CanvasAPI is a Python library for accessing Instructure’s Canvas LMS API. The library enables developers to programmatically manage Canvas courses, users, gradebooks, and more.
You can install CanvasAPI with pip:
pip install canvasapi
Full documentation is available at Read the Docs.
Getting started with CanvasAPI is easy.
Like most API clients, CanvasAPI exposes a single class that provides access to the rest of the API: Canvas.
The first thing to do is instantiate a new Canvas object by providing your Canvas instance’s root API URL and a valid API key:
# Import the Canvas class
from canvasapi import Canvas
# Canvas API URL
API_URL = "https://example.com"
# Canvas API key
API_KEY = "p@$$w0rd"
# Initialize a new Canvas object
canvas = Canvas(API_URL, API_KEY)You can now use canvas to begin making API calls.
CanvasAPI converts the JSON responses from the Canvas API into Python objects. These objects provide further access to the Canvas API. You can find a full breakdown of the methods these classes provide in our class documentation. Below, you’ll find a few examples of common CanvasAPI use cases.
Courses can be retrieved from the API:
# Grab course 123456
>>> course = canvas.get_course(123456)
# Access the course's name
>>> course.name
'Test Course'
# Update the course's name
>>> course.update(course={'name': 'New Course Name'})See our documentation on keyword arguments for more information about how course.update() handles the name argument.
Individual users can be pulled from the API as well:
# Grab user 123
>>> user = canvas.get_user(123)
# Access the user's name
>>> user.name
'Test User'
# Retrieve a list of courses the user is enrolled in
>>> courses = user.get_courses()
# Grab a different user by their SIS ID
>>> login_id_user = canvas.get_user('some_user', 'sis_login_id')Some calls, like the user.get_courses() call above, will request multiple objects from Canvas’s API. CanvasAPI collects these objects in a PaginatedList object. PaginatedList generally acts like a regular Python list. You can grab an element by index, iterate over it, and take a slice of it.
Warning: PaginatedList lazily loads its elements. Unfortunately, there’s no way to determine the exact number of records Canvas will return without traversing the list fully. This means that PaginatedList isn’t aware of its own length and negative indexing is not currently supported.
Let’s look at how we can use the PaginatedList returned by our get_courses() call:
# Retrieve a list of courses the user is enrolled in
>>> courses = user.get_courses()
>>> print(courses)
<PaginatedList of type Course>
# Access the first element in our list.
#
# You'll notice the first call takes a moment, but the next N-1
# elements (where N = the per_page argument supplied; the default is 10)
# will be instantly accessible.
>>> print(courses[0])
TST101 Test Course (1234567)
# Iterate over our course list
>>> for course in courses:
print(course)
TST101 Test Course 1 (1234567)
TST102 Test Course 2 (1234568)
TST103 Test Course 3 (1234569)
# Take a slice of our course list
>>> courses[:2]
[TST101 Test Course 1 (1234567), TST102 Test Course 2 (1234568)]Most of Canvas’s API endpoints accept a variety of arguments. CanvasAPI allows developers to insert keyword arguments when making calls to endpoints that accept arguments.
# Get all of the active courses a user is currently enrolled in
>>> courses = user.get_courses(enrollment_status='active')
# Fetch 50 objects per page when making calls that return a PaginatedList
>>> courses = user.get_courses(per_page=50)For a more detailed description of how CanvasAPI handles more complex keyword arguments, check out the Keyword Argument Documentation.
Need help? Have an idea? Just want to say hi? Come join us on the UCF Open Slack Channel and join the #canvasapi channel!