Convio Web Services in Python and PHP

nick — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 17:42:20 +0000

Expanding on my last post about being able to successfully connect to Convio Web Services in three lines, I’d like to get a little more in depth and actually construct the necessary SOAP headers and make a simple call. I’ve written a small PHP implementation as well. I was able to make a successful log in to CWS in just 2 lines of PHP code!

Now, as far as CWS goes, Python and PHP may not instantly be an obvious choice as far as languages go, mainly because they are both largely scripting languages. CWS is mainly for robust data syncing operations and those tasks generally go to languages like Java or C#, however, I’m a high level language guy, so I go with what I know. Also, Python and PHP both make SOAP exceedingly easy to work with, so there’s no real reason why you can’t, with a bit of discipline, write a perfectly excellent and robust data sync operation in either of these languages … especially Python.

So, here are my examples. They are exceedingly simple and easy once again. The Python example leverages suds once again and the PHP example is using PHP’s pretty impressive built in SOAP library. Each example shows you how to create the SOAP client using the Convio WSDL, make a successful log in to CWS, create a valid session header for subsequent calls, and how to make a call that grabs the number of constituents that have been added to the Convio database.

If you find either of these examples helpful, please let me know! Keep in mind these are just functional examples. There is no proper error handling or any sort of architecture here; they are just some bare bones examples on how to get data from CWS.

Python

from suds.client import Client
 
# Load the WSDL                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
client = Client('https://secureX.convio.net/1.0/CLIENT/wsdl')
 
# Log in to CWS                                                                                                                                                                                                                                
login = client.service.Login('apiadmin', 'password')
 
# Set the session header                                                                                                                                                                                                                       
session = client.factory.create('Session')
session.SessionId = login.SessionId
client.set_options(soapheaders=session)
 
# Get the number of constituents added since last sync                                                                                                                                                                                         
data = dict(PartitionId=1001, RecordType='Constituent', PageSize=1)
response = client.service.GetIncrementalInsertsCount(**data);
 
# Show the number of constituents added                                                                                                                                                                                                        
print '%d constituents have been added since the last sync.' % (int(response.RecordCount))

PHP

// Load the WSDL                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
$client = new SoapClient('https://secureX.convio.net/1.0/CLIENT/wsdl');
 
// Log in to CWS                                                                                                                                                                                                                               
$login = $client->Login(array('UserName'=>'apiadmin', 'Password'=>'password'));
 
// Set the session header                                                                                                                                                                                                                      
$headerBody = array('SessionId'=>$login->Result->SessionId);
$header     = new SoapHeader('urn:soap.convio.com', 'Session', $headerBody);
$client->__setSoapHeaders($header);
 
// Get the number of constituents added since last sync                                                                                                                                                                                        
$data = array
(
    'PartitionId' => 1001,
    'RecordType'  => 'Constituent',
    'PageSize'    => 1
);
$response = $client->GetIncrementalInsertsCount($data);
 
// Show the number of constituents added                                                                                                                                                                                                       
print(sprintf("%d constituents have been added since the last sync\n", (int) $response->Result->RecordCount));

Log In to Convio Web Services with three lines of Python

nick — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:16:04 +0000

I was on the look out for a good SOAP library for Python now that I am the new Convio “API Guy.”

In my search I discovered this library:

Suds

To test it out I tried making successful connection to Convio Web Services.

1
2
3

from suds.client import Client
client = Client('https://secureX.convio.net/1.0/CLIENT/wsdl')
result = client.service.Login('apiadmin', 'password')

Boom. Straight in, no fuss no muss. Pretty impressive. I’m going to play with Suds and CWS a bit more to see if there is actually a robust Python based syncing application that can be made here. I’m led to believe Suds is not great for creating SOAP servers, but it makes for a very “Pythonic” and easy to understand way to create a SOAP client.

su.percilio.us » python

Convio Web Services in Python and PHP

Log In to Convio Web Services with three lines of Python