Installing the Python library

Ubidots for python is available in Pypi and you can install it from the comand line:

$ pip install ubidots

Don’t forget to use sudo if necessary.

You can install pip in Linux and Mac using this command:

$ easy_install pip

If you are using Microsoft Windows you can install pip from here.

Connecting to the API

Before playing with the API you must be able to connect to it using your private API key, which can be found in your profile.

If you don’t have an account yet, you can create one here.

Once you have your API key, you can connect to the API by creating an ApiClient instance. Let’s assume your API key is: “7fj39fk3044045k89fbh34rsd9823jkfs8323” then your code would look like this:

from ubidots import ApiClient

api = ApiClient('7fj39fk3044045k89fbh34rsd9823jkfs8323')

Now you have an instance of the apiclient (“api”) which can be used to connect to the API service.

Creating a DataSource

As you might know by now, a data source representes a device or a virtual source.

This line creates a new data source:

new_datasource = api.create_datasource({"name":"myNewDs"})

This new data source can be used to track different variables, so let’s create one.

Creating a Variable

A variable is a time-series containing different values over time. Let’s create one:

new_variable = new_datasource.create_variable({"name":"myNewVar"})

Now you have a new variable, so let’s create a new value for this variable.

Saving a new Value to a Variable

Given the instantiated variable, you can save a new value with the following line:

new_value = new_variable.save_value({'value':10})

You can also specify a timestamp (optional)

new_value = new_variable.save_value({'value':10, 'timestamp':1376061804407})

If no timestamp is specified, the API server will asign the current time to it. We think it’s always better that you specify the timestamp so that it reflects the exact time when the value was captures, and not the time when it got to our servers.

Getting Values

To get the values for a variable, use the method get_values in an instance of the class Variable.

all_values = new_variable.get_values()

You may also want to get the last value of certain variable with this purpose, first you need to update the variable:

new_variable = api.get_variable(new_variable.id)
last_value = new_variable.last_value

Getting all the Data sources

If you want to get all your data sources you can use the instance of the api directly:

all_my_datasources = api.get_datasources()

Getting a specific Data source

Each data source has a unique id that tells the server which one to retrieve.

For example, if a data source has the id 51c99cfdf91b28459f976414, it can be retrieved using the method get_datasource of the ApiClient instance:

my_specific_datasource = api.get_datasource(id = '51c99cfdf91b28459f976414')

Getting All Variables from a Data source

You can also retrieve all the variables of a data source:

all_datasource_variables = datasource.get_get_variables()

Getting a specific Variable

As with data sources, use your variable’s id to retrieve the details about a variable:

my_specific_variable = api.get_variable(id = '56799cf1231b28459f976417')