path: root/docs/index.rst

Mastodon.py
===========
.. py:module:: mastodon
.. py:class: Mastodon

.. code-block:: python

   from mastodon import Mastodon

   # Register app - only once!
   '''
   Mastodon.create_app(
        'pytooterapp',
        api_base_url = 'https://mastodon.social',
        to_file = 'pytooter_clientcred.secret'
   )
   '''

   # Log in - either every time, or use persisted
   '''
   mastodon = Mastodon(
       client_id = 'pytooter_clientcred.secret',
       api_base_url = 'https://mastodon.social'
   )
   mastodon.log_in(
       '[email protected]',
       'incrediblygoodpassword',
       to_file = 'pytooter_usercred.secret'
   )
   '''

   # Create actual API instance
   mastodon = Mastodon(
       client_id = 'pytooter_clientcred.secret', 
       access_token = 'pytooter_usercred.secret',
       api_base_url = 'https://mastodon.social'
   )
   mastodon.toot('Tooting from python using #mastodonpy !')

`Mastodon`_ is an ostatus based twitter-like federated social 
network node. It has an API that allows you to interact with its 
every aspect. This is a simple python wrapper for that api, provided
as a single python module. By default, it talks to the 
`Mastodon flagship instance`_, but it can be set to talk to any 
node running Mastodon by setting api_base_url when creating the
api object (or creating an app).

Mastodon.py aims to implement the complete public Mastodon API. As
of this time, it is feature complete for Mastodon version 2.0.0.

A note about rate limits
------------------------
Mastodons API rate limits per IP. By default, the limit is 300 requests per 5 minute 
time slot. This can differ from instance to instance and is subject to change.
Mastodon.py has three modes for dealing with rate limiting that you can pass to 
the constructor, "throw", "wait" and "pace", "wait" being the default.

In "throw" mode, Mastodon.py makes no attempt to stick to rate limits. When
a request hits the rate limit, it simply throws a MastodonRateLimitError. This is
for applications that need to handle all rate limiting themselves (i.e. interactive apps), 
or applications wanting to use Mastodon.py in a multi-threaded context ("wait" and "pace" 
modes are not thread safe).

In "wait" mode, once a request hits the rate limit, Mastodon.py will wait until
the rate limit resets and then try again, until the request succeeds or an error
is encountered. This mode is for applications that would rather just not worry about rate limits
much, don't poll the api all that often, and are okay with a call sometimes just taking
a while.

In "pace" mode, Mastodon.py will delay each new request after the first one such that, 
if requests were to continue at the same rate, only a certain fraction (set in the
constructor as ratelimit_pacefactor) of the rate limit will be used up. The fraction can
be (and by default, is) greater than one. If the rate limit is hit, "pace" behaves like
"wait". This mode is probably the most advanced one and allows you to just poll in
a loop without ever sleeping at all yourself. It is for applications that would rather
just pretend there is no such thing as a rate limit and are fine with sometimes not
being very interactive.

A note about pagination
-----------------------
Many of Mastodons API endpoints are paginated. What this means is that if you request
data from them, you might not get all the data at once - instead, you might only get the
first few results.

All endpoints that are paginated have three parameters: since_id, max_id and limit.
since_id allows you to specify the smallest id you want in the returned data. max_id,
similarly, allows you to specify the largest. By specifying either one (generally,
only one, not both) of them you can go through pages forwards and backwards.

limit allows you to specify how many results you would like returned. Note that an
instance may choose to return less results than you requested.

The responses returned by paginated endpoints contain a "link" header that specifies
which parameters to use to get the next and previous pages. Mastodon.py parses these
and stores them (if present) in the first (for the previous page) and last (for the 
next page) item of the returned list as _pagination_prev and _pagination_next.

There are convenience functions available for fetching the previous and next page of
a paginated request as well as for fetching all pages starting from a first page.

A note about IDs
----------------
Mastodons API uses IDs in several places: User IDs, Toot IDs, ...

