py-ipfs-api

Check out the client API reference for the full command reference.

Important: The py-ipfs-api PIP package and Python module have both been renamed to ipfsapi (no dash, lower-case a).
The legacy ipfs-api/ipfsApi package/module will only work for IPFS 0.3.x and Python 2 and is deprecated. Please upgrade!

Note: This library constantly has to change to stay compatible with the IPFS HTTP API. Currently, this library is tested against go-ipfs v0.4.10. You may experience compatibility issues when attempting to use it with other versions of go-ipfs.

Table of Contents

• Install
• Usage
• Documentation
  • Important changes from ipfsApi 0.2.x
• Featured Projects
• Contribute
  • IRC
  • Bug reports
  • Pull requests
• License

Install

Install with pip:

pip install ipfsapi

Usage

Basic use-case (requires a running instance of IPFS daemon):

>>> import ipfsapi
>>> api = ipfsapi.connect('127.0.0.1', 5001)
>>> res = api.add('test.txt')
>>> res
{'Hash': 'QmWxS5aNTFEc9XbMX1ASvLET1zrqEaTssqt33rVZQCQb22', 'Name': 'test.txt'}
>>> api.cat(res['Hash'])
'fdsafkljdskafjaksdjf\n'

Administrative functions:

>>> api.id()
{'Addresses': ['/ip4/127.0.0.1/tcp/4001/ipfs/QmS2C4MjZsv2iP1UDMMLCYqJ4WeJw8n3vXx1VKxW1UbqHS',
               '/ip6/::1/tcp/4001/ipfs/QmS2C4MjZsv2iP1UDMMLCYqJ4WeJw8n3vXx1VKxW1UbqHS'],
 'AgentVersion': 'go-ipfs/0.4.10',
 'ID': 'QmS2C4MjZsv2iP1UDMMLCYqJ4WeJw8n3vXx1VKxW1UbqHS',
 'ProtocolVersion': 'ipfs/0.1.0',
 'PublicKey': 'CAASpgIwgg ... 3FcjAgMBAAE='}

Pass in API options:

>>> api.pin_ls(type='all')
{'Keys': {'QmNMELyizsfFdNZW3yKTi1SE2pErifwDTXx6vvQBfwcJbU': {'Count': 1,
                                                             'Type': 'indirect'},
          'QmNQ1h6o1xJARvYzwmySPsuv9L5XfzS4WTvJSTAWwYRSd8': {'Count': 1,
                                                             'Type': 'indirect'},
          …

Add a directory and match against a filename pattern:

>>> api.add('photos', match='*.jpg')
[{'Hash': 'QmcqBstfu5AWpXUqbucwimmWdJbu89qqYmE3WXVktvaXhX',
  'Name': 'photos/photo1.jpg'},
 {'Hash': 'QmSbmgg7kYwkSNzGLvWELnw1KthvTAMszN5TNg3XQ799Fu',
  'Name': 'photos/photo2.jpg'},
 {'Hash': 'Qma6K85PJ8dN3qWjxgsDNaMjWjTNy8ygUWXH2kfoq9bVxH',
  'Name': 'photos/photo3.jpg'}]

Or add a directory recursively:

>>> api.add('fake_dir', recursive=True)
[{'Hash': 'QmQcCtMgLVwvMQGu6mvsRYLjwqrZJcYtH4mboM9urWW9vX',
  'Name': 'fake_dir/fsdfgh'},
 {'Hash': 'QmNuvmuFeeWWpxjCQwLkHshr8iqhGLWXFzSGzafBeawTTZ',
  'Name': 'fake_dir/test2/llllg'},
 {'Hash': 'QmX1dd5DtkgoiYRKaPQPTCtXArUu4jEZ62rJBUcd5WhxAZ',
  'Name': 'fake_dir/test2'},
 {'Hash': 'Qmenzb5J4fR9c69BbpbBhPTSp2Snjthu2hKPWGPPJUHb9M',
  'Name': 'fake_dir'}]

This module also contains some helper functions for adding strings and JSON to IPFS:

>>> lst = [1, 77, 'lol']
>>> client.add_json(lst)
'QmQ4R5cCUYBWiJpNL7mFe4LDrwD6qBr5Re17BoRAY9VNpd'
>>> client.get_json(_)
[1, 77, 'lol']

Documentation

Documentation (currently mostly API documentation unfortunately) is available on IPFS:

https://ipfs.io/ipns/QmZ86ow1byeyhNRJEatWxGPJKcnQKG7s51MtbHdxxUddTH/Software/Python/ipfsapi/

The ipfs command-line Client documentation may also be useful in some cases.

Important changes from ipfsApi 0.2.x

• The Python package has been renamed from ipfsApi to ipfsapi
• The PIP module has been renamed from ipfs-api to ipfsapi (please update your requirement files)
• A lot of changes in the internal code
  • Commands have been completely removed
  • Usage of requests or other libraries is considered an implementation detail from now on
• Most parts of the library (except for Client()) are now considered internal and may therefore break at any time (reference)
  • We will try to keep breakage for these modules at a minimum
  • If you require stabilisation of some feature please open an issue with the feature in question and your preceived use-case
• Raised exceptions have been completely changed and are now documented with guaranteed backwards compatibility (reference)
• The new ipfsapi.connect() function allows creating a Client instance, while also checking whether a compatible IPFS daemon instance is actually available
• Methods in Client() now have parameters for options

Featured Projects

Projects that currently use py-ipfs-api. If your project isn't here, feel free to submit a PR to add it!

• git-remote-ipfs allows users to push and pull git repositories from the IPFS network.
• InterPlanetary Wayback interfaces web archive (WARC) files for distributed indexing and replay using IPFS.

Contribute

IRC

Join us on IRC at #ipfs on chat.freenode.net if you have any suggestions or questions, or if you just want to discuss IPFS and python.

Bug reports

You can submit bug reports using the GitHub issue tracker.

Pull requests

Pull requests are welcome. Before submitting a new pull request, please make sure that your code passes both the code formatting check:

$ tox -e codestyle

And the unit tests:

$ tox

You can arrange to run the code style tests automatically before each commit by installing a pre-commit hook:

$ ./tools/pre-commit --install

Please make sure to include new unit tests for new features or changes in behavior.

License

This code is distributed under the terms of the MIT license. Details can be found in the file LICENSE in this repository.