Many years ago, before I really understood how to work with APIs or anything like that, I wrote this because I wanted to keep more detailed records of my music collection and what I was missing from it, and because I thought it would be a good learning experience. I wrote a separate library for oAuth v1 because it’s what Discogs used at the time (I have no idea if they still do), and you can practically see the dust on these old bits of code. I don’t know if they still work, and I look at the code and documentation with a mix of nostalgia and embarrassment, but they worked at the time and served their purpose. The original readme for this library, warts and all, is reproduced below:

discogsPy3

Library for using the discogs API with Python requires oauth1forpy3

Creating the (optionally authenticated) connection to discogs:

  1. Create an instance of the Client object:
    • You must have a user agent, preferably following RFC 1945
    • If you are searching or using user information you must also included the consumer key and secret 
      d = discogsPy3.Client(user_agent,consumer_key,consumer_secret) # Consumer key and secret are optional
    1. If you already have an access key and secret:
      • Client.set_access_token(your key,your secret)
    2. Else
      • call Client.set_access_token() and it will use the consumer key and secret to acquire them
      • (if you want to then get the access token and secret for further use, call .access_token and .access_token_secret) 
        >>d.set_access_token() 
>> d.access_token
your access token
>> d.access_token_secret
your access token secret

        Accessing discogs info

        There are objects for:

        • Artists
        • Releases
        • Master Releases

Artists

To get an artist by their site id:

fot = d.artist_by_id(381567)`

To get an artist by their name:

dep = d.artist_by_name("the dillinger escape plan")

Once you have an artist, you can access their information like normal attributes:

>>> thrice.name
'Thrice'
>>> thrice.id
261347
>>> thrice.profile
'American rock band from Irvine, California, formed in 1998. Following their spring 2012 tour, the band went on hiatus.'

To retrieve their releases, as Release objects, call the releases() method:

>>> tsosis_releases = tsosis.releases()
>>> for release in tsosis_releases:
	print(str(release.year) + " - " + release.title)
	
2009 - Blue Version
2010 - Red Version

To retrieve their members, as Artist objects, call the member_list() method:

[member.name for member in destinys_child.member_list()]
['Beyoncé Knowles', 'Farrah Franklin', 'Kelly Rowland', 'Latavia Roberson', 'Letoya Luckett', 'Michelle Williams']

To retrieve groups they’ve performed in, as Artist objects, call the group_list() method:

[group.name for group in chris_pennie.group_list()]
['Coheed And Cambria', 'Dillinger Escape Plan, The']

A list of Artist properties and methods:

  • name - the artist’s/band’s name
  • profile - a description of the artist
  • urls - a list of the artist’s web pages
  • releases() - a list of the artist’s releases as Release objects
  • members - a list comprised of a dictionary of info for each member
  • member_list() - a list of Artist objects for each member
  • groups - a list comprised of a dictionary of info for each group the artist has performed with
  • member_list() - a list of Artist objects for each group the artist has performed with
  • namevariations - variations of the artist’s name
  • images - a list comprised of a dictionary of info for each image associated with the artist
  • data - A dictionary of the information provided by discogs.com
  • id - The artist id on discogs.com
  • resource_url - where the discogs.com info can be found

Releases

To get a release by site id:

first_temple = d.release_by_id(2692576)

Once you have a release, you can access its information like normal attributes:

>>> CLPPNG.title
'CLPPNG'
>>> CLPPNG.year
2014
>>> CLPPNG.genres
['Electronic', 'Hip Hop']

To retrieve the artist, as an Artist object, call the artist() method:

>>> clipping = CLPPNG.artist()
>>> clipping.name
'Clipping.'

To retrieve a list of artists as Artist objects (in case multiple worked on a release), call artist_list() instead:

>>> cfop_artists = cfop.artist_list()
>>> for artist in cfop_artists:
	print(artist.name)

By The End Of Tonight
Tera Melos

A list of Release properties and methods:

  • title - the title of the release
  • year - the year of the title’s release
  • styles - the style of the release
  • genres - the genre of the release
  • notes - information about the release
  • tracklist - a list of one dictionary per track on the release
  • artist_list() - A list of artists on the release, as Artist objects
  • artist() - The first (or sometimes only) artist on a release, as an Artist object; mostly a shortcut
  • label_list - A list of labels the release was released under, as Label objects
    • data - A dictionary of the information provided by discogs.com
  • id - The artist id on discogs.com
  • resource_url - where the discogs.com info can be found

Labels

A list of Label properties and methods:

  • name - the label’s name
  • profile - a description of the label
  • contact_info - the label’s contact info
  • urls - a list of the label’s web pages
  • releases() - a list of the label’s releases as Release objects
  • images - a list comprised of a dictionary of info for each image associated with the artist
  • data - A dictionary of the information provided by discogs.com
  • id - The label id on discogs.com
  • resource_url - where the discogs.com info can be found