yaledirectory

Unofficial Python interface for the undocumented Yale Directory API.

Note

This package is probably not the right tool for your project.

While it is rigorously designed to provide the cleanest possible interface to the Yale Directory API, that platform has unavoidable limitations. Interaction requires two authenticating tokens to be pulled through browser developer tools, and because these tokens handle short-term CAS logins, they must be manually re-fetched every few days. This means that long term authentication cannot be maintained without frustrating manual work.

Beyond the practical challenges of establishing a long term interface with the Directory, the data contained within is often spotty, duplicated, poorly formatted, and difficult to query effectively. Searching is also difficult because results are limited to 25 people at a time and cannot be paginated.

It is thus highly recommended that applications wishing to access Yale identity data make use of the Yalies API instead. Yalies is a student-run platform, providing clean data drawn from multiple Yale sources. Data can be queried through a flexible and thoughtfully-designed API that allows long term authentication via a formal key that won't expire. To learn more and get a key, see the API documentation. An official Python wrapper for the API can be found here (GitHub).

Setup

First, install the module:

pip3 install yaledirectory

Then, to use these functions, you must import the module:

import yaledirectory

Before using the library, you must instantiate its class, for example:

# "api" may be replaced by whatever name is appropriate for your application.
api = yaledirectory.API(people_search_session_cookie, csrf_token)

The parameters people_search_session_cookie and csrf_token can be found by using your browser's developer tools while logged into the directory to read the cookie called _people_search_session and the header called X-CSRF-Token from a request to the directory website. This allows for the API wrapper to simulate authentication.

Use

• api.people(): fetch a list of all people matching given parameters.
• api.person(): return the top match for the given query.

The parameters for these methods are the same:

• search_term: pass this parameter to perform a general search across all fields. If you do not pass search_term, a search will be performed using the other provided fields.
• address
• department
• email
• first_name
• last_name
• netid
• phone
• upi
• college
• school

Examples

# Fetch a list of everyone matching the search_term Dylan.
# Note: search_term is assumed to be the first parameter.
dylans = api.people('Dylan')
# Get single user, by netid
erik = api.person(netid='ekb33')
# Get people with the first name Josh in Grace Hopper in Yale College
joshes_in_hopper = api.people(first_name='Josh', college='GH', school='YC')
# Get people named John in the Public Health department
public_health_johns = api.people(search_term='John', department='Public Health')

See example.py for further usage examples.

Author

Erik Boesen

License

GPL