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 ActivityPub and 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 2.2.0.

A note about rate limits
------------------------
Mastodons API rate limits per user account. 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.

In addition to the per-user limit, there is a per-IP limit of 7500 requests per 5 
minute time slot, and tighter limits on logins. Mastodon.py does not make any effort
to respect these.

If your application requires many hits to endpoints that are available without logging
in, do consider using Mastodon.py without authenticating to get the full per-IP limit. In
this case, you can set the Mastodon objects `ratelimit_limit` and `ratelimit_remaining`
properties appropriately if you want to use advanced rate limit handling.

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.

Two notes 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.

ID unpacking
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Wherever Mastodon.py expects an ID as a parameter, you can also pass a
dict that contains an id - this means that, for example, instead of writing 

.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.status_post("@somebody wow!", in_reply_to_id = toot["id"])
    
you can also just write

.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.status_post("@somebody wow!", in_reply_to_id = toot)
    
and everything will work as intended.

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 `MastodonError`. 
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 option 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).

`MastodonVersionError` is raised when a version check for an API call fails.

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.

To make access easier, the dictionaries returned are wrapped by a class that adds
read-only attributes for all dict values - this means that, for example, instead of
writing

.. code-block:: python

    description = mastodon.account_verify_credentials()["source"]["note"]
    
you can also just write

.. code-block:: python

    description = mastodon.account_verify_credentials().source.note
    
and everything will work as intended.


User dicts
~~~~~~~~~~
.. _user dict:

.. 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
        'source': # Additional information - only present for user dict returned 
                  # from account_verify_credentials()
        'moved_to_account': # If set, an account dict of the account this user has
                            # set up as their moved-to address.
    }

    mastodon.account_verify_credentials()["source"]
    # Returns the following dictionary:
    {
        'privacy': # The users default visibility setting ("private", "unlisted" or "public")
        'sensitive': # Denotes whether user media should be marked sensitive by default
        'note': # Plain text version of the users bio
    }
    
Toot dicts
~~~~~~~~~~
.. _toot dict:

.. 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': # User 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. If so, set to the original toot dict.
        '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 (Does not federate
                       # and is therefore always None for remote toots, can also be None for
                       # local toots for some legacy applications).
        '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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _mention dict:

.. 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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _hashtag dict:

.. code-block:: python

    {
        'name': # Hashtag name (not including the #)
        'url': # Hashtag URL (can be remote)
    }
  
Emoji dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _emoji dict:

.. 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
    }
 
Application dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 .. _application dict:
 
.. code-block:: python

    {
        'name': # The applications name
        'website': # The applications website
    }
 
 
Relationship dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _relationship dict:

.. 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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _notification dict:

.. 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
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _context dict:

.. code-block:: python

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

List dicts
~~~~~~~~~~
.. _list dict:

.. code-block:: python
    
    mastodon.list(<numerical id>)
    # Returns the following dictionary:
    {
        'id': # id of the list
        'title': # title of the list
    }
    
Media dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _media dict:

.. 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). Either may be empty.
                # May additionally contain an "fps" field giving a videos frames per second (possibly
                # rounded), and a "length" field giving a videos length in a human-readable format.
                # Note that a video may have an image as preview.
    }
    
    # Metadata dicts (image) - all fields are optional:
    {
       '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'
    }
    
    # Metadata dicts (video, gifv) - all fields are optional:
    {
        'width': # Width of the video in pixels
        'heigh': # Height of the video in pixels
        'frame_rate': # Exact frame rate of the video in frames per second
        'duration': # Duration of the video in seconds
        'bitrate': # Average bit-rate of the video in bytes per second
    }
Card dicts
~~~~~~~~~~
.. _card dict:

.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.status_card(<numerical id>):
    # Returns the following 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
    }

Search result dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _search result dict:

.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.search("<query>")
    # Returns the following dictionary
    {
        'accounts': # List of account dicts resulting from the query
        'hashtags': # List of hashtag dicts resulting from the query
        'statuses': # List of toot dicts resulting from the query
    }    
    
Instance dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _instance dict:

.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.instance()
    # Returns the following 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.
        'contact_account': # Account dict of the primary contact for the instance.
        'languages': # Array of ISO 6391 language codes the instance has chosen to advertise.
    }

