I need to get some data from the Meetup API, convert the JSON I get into a CSV, all of that in Python 3. I've never worked with JSON or Python, so I've run into some issues. Getting the data is not a problem, but I can't seem to parse the JSON object into a proper CSV file. My code, anonymized:
import json
import requests
import csv
def main():
# initialize variables
output_file = 'result_meetup.csv'
api_key = "YOUR_MEETUP_API_KEY"
params = {'key': api_key}
url_path = 'http://api.meetup.com/pro/:URLNAME/groups'
# get data from API, parse to JSON
data = requests.get(url_path, params=params)
data_parsed = data.json()
length_data = len(data_parsed) - 1
data_to_file = open(output_file, 'w')
csv_writer = csv.writer(data_to_file)
for i in range(0, length_data):
meetup = data_parsed[i]
csv_writer.writerow([meetup])
data_to_file.close()
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()
Now, as you can see, I write into the CSV as a list. This leads to a really ugly output, looking like this (again, the values in caps are anonymized):
{u'rsvps_per_event': 0.0, u'organizers': [{u'permission': u'organizer', u'name': u'NAME', u'member_id': ID}], u'repeat_rsvpers': 0, u'topics': [{u'lang': u'en_US', u'id': ID, u'urlkey': u'socialnetwork', u'name': u'Social Networking'}, {u'lang': u'en_US', u'id': ID, u'urlkey': u'education', u'name': u'Education'}, {u'lang': u'en_US', u'id': ID, u'urlkey': u'newtech', u'name': u'New Technology'}, {u'lang': u'en_US', u'id': ID, u'urlkey': u'business-referral-networking', u'name': u'Business Referral Networking'}], u'upcoming_events': 0, u'gender_female': 0.3499999940395355, u'pro_join_date': DATE, u'id': ID, u'category': [{u'shortname': u'career-business', u'sort_name': u'Career & Business', u'id': 2, u'name': u'Career & Business'}], u'city': u'CITY', u'member_count': 73, u'lon': LON, u'organizer_photo': {u'thumb_link': u'LINK.JPEG', u'base_url': u'URL', u'id': ID, u'type': u'member', u'photo_link': u'LINK.JPEG', u'highres_link': u'LINK.JPEG'}, u'average_age': 35.555599212646484, u'status': u'Active', u'description': u'DESCRIPTION' u'founded_date': DATE, lat': LAT, u'urlname': u'NAME', u'gender_male': 0.6000000238418579, u'name': u'NAME', u'country': u'Portugal', u'gender_unknown': 0.05000000074505806, u'past_events': 0, u'gender_other': 0.0, u'past_rsvps': 0}
So basically, the whole JSON object in a single CSV field, with weird 'u's, in lists and so on. However, if I don't write it as a list, I only get the fields of the JSON object, without the data, so it would just be 'Organizers', 'Name' etc, without the actual name. As I said, I am a python beginner and haven't found any libraries to help me with it, but I'm sure they exist. Any help is really appreciated, and it would be great if it was Python3 compatible.
Edit: What I would like it to look like in the end: I get multiple Meetup groups in the reply, all having the same structure as shown above. Therefore, the description of the value should be listed just once, as a header, and the values listed beneath (new lines and pipes indicating a new field of a csv sheet):
RSVPs_per_event | Organizer | ID
5 | Tom | 1
20 | Jack | 2
35 | Anne | 3
If anyone else has the same problem, I solved it, not very elegantly, but I needed the data. The JSON was too nestled and complex to parse, so now I just read the fields I need from the data.
import json
import requests
import csv
def main():
# initialize variables
output_file = 'result_meetup.csv'
api_key = "YOUR_API_KEY"
params = {'key': api_key}
url_path = 'http://api.meetup.com/pro/:URLNAME/groups'
# get data from API, parse to JSON
data = requests.get(url_path, params=params)
data_parsed = data.json()
length_data = len(data_parsed) - 1
data_to_file = open(output_file, 'w', newline='')
csv_writer = csv.writer(data_to_file, delimiter=";")
csv_writer.writerow(["id","name","city","country","member count","average age","founded_date","past_rsvps","rsvps_per_event","repeat_rsvpers","gender_unknown","gender_female","gender_male","gender_other"])
for i in range(0, length_data):
meetup = data_parsed[i]
id = meetup['id']
name = meetup['name']
city = meetup['city']
country = meetup['country']
member_count = meetup['member_count']
average_age = meetup['average_age']
founded_date = meetup['founded_date']
past_rsvps = meetup['past_rsvps']
rsvps_per_event = meetup['rsvps_per_event']
repeat_rsvpers = meetup['repeat_rsvpers']
gender_unknown = meetup['gender_unknown']
gender_female = meetup['gender_female']
gender_male = meetup['gender_male']
gender_other = meetup['gender_other']
csv_writer.writerow([id,name,city,country,member_count,average_age,founded_date,past_rsvps,rsvps_per_event,repeat_rsvpers,gender_unknown,gender_female,gender_male,gender_other])
data_to_file.close()
if __name__ == "__main__":
main()