While debugging, it might be tempting to copy-paste in IDs from the
web interface into your code. This will not work, as the IDs on the web
interface and in the URLs are not the same as the IDs used internally
in the API, so don't do that.

Error handling
--------------
When Mastodon.py encounters an error, it will raise an exception, generally with
some text included to tell you what went wrong. 

The base class that all mastodon exceptions inherit from is the MastodonError
class. If you are only interested in the fact an error was raised somewhere in
Mastodon.py, and not the details, this is the exception you can catch.

MastodonIllegalArgumentError is generally a programming problem - you asked the 
API to do something obviously invalid (i.e. specify a privacy scope that does
not exist).

MastodonFileNotFoundError and MastodonNetworkError are IO errors - could be you
specified a wrong URL, could be the internet is down or your hard drive is
dying. They inherit from MastodonIOError, for easy catching.

MastodonAPIError is an error returned from the Mastodon instance - the server
has decided it can't fullfill your request (i.e. you requested info on a user that
does not exist).

MastodonRatelimitError is raised when you hit an API rate limit. You should try 
again after a while (see the rate limiting section above).

Return values
-------------
Unless otherwise specified, all data is returned as python dictionaries, matching 
the JSON format used by the API. Dates returned by the API are in ISO 8601 format
and are parsed into python datetime objects.

User dicts
~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.account(<numerical id>)
    # Returns the following dictionary:
    {
        'id': # Same as <numerical id>
        'username': # The username (what you @ them with)
        'acct': # The user's account name as username@domain (@domain omitted for local users)
        'display_name': # The user's display name
        'locked': # Denotes whether the account can be followed without a follow request
        'created_at': # Account creation time
        'following_count': # How many people they follow
        'followers_count': # How many followers they have
        'statuses_count': # How many statuses they have
        'note': # Their bio
        'url': # Their URL; usually 'https://mastodon.social/users/<acct>'
        'avatar': # URL for their avatar, can be animated
        'header': # URL for their header image, can be animated
        'avatar_static': # URL for their avatar, never animated
        'header_static': # URL for their header image, never animated
    }

Toot dicts
~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.toot("Hello from Python")
    # Returns the following dictionary:
    {
        'id': # Numerical id of this toot
        'uri': # Descriptor for the toot
            # EG 'tag:mastodon.social,2016-11-25:objectId=<id>:objectType=Status'
        'url': # URL of the toot
        'account': # Account dict for the account which posted the status
        'in_reply_to_id': # Numerical id of the toot this toot is in response to
        'in_reply_to_account_id': # Numerical id of the account this toot is in response to
        'reblog': # Denotes whether the toot is a reblog
        'content': # Content of the toot, as HTML: '<p>Hello from Python</p>'
        'created_at': # Creation time
        'reblogs_count': # Number of reblogs
        'favourites_count': # Number of favourites
        'reblogged': # Denotes whether the logged in user has boosted this toot
        'favourited': # Denotes whether the logged in user has favourited this toot
        'sensitive': # Denotes whether media attachments to the toot are marked sensitive
        'spoiler_text': # Warning text that should be displayed before the toot content
        'visibility': # Toot visibility ('public', 'unlisted', 'private', or 'direct')
        'mentions': # A list of users dicts mentioned in the toot, as Mention dicts
        'media_attachments': # A list of media dicts of attached files
        'emojis': # A list of custom emojis used in the toot, as Emoji dicts
        'tags': # A list of hashtag used in the toot, as Hashtag dicts
        'application': # Application dict for the client used to post the toot
        'language': # The language of the toot, if specified by the server.
        'muted': # Boolean denoting whether the user has muted this status by way of conversation muting
    }

Mention dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    {
        'url': # Mentioned users profile URL (potentially remote)
        'username': # Mentioned users user name (not including domain)
        'acct': # Mentioned users account name (including domain)
        'id': # Mentioned users (local) account ID
    }
    
Hashtag dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    {
        'name': # Hashtag name (not including the #)
        'url': # Hashtag URL (can be remote)
    }
  
