Reddit Scraper Code using Python & Reddit API

July 27, 2021 by Ajitesh Kumar · Leave a comment
Reddit app client id and secret token

In this post, you will get Python code sample using which you can search Reddit for specific subreddit posts including hot posts. Reddit API is used in the Python code. This code will be helpful if you quickly want to scrape Reddit for popular posts in the field of machine learning (subreddit –  r/machinelearning), data science (subreddit – r/datascience), deep learning (subreddit – r/deeplearning) etc.  

There will be two steps to be followed to scrape Reddit for popular posts in any specific subreddits.

  • Python code for authentication and authorization
  • Python code for retrieving the popular posts

Check the Reddit API documentation page to learn about Reddit APIs.

Python code for Authentication / Authorization

Here is the code you would need to use for authenticating and authorization purposes. Here are the key steps:

  • Open an account in the reddit. The username and password will be used with login method having grant type as password.
  • Create an app by visiting the app page. Select the option script if you want to invoke the app from the Python script

    Create reddit developer application
  • Note the CLIENT_ID (as personal use script) and SECRET_TOKEN (as secret) in the image depicted with yellow color.

    Reddit app client id and secret token
  • With above steps done, you are all set. Paste this code in your Jupyter notebook and execute to get the token which will be used to retrieve the subreddits popular posts.
import requests
 
# note that CLIENT_ID refers to 'personal use script' and SECRET_TOKEN to 'token'
auth = requests.auth.HTTPBasicAuth('qfK5a5tkC-bkV3adVR5d2w', 'AX01I3U9WQ4eSkGfK67kk4AEgkIKbM')
 
# here we pass our login method (password), username, and password
data = {'grant_type': 'password',
        'username': 'vitalflux',
        'password': 'vitalflux'}
 
# setup our header info, which gives reddit a brief description of our app
headers = {'User-Agent': 'vitalflux-pybot/0.0.1'}
 
# send our request for an OAuth token
res = requests.post('https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/access_token',
                    auth=auth, data=data, headers=headers)
 
# convert response to JSON and pull access_token value
TOKEN = res.json()['access_token']
 
# add authorization to our headers dictionary
headers = {**headers, **{'Authorization': f"bearer {TOKEN}"}}

Python code for retrieving the popular posts

  • Paste the following code to retrieve the popular (hot) posts for specific subreddit. In the code below, the subreddit, deeplearning is used. Make a note of params which is used to limit the number of posts which need to be retrieved. In the example below, the limit is set to 10.
params = {'limit' : 10}
res = requests.get("https://oauth.reddit.com/r/deeplearning/hot",
                   headers=headers,
                   params=params)
 
for post in res.json()['data']['children']:
  print('\n=========================================================================================================', 
        '\nTitle: ', post['data']['title'], 
        '\nUps: ', post['data']['ups'], ' -- Upvote ratio: ', post['data']['upvote_ratio'], 
        '\nText: ', post['data']['selftext'])

The following is what gets printed.

Python code for retrieving the popular posts

Putting it all together

Here is the entire Python code which can be used to retrieve the subreddit’s popular posts. Ensure to put your own username/password and, client id/secret token

import requests
 
# note that CLIENT_ID refers to 'personal use script' and SECRET_TOKEN to 'token'
auth = requests.auth.HTTPBasicAuth('qfK5a5tkC-bkV3adVR5d2w', 'AX01I3U9WQ4eSkGfK67kk4AEgkIKbM')
 
# here we pass our login method (password), username, and password
data = {'grant_type': 'password',
        'username': 'vitalflux',
        'password': 'vitalflux'}
 
# setup our header info, which gives reddit a brief description of our app
headers = {'User-Agent': 'vitalflux-pybot/0.0.1'}
 
# send our request for an OAuth token
res = requests.post('https://www.reddit.com/api/v1/access_token',
                    auth=auth, data=data, headers=headers)
 
# convert response to JSON and pull access_token value
TOKEN = res.json()['access_token']
 
# add authorization to our headers dictionary
headers = {**headers, **{'Authorization': f"bearer {TOKEN}"}}

# Print the subreddit popular posts
params = {'limit' : 10}
res = requests.get("https://oauth.reddit.com/r/deeplearning/hot",
                   headers=headers,
                   params=params)
 
for post in res.json()['data']['children']:
  print('\n=========================================================================================================', 
        '\nTitle: ', post['data']['title'], 
        '\nUps: ', post['data']['ups'], ' -- Upvote ratio: ', post['data']['upvote_ratio'], 
        '\nText: ', post['data']['selftext'])
Ajitesh Kumar
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Ajitesh Kumar

I have been recently working in the area of Data analytics including Data Science and Machine Learning / Deep Learning. I am also passionate about different technologies including programming languages such as Java/JEE, Javascript, Python, R, Julia, etc, and technologies such as Blockchain, mobile computing, cloud-native technologies, application security, cloud computing platforms, big data, etc. I would love to connect with you on Linkedin. Check out my latest book titled as First Principles Thinking: Building winning products using first principles thinking.
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