Introducing the AerisWeather Python SDK

May 21

It’s an exciting time to be working in the loft studios of AerisWeather development. The powerful AerisWeather Mapping Platform has become a leading weather map service. Our radar coverage has expanded to new areas of the globe like Australia and South Korea. WeatherBlox, the service that enables web devs to easily add weather content to their sites are always adding new “blox”. We’re constantly pushing updates to the iOS and Android toolkits to keep them up to date with the fast-moving mobile scene.

Here at AerisWeather we sometimes say “the weather never sleeps”, and for the toolkit team that means there are always more ways to help our customers utilize the weather data they need. So without further adieu, we’re very excited to introduce the newest member of the toolkit lineup: The AerisWeather Python SDK!

Hello Python, Welcome to the AerisWeather Family!

The AerisWeather Python SDK is the latest coding toolkit from AerisWeather. As with all of our toolkits, the goal is to make it easier to get weather data from our API into your project. While working towards that goal with the Python SDK, we did our best to also make it as “Pythonic” as possible. A couple of our favorite concepts of Python (from the Zen of Python
– PEP20) are:

Simple is better than complex.
Readability counts.
If the implementation is hard to explain, it’s a bad idea.

Requirements

Python v3.6 or higher
An active AerisWeather API subscription

Don’t have an active AerisWeather API client account? You can sign up for a free developer trial.

Simple is Better Than Complex

Let’s check out an example using the AerisWeather Python library. In the following code snippet, we’ll create an aerisweather object and do a simple observations request:

    from aerisweather.aerisweather import AerisWeather
    from aerisweather.requests.RequestLocation import RequestLocation
    from keys import client_id, client_secret, app_id

    # instantiate our aerisweather object
    aeris = AerisWeather(client_id=client_id, client_secret=client_secret, app_id=app_id)

    # create a RequestLocation object to be used with any endpoint requests
    loc = RequestLocation(city="minneapolis", state="mn")    

    # create a simple observations request with no options
    obs_list = aeris.observations(location=loc)

    for obs in obs_list:
        # get the AerisPlace responses object
        place = obs.place

        # get the observations data object
        ob = obs.ob

        # get some observations data
        tempF = ob.tempF
        weather = ob.weather

        print("Simple Observations Request Example:")
        print("The current weather for " + place.name + ", " + place.state + ":")
        print("Conditions are currently " + weather + " with a temp of " + str(tempF) + "°F")

from aerisweather.aerisweather import AerisWeather

from aerisweather.requests.RequestLocation import RequestLocation

from keys import client_id, client_secret, app_id

# instantiate our aerisweather object

aeris = AerisWeather(client_id=client_id, client_secret=client_secret, app_id=app_id)

# create a RequestLocation object to be used with any endpoint requests

loc = RequestLocation(city="minneapolis", state="mn")

# create a simple observations request with no options

obs_list = aeris.observations(location=loc)

for obs in obs_list:

# get the AerisPlace responses object

place = obs.place

# get the observations data object

ob = obs.ob

# get some observations data

tempF = ob.tempF

weather = ob.weather

print("Simple Observations Request Example:")

print("The current weather for " + place.name + ", " + place.state + ":")

print("Conditions are currently " + weather + " with a temp of " + str(tempF) + "°F")

Easy, right? That’s all there is to it! Here’s a little more complex request, this time it’s to the forecasts endpoint with some optimization so that we only receive the data we need from the API:

    from aerisweather.aerisweather import AerisWeather
    from aerisweather.requests.ParameterType import ParameterType
    from aerisweather.requests.RequestLocation import RequestLocation
    from aerisweather.requests.RequestAction import RequestAction
    from aerisweather.requests.RequestFilter import RequestFilter
    from keys import client_id, client_secret, app_id


    # instantiate our aerisweather object
    aeris = AerisWeather(client_id=client_id, client_secret=client_secret, app_id=app_id)

    # Let's create a new RequestLocation, this time using a postal code
    loc = RequestLocation(postal_code="55124")

    # we'll limit the fields returned by the API too, to just the ones we need for our example
    forecast_list = aeris.forecasts(location=loc,
                                    params={ParameterType.FORECASTS.FIELDS: "periods.isDay, periods.maxTempF, periods.minTempF, periods.weather"})

    for forecast in forecast_list:
        # check to see if this is a day or night forecast
        if forecast.periods[0].isDay:
            day = forecast.periods[0]
            night = forecast.periods[1]
        else:
            day = forecast.periods[1]
            night = forecast.periods[0]
        
        print("Forecast Example:")
        print("Today expect " + day.weather + " with a high temp of " + str(day.maxTempF) + "°")
        print("Tonight will be " + night.weather + " with a low temp of " + str(night.minTempF) + "°")

from aerisweather.aerisweather import AerisWeather

from aerisweather.requests.ParameterType import ParameterType

from aerisweather.requests.RequestLocation import RequestLocation

from aerisweather.requests.RequestAction import RequestAction

from aerisweather.requests.RequestFilter import RequestFilter

from keys import client_id, client_secret, app_id

# instantiate our aerisweather object

aeris = AerisWeather(client_id=client_id, client_secret=client_secret, app_id=app_id)

# Let's create a new RequestLocation, this time using a postal code

loc = RequestLocation(postal_code="55124")

# we'll limit the fields returned by the API too, to just the ones we need for our example

forecast_list = aeris.forecasts(location=loc,

params={ParameterType.FORECASTS.FIELDS: "periods.isDay, periods.maxTempF, periods.minTempF, periods.weather"})

for forecast in forecast_list:

# check to see if this is a day or night forecast

if forecast.periods[0].isDay:

day = forecast.periods[0]

night = forecast.periods[1]

else:

day = forecast.periods[1]

night = forecast.periods[0]

print("Forecast Example:")

print("Today expect " + day.weather + " with a high temp of " + str(day.maxTempF) + "°")

print("Tonight will be " + night.weather + " with a low temp of " + str(night.minTempF) + "°")

Of course, these are just simple examples, so for more details and real-life examples check out the AerisWeather Python SDK homepage. There you’ll find information on how to set up your project, a walkthrough of the basic concepts and lots more. We have topics that cover doing custom data requests, batch requests and examples of it all.

Thanks for checking out the AerisWeather Python SDK. We hope you find it useful, and enjoy using it as much as we enjoyed creating it!

The AerisWeather Python Team

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Posted by sshie at 2:35 pm