LivePopularTimes 1.3

LivePopularTimes: A Google Maps scraper

Live Popular Times

A library that extends the populartimes module to include support for Live Google Maps popular times data, which is currently inaccessible via Google's API.

Getting Started

Requirements

Google Maps API key https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/get-api-key

Installation:

Options:

1. For most current version: python3 -m pip install --upgrade git+https://github.com/GrocerCheck/LivePopularTimes
2. git clone the repository, cd into the populartimes directory and run pip install .
3. Possibly outdated: python3 -m pip install LivePopularTimes

Usage

• Please note that certain functions of this module use the Google Places Web API, which is billable to Google.
• Functions that accept api keys in their arguments will make API calls, and vice versa (self-explanatory)
• If you're trying to reduce API usage a typical workflow may look like:
  1. Get PlaceIDs & addresses https://developers.google.com/places/web-service/search#PlaceSearchRequests
  2. Create formatted addresses. You may need to use get_populartimes_by_Place_ID to get more address data if necessary. This performs a reverse lookup by placeID.
  3. use get_populartimes_by_address to collect data without API use!

livepopulartimes.get_populartimes_by_address(formatted_address)

Retrieves information for a given address and adds populartimes, wait, time_spent and other data not accessible via Google Places by scraping given a formatted address. Does not make an API call!

• livepopulartimes.get_populartimes_by_address(formatted_address)

  • formatted_address

    • str; address of location you are looking for, preferably in the following format:
      • "(location name) , full address, city, province/state/etc, country"

  • proxy

    • default = False
    • proxies ip in format { "http" : "http://10.10.1.10:2138", "https" : "http://10.10.1.10:1080", }

  • Example call

    • livepopulartimes.get_populartimes_by_address("(H-Mart Dunbar) 5557 Dunbar Street, Vancouver BC, Canada", proxy=proxy)

• Response

  • The information present for places can vary. Therefore popularity, current_popularity, rating, rating_n, time_wait, time_spent and phone are optional return parameters and only present if available.
  • time_wait and time_spent are in minutes
  • Note: The time_wait and time_spent parameters were only added recently to Google Maps and are only present as a language specific string. The extracted values may therefore be incorrect and you might have to parse the raw string yourself, depending on your language settings.
  • Returns dictionary of the following parameters:
    • name
    • place_id
    • populartimes populartimes is "cleaned up" data, please refer to example output for details
    • current_popularity
    • popular_times popular_times is "raw" data, please refer to example output for details
    • address
    • location
      • lat
      • lng
    • categories
    • place_types
  • Refer to example_output(get_populartimes_by_address).json) for example output

livepopulartimes.get_populartimes_by_PlaceID(api_key, place_id)

Retrieves information for a given address and adds populartimes, wait, time_spent and other data not accessible via Google Places via Places API call & scraping, given a place_id.

• livepopulartimes.get_populartimes_by_PlaceID(api_key, place_id)

  • api_key

    • str; your Google Places API key

  • place_id

    • str; Unique Google Places place identifier, can be obtained via get_places_by_search or Google Places javascript API
    • more details here: [https://developers.google.com/places/place-id]

  • Example call

    • livepopulartimes.get_populartimes_by_PlaceID(API_KEY, "ChIJtW0qSJp0hlQRj22fXuPh7s4")

• Response

  • The information present for places can vary. Therefore popularity, current_popularity, rating, rating_n, time_wait, time_spent and phone are optional return parameters and only present if available.
  • time_wait and time_spent are in minutes
  • Note: The time_wait and time_spent parameters were only added recently to Google Maps and are only present as a language specific string. The extracted values may therefore be incorrect and you might have to parse the raw string yourself, depending on your language settings.
  • Returns dictionary of the following parameters:
    • name
    • place_id
    • populartimes populartimes is "cleaned up" data, please refer to example output for details
    • current_popularity
    • popular_times popular_times is "raw" data, please refer to example output for details
    • address
    • location
      • lat
      • lng
    • hours
    • categories
    • place_types
  • Refer to example_output(get_populartimes_by_PlaceID).json) for example output

livepopulartimes.get_places_by_search(api_key, query)

Retrives Google Maps location data from search query

• livepopulartimes.get_populartimes_by_search(api_key, query)

  • query
    • str; Google search query
  • Example call
    • livepopulartimes.get_places_by_query("restaurants open in London")

• Response

  • The information present for places can vary
  • Returns dictionary with the following fields:
    • name
    • place_id
    • address
    • location
      • lat
      • lng
    • categories
    • place_types
  • Refer to example_output(get_places_by_search).txt) for example output

Special thanks to m-wrzr's populartimes module for the framework upon which this is built.