Canvas API Caller

Canvas API Caller is a small library that utilizes the Instructure Canvas API GET requests.

Installation Guide

1. execute pip install canvas-api-caller or add canvas-api-caller to your requirements.txt file.
2. Add an environment variable named CANVAS_BASE_URL with the url of the full canvas API, such as https://mycompany.test.instructure.com/api/v1/.

Code Examples

General Example

The below code shows the general use of this library. BEARER_ACCESS_TOKEN is the access token expected by Canvas to authenticate and identify yourself to their API. CANVAS_ENDPOINT is used to call the endpoint you want to use. PARAM_OBJECT_OF_KEY_VALUES are used to pass parameters through to the Canvas API, as some endpoints require additional parameters such as student_id.

import canvas_api_caller as canvas

def main():
    return canvas.call('{BEARER_ACCESS_TOKEN}', '{CANVAS_ENDPOINT}', '{PARAM_OBJECT_OF_KEY_VALUES}')

HTTP wrapper with Flask

The below code decides the canvas_api_caller call parameters through HTTP values.

A custom HTTP header called X-Canvas-Authorization is used in the example below to pass the BEARER_ACCESS_TOKEN of Canvas. A Query Parameter called endpoint is used to access the CANVAS_ENDPOINT of canvas. All other Query Parameters passed through will be used for the PARAM_OBJECT_OF_KEY_VALUES.

Required packages:

• Flask
• Werkzeug

import canvas_api_caller as canvas
from flask import Flask, jsonify, request, json
from werkzeug.datastructures import MultiDict

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/canvas_api', methods=['GET'])
def canvas_api():
    return canvas.http(request)

CORS Origin

When required to adjust your headers for purposes such as CORS, you can additionally add your custom headers. When working with custom headers, make sure to have Access-Control-Allow-Headers specifiek and atleast X-Canvas-Authorization allowed.

import canvas_api_caller as canvas
from flask import Flask, jsonify, request, json
from werkzeug.datastructures import MultiDict

app = Flask(__name__)

@app.route('/canvas_api', methods=['GET'])
def canvas_api():
    # Allows GET requests from any origin with the Content-Type
    # header and caches preflight response for an 3600s
    headers = {
        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*',
        'Access-Control-Allow-Methods': '*',
        'Access-Control-Allow-Headers': 'X-Canvas-Authorization'
    }

    return canvas.http(request, headers)