The cartodb-python project is a Python client for:

• CartoDB's SQL API with authentication using OAuth or API key.
• CartoDB's Import API with authentication using API key.

You can install cartodb-python by cloning this repository or by using Pip, a Python package installer similar to easy_install:

pip install cartodb

Or if you want to use the development version (currently the only one that supports the Import API):

pip install -e git+git://github.com/CartoDB/cartodb-python.git#egg=cartodb

You might need to install cartodb's dependencies as well:

pip install -r requirements.txt

The following example requires your CartoDB API consumer key and consumer secret or the API key. Refer to the CartoDB documentation for details.

from cartodb import CartoDBOAuth, CartoDBException

user =  'me@mail.com'
password =  'secret'
CONSUMER_KEY='YOUR_CARTODB_CONSUMER_KEY'
CONSUMER_SECRET='YOUR_CARTODB_CONSUMER_SECRET'
cartodb_domain = 'YOUR_CARTODB_DOMAIN'
cl = CartoDBOAuth(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET, user, password, cartodb_domain)
try:
    print(cl.sql('select * from mytable'))
except CartoDBException as e:
    print("some error ocurred", e)

You can get you API key in https://YOUR_USER.cartodb.com/your_apps

from cartodb import CartoDBAPIKey, CartoDBException

API_KEY ='YOUR_CARTODB_API_KEY'
cartodb_domain = 'YOUR_CARTODB_DOMAIN'
cl = CartoDBAPIKey(API_KEY, cartodb_domain)
try:
   print(cl.sql('select * from mytable'))
except CartoDBException as e:
   print("some error ocurred", e)

The following example requires your CartoDB API key. Refer to the CartoDB documentation for details.

You can import a file into CartoDB like this:

from cartodb import CartoDBAPIKey, CartoDBException, FileImport

API_KEY ='YOUR_CARTODB_API_KEY'
cartodb_domain = 'YOUR_CARTODB_DOMAIN'
cl = CartoDBAPIKey(API_KEY, cartodb_domain)

fi = FileImport("test.csv", cl)
fi.run()

You can also import a dataset from a remote URL:

from cartodb import URLImport

fi = URLImport("http://acdmy.org/d/counties.zip", cl)
fi.run()

At this point, fi.success indicates whether the initial upload was successful or not.

You can get all the pending imports:

from cartodb import ImportManager

im = ImportManager(cl)
import_list = im.all(ids_only=False)

Or just one:

im = ImportManager(cl)
single_import = im.get("afaab071-dc95-4bda-a772-ea37f8729157")

You can update the attributes of an import job any time (like for checking if an import has finished):

single_import.update()

Object attributes correspond to those defined by the API. In particular, state is useful to know when the import is finished:

while im.state != "complete" and im.state != "failure":
    time.sleep(10)
    im.update()

Please refer to the source code for API reference documentation.

With the new API key auth now you have two options to authenticate so the class CartoDB has been replaced with CartoDBOAuth and CartoDBAPIKey.

In order to migrate your code to this version you have to replace

from cartodb import CartoDB

by

from cartodb import CartoDBOAuth as CartoDB

Clone the repo, create a secret.py from secret.py.example, fill the variables and execute:

python setup.py test