Emoji dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    {
        'shortcode': # Emoji shortcode, without surrounding colons
        'url': # URL for the emoji image, can be animated 
        'static_url': # URL for the emoji image, never animated
    }
    
Relationship dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.account_follow(<numerical id>)
    # Returns the following dictionary:
    {
        'id': # Numerical id (same one as <numerical id>)
        'following': # Boolean denoting whether the logged-in user follows the specified user
        'followed_by': # Boolean denoting whether the specified user follows the logged-in user
        'blocking': # Boolean denoting whether the logged-in user has blocked the specified user
        'muting': # Boolean denoting whether the logged-in user has muted the specified user
        'requested': # Boolean denoting whether the logged-in user has sent the specified user a follow request
        'domain_blocking': # Boolean denoting whether the logged-in user has blocked the specified users domain
    }

Notification dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.notifications()[0]
    # Returns the following dictionary:
    {
        'id': # id of the notification.
        'type': # "mention", "reblog", "favourite" or "follow".
        'created_at': # The time the notification was created.
        'account': # User dict of the user from whom the notification originates.
        'status': # In case of "mention", the mentioning status. 
                  # In case of reblog / favourite, the reblogged / favourited status.
    }

Context dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.status_context(<numerical id>)
    # Returns the following dictionary:
    {
        'ancestors': # A list of toot dicts
        'descendants': # A list of toot dicts
    }

Media dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.media_post("image.jpg", "image/jpeg")
    # Returns the following dictionary:
    {
        'id': # The ID of the attachment.
        'type': # Media type: 'image', 'video', 'gifv' or 'unknown'.
        'url': # The URL for the image in the local cache
        'remote_url': # The remote URL for the media (if the image is from a remote instance)
        'preview_url': # The URL for the media preview
        'text_url': # The display text for the media (what shows up in toots)
        'meta': # Dictionary of two image metadata dicts (see below), 'original' and 'small' (preview)
    }
    
    # Metadata dicts:
    {
       'width': # Width of the image in pixels
       'height': # Height of the image in pixels
       'aspect': # Aspect ratio of the image as a floating point number
       'size': # Textual representation of the image size in pixels, e.g. '800x600'
    }
    
Card dicts
~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.status_card(<numerical id>):
    # Returns the folowing dictionary
    {
        'url': # The URL of the card.
        'title': # The title of the card.
        'description': # The description of the card.
        'type': # Embed type: 'link', 'photo', 'video', or 'rich'
        'image': # (optional) The image associated with the card.
        
        # OEmbed data (all optional):
        'author_name': # Name of the embedded contents author
        'author_url': # URL pointing to the embedded contents author
        'description': # Description of the embedded content
        'width': # Width of the embedded object
        'height': # Height of the embedded object
        'html': # HTML string of the embed
        'provider_name': # Name of the provider from which the embed originates
        'provider_url': # URL pointing to the embeds provider
    }

Instance dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.instance()
    # Returns the folowing dictionary
    {
        'description': # A brief instance description set by the admin
        'email': # The admin contact e-mail
        'title': # The instances title
        'uri': # The instances URL
        'version': # The instances mastodon version
        'urls': # Additional URLs dict, presently only 'streaming_api' with the stream websocket address.
    }

Report dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.reports()[0]
    # Returns the folowing dictionary
    {
        'id': # Numerical id of the report
        'action_taken': # True if a moderator or admin has processed the
                        # report, False otherwise. Note that no indication as to what action was taken is given
                        # and that an admin simply marking the report as processed and not doing anything else
                        # will set this field to True.
    }
    
App registration and user authentication
----------------------------------------
Before you can use the mastodon API, you have to register your 
application (which gets you a client key and client secret) 
and then log in (which gets you an access token). These functions 
allow you to do those things.
For convenience, once you have a client id, secret and access token, 
you can simply pass them to the constructor of the class, too!

