The Googly Advantage

Google’s Provided “Quick Start”

The sample code that Google provides is quite verbose. Here is their provided code from their quickstart for retrieving values from a spreadsheet.

import os.path

from google.auth.transport.requests import Request
from google.oauth2.credentials import Credentials
from google_auth_oauthlib.flow import InstalledAppFlow
from googleapiclient.discovery import build
from googleapiclient.errors import HttpError

# If modifying these scopes, delete the file token.json.
SCOPES = ["https://www.googleapis.com/auth/spreadsheets.readonly"]

# The ID and range of a sample spreadsheet.
SAMPLE_SPREADSHEET_ID = "1BxiMVs0XRA5nFMdKvBdBZjgmUUqptlbs74OgvE2upms"
SAMPLE_RANGE_NAME = "Class Data!A2:E"


def main():
  """Shows basic usage of the Sheets API.
  Prints values from a sample spreadsheet.
  """
  creds = None
  # The file token.json stores the user's access and refresh tokens, and is
  # created automatically when the authorization flow completes for the first
  # time.
  if os.path.exists("token.json"):
    creds = Credentials.from_authorized_user_file("token.json", SCOPES)
  # If there are no (valid) credentials available, let the user log in.
  if not creds or not creds.valid:
    if creds and creds.expired and creds.refresh_token:
      creds.refresh(Request())
    else:
      flow = InstalledAppFlow.from_client_secrets_file(
          "credentials.json", SCOPES
      )
      creds = flow.run_local_server(port=0)
    # Save the credentials for the next run
    with open("token.json", "w") as token:
      token.write(creds.to_json())

  try:
    service = build("sheets", "v4", credentials=creds)

    # Call the Sheets API
    sheet = service.spreadsheets()
    result = (
        sheet.values()
        .get(spreadsheetId=SAMPLE_SPREADSHEET_ID, range=SAMPLE_RANGE_NAME)
        .execute()
    )
    values = result.get("values", [])

    if not values:
      print("No data found.")
      return

    print("Name, Major:")
    for row in values:
      # Print columns A and E, which correspond to indices 0 and 4.
      print(f"{row[0]}, {row[4]}")
  except HttpError as err:
    print(err)


if __name__ == "__main__":
  main()

Much of the code is boilerplate for getting/saving authentication information. The actual call to get values involves a lot of subcomponents.

1. service

2. spreadsheets

3. values

4. get

5. execute

6. get

Equivalent googly Code

from googly import SheetsAPI

# The ID and range of a sample spreadsheet.
SAMPLE_SPREADSHEET_ID = "1BxiMVs0XRA5nFMdKvBdBZjgmUUqptlbs74OgvE2upms"
SAMPLE_RANGE_NAME = "Class Data!A2:E"


def main():
  """Shows basic usage of the Sheets API.
  Prints values from a sample spreadsheet.
  """
  service = SheetsAPI()
  service.set_sheet_id(SAMPLE_SPREADSHEET_ID)
  values = service.get_range(SAMPLE_RANGE_NAME)

  if not values:
    print("No data found.")
    return

  print("Name, Major:")
  for row in values:
    # Print columns A and E, which correspond to indices 0 and 4.
    print(f"{row[0]}, {row[4]}")


if __name__ == "__main__":
  main()

This code is a lot simpler, partially because it makes some assumptions, which we’ll discuss in the next section.