Download a spreadsheet from Google Docs using Python

Question

Can you produce a Python example of how to download a Google Docs spreadsheet given its key and worksheet ID (gid)? I can't.

I've scoured versions 1, 2 and 3 of the API. I'm having no luck, I can't figure out their compilcated ATOM-like feeds API, the gdata.docs.service.DocsService._DownloadFile private method says that I'm unauthorized, and I don't want to write an entire Google Login authentication system myself. I'm about to stab myself in the face due to frustration.

I have a few spreadsheets and I want to access them like so:

username = 'mygooglelogin@gmail.com'
password = getpass.getpass()

def get_spreadsheet(key, gid=0):
    ... (help!) ...

for row in get_spreadsheet('5a3c7f7dcee4b4f'):
    cell1, cell2, cell3 = row
    ...

Please save my face.

---

Update 1: I've tried the following, but no combination of Download() or Export() seems to work. (Docs for DocsService here)

import gdata.docs.service
import getpass
import os
import tempfile
import csv

def get_csv(file_path):
  return csv.reader(file(file_path).readlines())

def get_spreadsheet(key, gid=0):
  gd_client = gdata.docs.service.DocsService()
  gd_client.email = 'xxxxxxxxx@gmail.com'
  gd_client.password = getpass.getpass()
  gd_client.ssl = False
  gd_client.source = "My Fancy Spreadsheet Downloader"
  gd_client.ProgrammaticLogin()

  file_path = tempfile.mktemp(suffix='.csv')
  uri = 'http://docs.google.com/feeds/documents/private/full/%s' % key
  try:
    entry = gd_client.GetDocumentListEntry(uri)

    # XXXX - The following dies with RequestError "Unauthorized"
    gd_client.Download(entry, file_path)

    return get_csv(file_path)
  finally:
    try:
      os.remove(file_path)
    except OSError:
      pass

Answer 1

The https://github.com/burnash/gspread library is a newer, simpler way to interact with Google Spreadsheets, rather than the old answers to this that suggest the gdata library which is not only too low-level, but is also overly-complicated.

You will also need to create and download (in JSON format) a Service Account key: https://console.developers.google.com/apis/credentials/serviceaccountkey

Here's an example of how to use it:

import csv
import gspread
from oauth2client.service_account import ServiceAccountCredentials

scope = ['https://spreadsheets.google.com/feeds']
credentials = ServiceAccountCredentials.from_json_keyfile_name('credentials.json', scope)

docid = "0zjVQXjJixf-SdGpLKnJtcmQhNjVUTk1hNTRpc0x5b9c"

client = gspread.authorize(credentials)
spreadsheet = client.open_by_key(docid)
for i, worksheet in enumerate(spreadsheet.worksheets()):
    filename = docid + '-worksheet' + str(i) + '.csv'
    with open(filename, 'wb') as f:
        writer = csv.writer(f)
        writer.writerows(worksheet.get_all_values())