Note that while it is perfectly reasonable to log back in whenever 
your app starts, registering a new application on every 
startup is not, so don't do that - instead, register an application 
once, and then persist your client id and secret. A convenient method
for this is provided by the functions dealing with registering the app,
logging in and the Mastodon classes constructor.

To talk to an instance different from the flagship instance, specify
the api_base_url (usually, just the URL of the instance, i.e. 
https://mastodon.social/ for the flagship instance). If no protocol
is specified, Mastodon.py defaults to https.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.create_app
.. automethod:: Mastodon.__init__
.. automethod:: Mastodon.log_in
.. automethod:: Mastodon.auth_request_url

Reading data: Instances
-----------------------
This function allows you to fetch information associated with the
current instance.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.instance

Reading data: Timelines
-----------------------
This function allows you to access the timelines a logged in
user could see, as well as hashtag timelines and the public timeline.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline
.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline_home
.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline_local
.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline_public
.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline_hashtag

Reading data: Statuses
----------------------
These functions allow you to get information about single statuses.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.status
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_context
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_reblogged_by
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_favourited_by
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_card

Reading data: Notifications
---------------------------
This function allows you to get information about a users notifications.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.notifications

Reading data: Accounts
----------------------
These functions allow you to get information about accounts and
their relationships.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.account
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_verify_credentials
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_statuses
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_following
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_followers
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_relationships
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_search

Reading data: Follows
---------------------

.. automethod:: Mastodon.follows

Reading data: Favourites
------------------------

.. automethod:: Mastodon.favourites

Reading data: Follow requests
-----------------------------

.. automethod:: Mastodon.follow_requests

Reading data: Searching
-----------------------

.. automethod:: Mastodon.search


Reading data: Mutes and blocks
------------------------------
These functions allow you to get information about accounts that are
muted or blocked by the logged in user.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.mutes
.. automethod:: Mastodon.blocks

Reading data: Reports
------------------------------

.. automethod:: Mastodon.reports

Reading data: Domain blocks
---------------------------

.. automethod:: Mastodon.domain_blocks

Writing data: Statuses
----------------------
These functions allow you to post statuses to Mastodon and to
interact with already posted statuses.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_post
.. automethod:: Mastodon.toot
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_reblog
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_unreblog
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_favourite
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_unfavourite
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_mute
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_unmute
.. automethod:: Mastodon.status_delete

Writing data: Notifications
---------------------------
These functions allow you to clear all or some notifications.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.notifications_clear
.. automethod:: Mastodon.notifications_dismiss

Writing data: Accounts
----------------------
These functions allow you to interact with other accounts: To (un)follow and
(un)block.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_follow
.. automethod:: Mastodon.follows
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_unfollow
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_block
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_unblock
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_mute
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_unmute
.. automethod:: Mastodon.account_update_credentials

Writing data: Follow requests
-----------------------------
These functions allow you to accept or reject incoming follow requests.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.follow_request_authorize
.. automethod:: Mastodon.follow_request_reject

Writing data: Media
-------------------
This function allows you to upload media to Mastodon. The returned
media IDs (Up to 4 at the same time) can then be used with post_status
to attach media to statuses.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.media_post

Writing data: Reports
---------------------

.. automethod:: Mastodon.report

Writing data: Domain blocks
---------------------------
These functions allow you to block and unblock all statuses from a domain
for the logged-in user.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.domain_block
.. automethod:: Mastodon.domain_unblock

Pagination
----------
These functions allow for convenient retrieval of paginated data.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.fetch_next
.. automethod:: Mastodon.fetch_previous
.. automethod:: Mastodon.fetch_remaining

Streaming
---------
These functions allow access to the streaming API.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.user_stream
.. automethod:: Mastodon.public_stream
.. automethod:: Mastodon.hashtag_stream


.. _Mastodon: https://github.com/tootsuite/mastodon
.. _Mastodon flagship instance: http://mastodon.social/
.. _Mastodon api docs: https://github.com/tootsuite/documentation/