canvas-api-client 0.2.4

This is a library for making requests to a Canvas LMS API.

Canvas LMS API Client Library
=============================

Version number: 0.2

Author: Luc Cary

Contributors: Kyle Lawlor, Thomas Barraro, Angus Grieve-Smith

#### Table of Contents
[Overview](#overview)
[Documentation](#documentation)
[Installation](#installation)
[Usage](#usage)
[Contributing](#contributing)
[References](#references)

Overview
--------

This is a library for making requests to a Canvas LMS API.

Documentation
-------------

This project has Sphinx documentation at the following url:
https://lcary.github.io/canvas-lms-tools/

The public Canvas LMS API documentation is also very useful:
https://canvas.instructure.com/doc/api/index.html

Installation
------------

To install, use pip:

pip install canvas_api_client

Or clone the repo:

git clone https://github.com/lcary/canvas-lms-tools.git
cd canvas-lms-tools/canvas_api_client
python setup.py install

Usage
-----

Adding the client as a dependency in your project's `requirements.txt`
file is the intended way to use the client.

#### CanvasAPIv1

This library is meant to be imported into your code. The `CanvasAPIv1` client
object requires a `api_url` argument and a `api_token` argument. The `api_url`
should likely be defined in a configuration file, and should be the full API
URL without the endpoint, e.g. `https://canvas.com/api/v1/`. The `api_token`
should similarly be defined in a config file, and is the token generated in
the Canvas settings page.

There are a few helper functions that assist in sharing code between methods
in `CanvasAPIv1` which are worth pointing out. For example, there is a method
for each request type, such as `._get()` for GET requests, etc. Each one of
these request type methods invokes `self._send_request()` which takes a
number of parameters and returns a
[`requests.Response`](http://docs.python-requests.org/en/master/api/#requests.Response)
object by default. Most of the public methods of the api client thus return
a `Response` object, so the caller will have access to the typical response
methods, such as `response.json()`.

I say "by default", because it is possible to pass in your own requests
library. This is not necessarily recommended; this capability only exists for
the sake of easy dependency injection in unit testing as well as compatibility
with libraries such as requests-oauthlib.

#### Simple Example

This very simple example requires a few environment variables. The
API URL and token should be something like:
```
CANVAS_API_URL=https://my.canvas.instance.com/api/v1/
CANVAS_API_TOKEN=1396~xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxTHISxISxNOTxAxREALxTOKENxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
```

The recommended approach is to use a config file with limited read
permissions instead of environment variables, but bear with me here.

Once installed in your project via pip, use as follows:

```python
from os import environ
from pprint import pprint

from canvas_api_client.v1_client import CanvasAPIv1

url = environ.get('CANVAS_API_URL')
token = environ.get('CANVAS_API_TOKEN')

api = CanvasAPIv1(url, token)
params = {"override_sis_stickiness": "true"}
response = api.import_sis_data('1', './courses.csv', params=params)

print('SIS Import Response:')
pprint(response.json())
```

Refer to the client interface [documentation](#documentation) for more information.

Contributing
------------

This project is tested with python3, and additionally has mypy integration.

Note: before building, make sure to bump the `__version__` in the `setup.py` file.

#### Building Wheels

Building the wheel:

python setup.py bdist_wheel

#### Installing Wheels

How to install the client for testing:

pip uninstall canvas_api_client || echo "Already uninstalled."
pip install --no-index --find-links=dist canvas_api_client

Alternatively, install by specifying the full or relative path to the `.whl` file:

pip install --no-index /path/to/canvas-lms-tools/canvas_api_client/dist/canvas_api_client-<version>-py2.py3-none-any.whl

(You may need to `pip install wheel` first if you are installing from another
project. Consult [stack overflow](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28002897/wheel-file-installation)
for more help.)

#### Deploying Wheels

Publishing to pypi (requires [twine](https://packaging.python.org/tutorials/distributing-packages/#requirements-for-packaging-and-distributing) to be installed):

twine upload dist/canvas_api_client-<version>-py2.py3-none-any.whl

#### Sphinx Docs

Creating the docs:

cd docs
pip install -r requirements.txt
make html
open build/html/index.html

Deploying the docs to GitHub pages:

git checkout master
git pull
git checkout -b gh-pages
rm -rf ./*
touch .nojekyll
git checkout master canvas_api_client/docs/
< build the docs as above >
mv canvas_api_client/docs/build/html/* ./
git add -A
git commit
git push origin gh-pages

For more info see the [GitHub Pages documentation](https://pages.github.com/),
the [Sphinx docs](http://www.sphinx-doc.org/en/master/contents.html),
or the following [script docs](http://www.willmcginnis.com/2016/02/29/automating-documentation-workflow-with-sphinx-and-github-pages/).

References
----------

This project was originally created with the following "cookiecutter" tool:
https://github.com/wdm0006/cookiecutter-pipproject