Downloading Flickr photos, part 2

Published
by
Ian Dexter
on 26 March 2007
in Play
. Tags: , , , , , .

I made several improvements in the previous script:

#!/usr/bin/python
 
import flickr
import urllib
import time
import re
 
flickr.API_KEY = 'Flick API goes here'
print "Registered using API key"
user =  flickr.people_findByUsername(u'username')
print "Found user %s - username" % user.id
try:
        photos = flickr.people_getPublicPhotos(user.id, 500)
        print "Found the photos"
        total = 0
        for photo in photos:
                p = flickr.Photo(photo.id)
                title = re.sub('\s+', '-', p.title)
                title = re.sub('[^-\w]', '', title)
                title = "%s_%s" % (title, p.datetaken.split()[0])
                for s in p.getSizes():
                        url = s['source']
                        photoFile = "%s_%s" % (title, url.split("/")[4])
                        data = urllib.urlretrieve(url, photoFile)
                        total = total + 1
                        print "Retrieving %s ..." % photoFile
                        time.sleep(1)
except AttributeError:
        exit
print "%s photos retrieved." % total

Python is pretty simple, once you get the hang of it. It also helps that the source for flickr.py is open — I got to fetch some more info regarding the photos I’m downloading, thus incorporating them in the code.

The code could use some more improvement, though: I should have opted for the Flickr error code (flickr.FlickrError) instead of AttributeError. The regex can certainly use more trimming. Perhaps I can save the photo information in a database instead of glomming them in the filename (so I can include tags, group and set memberships, etc.),

This should be elementary to Python devs out there, but for me, it’s just a hobby. ;)

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