Python Quickstart

Complete the steps described in the rest of this page, and in about five minutes you'll have a simple Python command-line application that makes requests to the Google Apps Script Execution API.

Prerequisites

To run this quickstart, you'll need:

Python 2.6 or greater.
The pip package management tool.
Access to the internet and a web browser.
A Google account with Google Drive enabled.
A target Apps Script to call with the API.

Step 1: Turn on the Google Apps Script Execution API

Open your target Apps Script in the editor and select Resources > Developers Console Project.
In the dialog that opens, click on the blue link (that starts with your script's name) at the top to open the console project associated with your script.
The left sidebar should say API Manager. If it does not, click the icon in the upper-left to open a side panel and select API Manager. Select Overview in the left sidebar.
In the search bar under the Google APIs tab, enter "Google Apps Script Execution API". Click the same name in the list that appears. In the new tab that opens, click Enable API.
Click Credentials in the left sidebar.
Select the Credentials tab, click the Create credentials button and select OAuth client ID.
Select the application type Other, enter the name "Google Apps Script Execution API Quickstart", and click the Create button.
Click OK to dismiss the resulting dialog.
Click the file_download (Download JSON) button to the right of the client ID.
Move this file to your working directory and rename it client_secret.json.

Step 2: Install the Google Client Library

Run the following command to install the library using pip:

pip install --upgrade google-api-python-client

See the library's installation page for the alternative installation options.

Step 3: Set up the sample

Create a file named quickstart.py in your working directory and copy in the following code:


from __future__ import print_function
import httplib2
import os

from apiclient import discovery
from oauth2client import client
from oauth2client import tools
from oauth2client.file import Storage

from apiclient import errors

try:
    import argparse
    flags = argparse.ArgumentParser(parents=[tools.argparser]).parse_args()
except ImportError:
    flags = None

# If modifying these scopes, delete your previously saved credentials
# at ~/.credentials/script-python-quickstart.json
SCOPES = 'https://www.googleapis.com/auth/drive'
CLIENT_SECRET_FILE = 'client_secret.json'
APPLICATION_NAME = 'Google Apps Script Execution API Python Quickstart'


def get_credentials():
    """Gets valid user credentials from storage.

    If nothing has been stored, or if the stored credentials are invalid,
    the OAuth2 flow is completed to obtain the new credentials.

    Returns:
        Credentials, the obtained credential.
    """
    home_dir = os.path.expanduser('~')
    credential_dir = os.path.join(home_dir, '.credentials')
    if not os.path.exists(credential_dir):
        os.makedirs(credential_dir)
    credential_path = os.path.join(credential_dir,
                                   'script-python-quickstart.json')

    store = Storage(credential_path)
    credentials = store.get()
    if not credentials or credentials.invalid:
        flow = client.flow_from_clientsecrets(CLIENT_SECRET_FILE, SCOPES)
        flow.user_agent = APPLICATION_NAME
        if flags:
            credentials = tools.run_flow(flow, store, flags)
        else: # Needed only for compatibility with Python 2.6
            credentials = tools.run(flow, store)
        print('Storing credentials to ' + credential_path)
    return credentials

def main():
    """Shows basic usage of the Apps Script Execution API.

    Creates a Apps Script Execution API service object and uses it to call an
    Apps Script function to print out a list of folders in the user's root
    directory.
    """
    SCRIPT_ID = 'ENTER_YOUR_SCRIPT_ID_HERE'

    # Authorize and create a service object.
    credentials = get_credentials()
    http = credentials.authorize(httplib2.Http())
    service = discovery.build('script', 'v1', http=http)

    # Create an execution request object.
    request = {"function": "getFoldersUnderRoot"}

    try:
        # Make the API request.
        response = service.scripts().run(body=request,
                scriptId=SCRIPT_ID).execute()

        if 'error' in response:
            # The API executed, but the script returned an error.

            # Extract the first (and only) set of error details. The values of
            # this object are the script's 'errorMessage' and 'errorType', and
            # an list of stack trace elements.
            error = response['error']['details'][0]
            print("Script error message: {0}".format(error['errorMessage']))

            if 'scriptStackTraceElements' in error:
                # There may not be a stacktrace if the script didn't start
                # executing.
                print("Script error stacktrace:")
                for trace in error['scriptStackTraceElements']:
                    print("\t{0}: {1}".format(trace['function'],
                        trace['lineNumber']))
        else:
            # The structure of the result will depend upon what the Apps Script
            # function returns. Here, the function returns an Apps Script Object
            # with String keys and values, and so the result is treated as a
            # Python dictionary (folderSet).
            folderSet = response['response'].get('result', {})
            if not folderSet:
                print('No folders returned!')
            else:
                print('Folders under your root folder:')
                for (folderId, folder) in folderSet.iteritems():
                    print("\t{0} ({1})".format(folder, folderId))

    except errors.HttpError as e:
        # The API encountered a problem before the script started executing.
        print(e.content)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    main()

Be sure to also replace the placeholder ENTER_YOUR_SCRIPT_ID_HERE with the script ID of your target script.

Step 4: Run the sample

Run the sample using the following command:

python quickstart.py

The sample will attempt to open a new window or tab in your default browser. If this fails, copy the URL from the console and manually open it in your browser.
If you are not already logged into your Google account, you will be prompted to log in. If you are logged into multiple Google accounts, you will be asked to select one account to use for the authorization.
Click the Accept button.
The sample will proceed automatically, and you may close the window/tab.

Notes

Authorization information is stored on the file system, so subsequent executions will not prompt for authorization.
The authorization flow in this example is designed for a command-line application. For information on how to perform authorization in a web application, see Using OAuth 2.0 for Web Server Applications.

Troubleshooting

AttributeError: 'Module_six_moves_urllib_parse' object has no attribute 'urlparse'

This error can occur in Mac OSX where the default installation of the "six" module (a dependency of this library) is loaded before the one that pip installed. To fix the issue, add pip's install location to the PYTHONPATH system environment variable:

Determine pip's install location with the following command:
```
pip show six | grep "Location:" | cut -d " " -f2
```
Add the following line to your ~/.bashrc file, replacing <pip_install_path> with the value determined above:
```
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:<pip_install_path>
```
Reload your ~/.bashrc file in any open terminal windows using the following command:
```
source ~/.bashrc
```

TypeError: sequence item 0: expected str instance, bytes found

This error is due to a bug in httplib2, and upgrading to the latest version should resolve it:

pip install --upgrade httplib2