haxor
Unofficial Python wrapper for official Hacker News API.
Installation
pip install haxor
Usage
Import and initialization:
from hackernews import HackerNews
hn = HackerNews()
Items
Stories, comments, jobs, Ask HNs and even polls are just items with unique item id.
To query item information by id:
item = hn.get_item(8863)
# >>> item.title
# 'My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive'
# >>> item.item_type
# 'story'
# >>> item.kids
# [ 8952, 9224, 8917, ...]
Since most results are returned as integer IDs (like item.kids above), these results require further iteration. Instead of doing this yourself, use the expand flag to get object-oriented, detailed item info by id:
item = hn.get_item(8863, expand=True)
# >>> item.kids
# [<hackernews.Item: 9224 - None>, <hackernews.Item: 8952 - None>, ...]
# >>> item.by
# <hackernews.User: dhouston>
To query a list of Item IDs:
items = hn.get_items_by_ids([8863, 37236, 2345])
# >>> items
# [<hackernews.Item: 8863 - My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive>, <hackernews.Item:
# 37236 - None>, <hackernews.Item: 2345 - The Best Buy Scam.>]
Use the item_type filter to specifically select 'story', 'comment', 'job', or 'poll' items:
items = hn.get_items_by_ids([8863, 37236, 2345], item_type='story')
# >>> items
# [<hackernews.Item: 8863 - My YC app: Dropbox - Throw away your USB drive>, <hackernews.Item: # 2345 - The Best Buy Scam.>]
Stories
The HN API allows for real-time querying for New, Top, Best, Ask HN, Show HN, and Jobs stories.
As an example, to get Item objects of current top stories:
top_stories = hn.top_stories()
# >>> top_stories
# [<hackernews.Item: 16924667 - Ethereum Sharding FAQ>, ...]
Useful Item Queries
To get current largest Item id (most recent story, comment, job, or poll):
max_item = hn.get_max_item()
# >>> max_item
# 16925673
Once again, use the expand flag to get an object-oriented, detailed Item representation:
max_item = hn.get_max_item(expand=True)
# >>> max_item
# <hackernews.Item: 16925673 - None>
To get the x most recent Items:
last_ten = hn.get_last(10)
# >>> last_ten
# [<hackernews.Item: 16925688 - Show HN: Eventbot – Group calendar for Slack teams>, ...]
Users
HN users are also queryable.
To query users by user_id (i.e. username on Hacker News):
user = hn.get_user('pg')
# >>> user.user_id
# 'pg'
# >>> user.karma
# 155040
Use the expand flag to get an object-oriented, detailed Item representation for User attributes:
user = hn.get_user('dhouston', expand=True)
# >>> user.stories
# [<hackernews.Item: 1481914 - Dropbox is hiring a Web Engineer>, ...]
# >>> user.comments
# [<hackernews.Item: 16660140 - None>, <hackernews.Item: 15692914 - None>, ...]
# >>> user.jobs
# [<hackernews.Item: 3955262 - Dropbox seeking iOS and Android engineers>, ...]
To query a list of users:
users = hn.get_users_by_ids(['pg','dhouston'])
# >>> users
# [<hackernews.User: pg>, <hackernews.User: dhouston>]
Examples
Get top 10 stories:
hn.top_stories(limit=10)
# [<hackernews.Item: 16924667 - Ethereum Sharding FAQ>, <hackernews.Item: 16925499 - PipelineDB # v0.9.9 – One More Release Until PipelineDB Is a PostgreSQL Extension>, ...]
