PRAW (Python Reddit API Wrapper) is a Python module that provides a simple access to Reddit’s API. PRAW is easy to use and follows all of Reddit’s API rules.
The documentation regarding PRAW is located here.
- Basic Python Programming Skills
- Basic Reddit Knowledge : Reddit is a network of communities based on people’s interests. Each of these communities is called a subreddit. Users can subscribe to multiple subreddits to post, comment and interact with them.
- A Reddit Account
To install PRAW, we run the following pip
script on the terminal / command prompt.
pip install praw
After installing PRAW, we need to import it:
import praw |
After importing PRAW, we need to instantiate it. There are 2 types of PRAW instances:
- Read-only Instance: With read-only instance we can only retrieve public information from Reddit. Information like top 10 posts from a certain subreddit. We can’t post material from this.
- Authorized Instance: With authorised instance we can do whatever a normal reddit account can do. Actions like comment, post, repost, upvote etc. can be performed.
Creating a read-only instance:
reddit = praw.Reddit(client_id = 'my client id' , client_secret = 'my client secret' , user_agent = 'my user agent' ) # to verify whether the instance is read-only instance or not print (reddit.read_only) |
Output:
True
Creating an authorized instance:
reddit = praw.Reddit(client_id = 'my client id' , client_secret = 'my client secret' , user_agent = 'my user agent' , username = 'my username' , password = 'my password' ) # to verify whether the instance is authorised instance or not print (reddit.read_only) |
Output:
False
To switch back to read-only mode:
reddit.read_only = True |
Now let us see some of the operations we can acheive using PRAW:
- Access a Subreddit: In reddit there are multiple communities known as subreddits. We can obtain a subreddit instance using the method
subreddit
.subreddit
=
reddit.subreddit(
'GRE'
)
# display the subreddit name
print
(subreddit.display_name)
# display the subreddit title
print
(subreddit.title)
# display the subreddit description
print
(subreddit.description)
chevron_rightfilter_noneOutput :
GRE GRE #/r/GRE This subreddit is for discussion of the GRE (Graduate Record Examination). If you're studying for the GRE, or can help people who are studying for the GRE, you're in the right place! ----- #Rules - You must read and follow the rules! https://www.reddit.com/r/gre/about/rules -----
- Access a Submission: Within a subreddit there are multiple post submissions. We can iterate through the submissions in the submission instance. Reddit provides us multiple ways to sort submissions:
- rising
- new
- hot
- gilded
- controversial
- top
These methods will return a ListingGenerator, therefore we will need to iterate through it.
# to find the top most submission in the subreddit "GRE"
subreddit
=
reddit.subreddit(
'GRE'
)
for
submission
in
subreddit.top(limit
=
1
):
# displays the submission title
print
(submission.title)
# displays the net upvotes of the submission
print
(submission.score)
# displays the submission's ID
print
(submission.
id
)
# displays the url of the submission
print
(submission.url)
chevron_rightfilter_noneOutput:
me irl 483 de58vq https://i.redd.it/0mqck4323yq31.png
- Access a Redditor: In Reddit, the user is called a Redditor. We can obtain the redditor instance using the method
redditor
. In the method we pass the username of the redditor.# let the redditor be "AutoModerator"
redditor
=
reddit.redditor(
'AutoModerator'
)
# display AutoModerator's karma
print
(redditor.link_karma)
chevron_rightfilter_noneOutput:
6554
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