbs74OgvE2upms/edit
    """
    credentials = get_credentials()
    http = credentials.authorize(httplib2.Http())
    discoveryUrl = ('https://sheets.googleapis.com/$discovery/rest?'
                    'version=v4')
    service = discovery.build('sheets', 'v4', http=http,
                              discoveryServiceUrl=discoveryUrl)

    spreadsheetId = '1Wbo5ilhw68IMUTSvnj_2yyRmWJ87NP-lHdJdaPBmTGA'
    rangeName = 'Class Data!A2:E'
    body = json.dumps({'values': [[0,0,0,0,0]]})
    result = service.spreadsheets().values().update(
        spreadsheetId=spreadsheetId, range=rangeName, body=body).execute()


if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Console errors:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Users/user/Dropbox/python/jobs/test.py", line 73, in <module>
    main()
  File "/Users/user/Dropbox/python/jobs/test.py", line 69, in main
    spreadsheetId=spreadsheetId, range=rangeName, body=body).execute()
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.4/lib/python3.4/site-packages/oauth2client/util.py", line 135, in positional_wrapper
    return wrapped(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.4/lib/python3.4/site-packages/googleapiclient/http.py", line 832, in execute
    raise HttpError(resp, content, uri=self.uri)
googleapiclient.errors.HttpError: <HttpError 400 when requesting https://sheets.googleapis.com/v4/spreadsheets/1Wbo5ilhw68IMUTSvnj_2yyRmWJ87NP-lHdJdaPBmTGA/values/Class%20Data%21A2%3AE?alt=json returned "Invalid value at 'data' (type.googleapis.com/google.apps.sheets.v4.ValueRange), "{"values": [[0, 0, 0, 0, 0]]}"">

Answer 1

I figured out that the body arg included in update(), although shown in the documentation as json, actually needs to be a regular python dictionary. I was sending a body of text in json, and what the google api client was looking for was an actual python dict object I guess.