Activity dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _activity dict:

.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.instance_activity()[0]
    # Returns the following dictionary
    {
        'week': # Date of the first day of the week the stats were collected for
        'logins': # Number of users that logged in that week
        'registrations': # Number of new users that week
        'statuses': # Number of statuses posted that week
    }    
    
Report dicts
~~~~~~~~~~~~
.. _report dict:

.. code-block:: python

    mastodon.reports()[0]
    # Returns the following 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__
.. _log_in():
.. automethod:: Mastodon.log_in
.. automethod:: Mastodon.auth_request_url

Versioning
----------
Mastodon.py will check if a certain endpoint is available before doing API
calls. By default, it checks against the version of Mastodon retrieved on
init(), or the version you specified. Mastodon.py can be set (in the 
constructor) to either check if an endpoint is available at all (this is the 
default) or to check if the endpoint is available and behaves as in the newest 
Mastodon version (with regards to parameters as well as return values). 
Version checking can also be disabled altogether. If a version check fails, 
Mastodon.py throws a `MastodonVersionError`.

With the following functions, you can make Mastodon.py re-check the server 
version or explicitly determine if a specific minimum Version is available.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.retrieve_mastodon_version
.. automethod:: Mastodon.verify_minimum_version

Reading data: Instances
-----------------------
These functions allow you to fetch information associated with the
current instance.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.instance
.. automethod:: Mastodon.instance_activity
.. automethod:: Mastodon.instance_peers

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.

.. _timeline():
.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline
.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline_home
.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline_local
.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline_public
.. _timeline_hashtag():
.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline_hashtag
.. automethod:: Mastodon.timeline_list

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: Lists
-------------------
These functions allow you to view information about lists.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.lists
.. automethod:: Mastodon.list
.. automethod:: Mastodon.list_accounts

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

Reading data: Emoji
-------------------

.. automethod:: Mastodon.custom_emojis

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

.. _status_post():
.. 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: Lists
-------------------
These functions allow you to create, maintain and delete lists.

When creating lists, note that a user can only
have a maximum of 50 lists.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.list_create
.. automethod:: Mastodon.list_update
.. automethod:: Mastodon.list_delete
.. automethod:: Mastodon.list_accounts_add
.. automethod:: Mastodon.list_accounts_delete

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.

.. _media_post():

.. 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.

If `async` is False, these  methods block forever (or until an error is encountered).

If `async` is True, the listener will listen on another thread and these methods
will return a handle corresponding to the open connection. If, in addition, `async_reconnect` is True,
the thread will attempt to reconnect to the streaming API if any errors are encountered, waiting
`async_reconnect_wait_sec` seconds between reconnection attempts. Note that no effort is made
to "catch up" - events created while the connection is broken will not be received. If you need to make
sure to get absolutely all notifications / deletes / toots, you will have to do that manually.

The connection may be closed at any time by calling the handles close() method. The 
current status of the handler thread can be checked with the handles is_alive() function,
and the streaming status can be checked by calling is_receiving().

The streaming functions take instances of `StreamListener` as the `listener` parameter.
A `CallbackStreamListener` class that allows you to specify function callbacks 
directly is included for convenience.

When in not-async mode or async mode without async_reconnect, the stream functions may raise
various exceptions: `MastodonMalformedEventError` if a received event cannot be parsed and
`MastodonNetworkError` if any connection problems occur.

.. automethod:: Mastodon.stream_user
.. automethod:: Mastodon.stream_public
.. automethod:: Mastodon.stream_local
.. automethod:: Mastodon.stream_hashtag
.. automethod:: Mastodon.stream_list

StreamListener
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

.. autoclass:: StreamListener
.. automethod:: StreamListener.on_update
.. automethod:: StreamListener.on_notification
.. automethod:: StreamListener.on_delete
.. automethod:: StreamListener.handle_heartbeat

CallbackStreamListener
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

.. autoclass:: CallbackStreamListener

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

Acknowledgements
----------------
Mastodon.py contains work by a large amount of contributors, many of which have
put significant work into making it a better library. You can find some information
about who helped with which particular feature or fix in the changelog.