Find all the 'jobs' post from Top Stories:
stories = hn.top_stories()
for story in stories:
if story.item_type == 'job':
print(story)
# <hackernews.Item: 16925047 - Taplytics (YC W14) is solving hard engineering problems in
# Toronto and hiring>
# ...
# ...
Find Python jobs from monthly who is hiring thread:
# Who is hiring - April 2018
# https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16735011
who_is_hiring = hn.get_item(16735011, expand=True)
for comment in who_is_hiring.kids:
if 'python' in comment.text.lower():
print(comment)
# <hackernews.Item: 16735358 - None>
# <hackernews.Item: 16737152 - None>
# ...
# ...
API Reference
Class: HackerNews
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
version |
string | No | specifies Hacker News API version | v0 |
get_item
Description: Returns Item object
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
item_id |
string/int | Yes | unique item id of Hacker News story, comment etc | None |
expand |
bool | No | flag to indicate whether to transform all IDs into objects | False |
get_items_by_ids
Description: Returns list of Item objects
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
item_ids |
list of string/int | Yes | unique item ids of Hacker News stories, comments etc | None |
item_type |
string | No | item type to filter results with | None |
get_user
Description: Returns User object
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
user_id |
string | Yes | unique user id of a Hacker News user | None |
expand |
bool | No | flag to indicate whether to transform all IDs into objects | False |
get_users_by_ids
Description: Returns list of User objects
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
user_ids |
list of string/int | Yes | unique user ids of Hacker News users | None |
top_stories
Description: Returns list of Item objects of current top stories
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
raw |
bool | No | indicate whether to represent all objects in raw json | False |
limit |
int | No | specifies the number of stories to be returned | None |
new_stories
Description: Returns list of Item objects of current new stories
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
raw |
bool | No | indicate whether to represent all objects in raw json | False |
limit |
int | No | specifies the number of stories to be returned | None |
ask_stories
Description: Returns list of Item objects of latest Ask HN stories
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
raw |
bool | No | indicate whether to represent all objects in raw json | False |
limit |
int | No | specifies the number of stories to be returned | None |
show_stories
Description: Returns list of Item objects of latest Show HN stories
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
raw |
bool | No | indicate whether to represent all objects in raw json | False |
limit |
int | No | specifies the number of stories to be returned | None |
job_stories
Description: Returns list of Item objects of latest Job stories
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
raw |
bool | No | indicate whether to represent all objects in raw json | False |
limit |
int | No | specifies the number of stories to be returned | None |
updates
Description: Returns list of Item and User objects that have been changed/updated recently.
Parameters: N/A
get_max_item
Description: Returns current largest item id or current largest Item object
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
expand |
bool | No | flag to indicate whether to transform ID into object | False |
get_all
Description: Returns all Item objects from HN
Parameters: N/A
get_last
Description: Returns list of num most recent Item objects
Parameters:
| Name | Type | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|---|
num |
int | No | numbr of most recent records to pull from HN | 10 |
Class: Item
From Official HackerNews Item:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| item_id | The item’s unique id. |
| deleted | true if the item is deleted. |
| item_type | The type of item. One of “job”, “story”, “comment”, “poll”, or “pollopt”. |
| by | The username of the item’s author. |
| submission_time | Creation date of the item, in Python datetime. |
| text | The comment, Ask HN, or poll text. HTML. |
| dead | true if the item is dead. |
| parent | The item’s parent. For comments, either another comment or the relevant story. For pollopts, the relevant poll. |
| poll | The ids of poll's. |
| kids | The ids of the item’s comments, in ranked display order. |
| url | The URL of the story. |
| score | The story’s score, or the votes for a pollopt. |
| title | The title of the story or poll. |
| parts | A list of related pollopts, in display order. |
| descendants | In the case of stories or polls, the total comment count. |
| raw | original JSON response. |
Class: User
From Official HackerNews User:
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| user_id | The user’s unique username. Case-sensitive. |
| delay | Delay in minutes between a comment’s creation and its visibility to other users. |
| created | Creation date of the user, in Python datetime. |
| karma | The user’s karma. |
| about | The user’s optional self-description. HTML. |
| submitted | List of the user’s stories, polls and comments. |
| raw | original JSON response. |
Additional properties when expand is used
| Property | Description |
|---|---|
| stories | The user’s submitted stories. |
| comments | The user's submitted comments. |
| jobs | The user's submitted jobs. |
| polls | The user's submitted polls. |
| pollopts | The user's submitted poll options. |
Development
For local development do pip installation of requirements-dev.txt:
pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
Testing
Run the test suite by running:
python setup.py develop
pytest tests
LICENSE
The mighty MIT license. Please check LICENSE for more details.
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