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Connecting to Google Sheets with Python

tinaja.computer

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Re: Connecting to Google Sheets with Python

#2
A couple weeks ago I helped my nephew with a project he was working on using gspread. I haven't programmed in Python in years but was able to make it all go in an hour or so of poking at the gspread docs. It's pretty neat. I've often thought spreadsheets should be more commonly used as the UI for software. Lots of business folks have a good grasp of spreadsheets, but not of programmer-y or database concepts. I dunno how I'd integrate spreadsheets into anything I'm working on, but if I were doing enterprisey stuff, I'd be trying to make it fit.

Re: Connecting to Google Sheets with Python

#4
post #2

A couple weeks ago I helped my nephew with a project he was working on using gspread. I haven't programmed in Python in years but was able to make it all go in an hour or so of poking at the gspread docs. It's pretty neat. I've often thought spreadsheets should be more commonly used as the UI for software. Lots of business folks have a good grasp of spreadsheets, but not of programmer-y or database concepts. I dunno…

That’s funny you say that. One of my pet projects was using google sheets to control SSH access with non-techies. It worked surprisingly well.

https://github.com/stephen-mw/gdoc_ssh_manager/blob/test/REA...

Re: Connecting to Google Sheets with Python

#5
In addition to the popular gspread project, there is a port that uses api v4 here: https://github.com/nithinmurali/pygsheets

Since v4 was substantially different from v3, it's (almost) a complete rewrite and unfortunately still not as stable as gspread.

Anyone here writing some interesting code using the GoogleDocs APIs?

While this (https://digitalinspiration.com/google-addons) is interesting, I would like to see some client code (preferably Python!)

Also of interest:

https://sheetsu.com

Re: Connecting to Google Sheets with Python

#7
This seems useful. Google spreadsheets are pretty universal, easy for non-technical folks to update and have zero infrastructure and cost.

However, don't try to create a full fledged (or even read only) rest API against a Google spreadsheet. I did, and I wasn't pretty:

http://www.mooreds.com/wordpress/archives/1359

Re: Connecting to Google Sheets with Python

#9

Combine this with Multicorn and Postgres and you can query Google Spreadsheets from your database

Excuse my ignorance on FDWs but how does this work with respect to DB constraints? For example, if a postgres column is supposed to be a date, but it's not a properly formatted date, does it throw an error at query time? Or is everything treated as a varchar/text?

Re: Connecting to Google Sheets with Python

#10
We used to use the excellent Xero for our accounts, but it couldn't handle international business (exchange rates, different tax regimes etc)well. So we rolled our own system of python scripts and Google sheets.

The python scripts use gspread to import and process bank data from eight accounts around the world. Summary sheets pull that data together into real-time profit and loss, position statements, and tax summaries.

It's easily shared with our accountant, who can add a sheet to do some custom analysis at the drop of a hat. Our annual report takes about an hour to prepare, and sheets mimicking tax forms make filing tax returns simple.

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