resn

resn (REdis Social Network) is a simple library to create social networks. It provides a backend for data models using Redis, supporting friends, followers, updates and a news feed out of the box. You can use it with any web framework like Django, Flask, Pylons etc. For examples see the file tests.py.

Requires:

• Latest version of redis-py
• Latest version of redis_wrap

Author: Vivek Narayanan mail@vivekn.co.cc

License: BSD, see LICENSE for more info.

Installation

First install redis_py and redis_wrap if you haven't already:

$ easy_install redis
$ easy_install resis_wrap

Then install resn:

$ easy_install resn

Setting up

To use resn, import the module resn and add this to the beginning of the file.

from resn import *
setup_system('default', host, port, **kwargs) # host and port of your redis server, default is localhost:6379, kwargs is optional for username/pass etc based on redis-py

There are a couple of other settings you might want to change.

resn_settings['Feed Size'] = 100 # default value = 1000,  No of messages in a user's feed.
resn_settings['Token Validity'] = 72 * 3600 # This is the default value in seconds

API Reference

Users and Friends

create_user(id_attr, **kwargs):
    """
    Creates a new user with attributes specified as keyword arguments

    'id_attr' is the name of the attribute that will uniquely identify the user.
    """
   
get_numeric_user_id(username)

delete_user(user):
    """ Deletes the user and removes all friendships """
   
get_user_by_id(user_id):
    """Returns an editable dictionary like wrapper of a user by numeric id"""
    
get_user(user):
    """
    Returns an editable dictionary like wrapper based on the attribute set in 'id_attr'
    """
  
create_connection_by_ids(user1, user2):
    """Creates a 'friendship' between two users. Uses internal numeric ids"""
   

delete_connection_by_ids(user1, user2):
    """Deletes a 'friendship' between two users. Uses internal numeric ids"""
    

create_connection(user1, user2):
    """Creates a 'friendship' between two users, parameters are the values of the 'id_attr' set in 'create_user'"""
   
    
delete_connection(user1, user2):
    """Deletes a 'friendship' between two users, parameters are the values of the 'id_attr' set in 'create_user'"""
  
get_friend_list(user):
    """Returns a list of the user's friends"""

Followers and Following

follow_by_ids(follower, followee):
    """Creates an asymmetric connection between two users. Uses internal numeric ids"""

follow(follower, followee):
    """Creates an asymmetric connection between two users. """

unfollow_by_ids(follower, followee):
    """Deletes an asymmetric connection between two users. Uses internal numeric ids"""

    
unfollow(follower, followee):
    """Deletes an asymmetric connection between two users. """

get_followers_list(user):
    """Returns a list of the user's followers"""
  
get_following_list(user):
    """Returns a list of the users the user is following"""

Updates and Feed

new_update(username, **update):
    """Creates a new update object and pushes the update to the feeds of the user's friends and followers."""
  
    
delete_update(update_id):
    """Deletes a particular update"""
    

get_updates_from_list(feed):
    """ Retrieve updates from their ids """
   

get_feed(username, limit = 1000):
    """Returns the feed containing updates by friends"""
   

get_user_updates(username, limit = 1000):
    """Returns a list of updates by the user. Useful for generating a user profile."""

Authentication

check_password(username, password, password_field = 'password'):
    """
    password_field is the name of the field in 'create_user' that represents the password.
    It is advisable to store and check against a hash of the password rather than the password itself.
    """


login_user(username):
    """Call this function after check_password passes. It generates an auth token that can be stored in a cookie to store a user session."""
    token = generate_auth_token()"""
   

logout_user(username):
    """Clears the auth tokens."""
    
validate_token(token):
    """ Validates the token stored in a cookie """

Accessing Redis

You can access redis by calling get_redis(), which returns redis-py 's Redis object through which you can use all redis commands in the form of:

get_redis().command(arguments)

Future

Support for integrating with Facebook and Twitter APIs is planned.