This version of the Box Python SDK is under maintenance mode, and will be deprecated soon, only critical security updates and bug fixes will be provided. We recommend using the new version Box Python SDK, which can be found at box/box-python-sdk-gen
You can find the migration guide here for transitioning from Box Python SDK v3.x to the new box-sdk-gen package. If you have any questions, please create an issue in the new repository or reach out to Box Developer Support.
Getting Started Docs: https://developer.box.com/guides/tooling/sdks/python/
- Installing
- Getting Started
- Authorization
- Usage Documentation
- Other Client Options
- Customization
- FIPS 140-2 Compliance
- Versions
- Contributing
- Questions, Bugs, and Feature Requests?
- Copyright and License
pip install boxsdkThe current version of the SDK is v3.x --- With this release support for Python 3.5 and earlier (including 2.x) has been dropped. if you're looking for the code or documentation for v1.5.x, please see the 1.5 branch.
To get started with the SDK, get a Developer Token from the Configuration page of your app in the Box Developer Console. You can use this token to make test calls for your own Box account.
The SDK provides an interactive DevelopmentClient that makes it easy
to test out the SDK in a REPL. This client will automatically prompt for
a new Developer Token when it requires one, and will log HTTP requests
and responses to aid in debugging and understanding how the SDK makes
API calls.
>>> from boxsdk import DevelopmentClient
>>> client = DevelopmentClient()
Enter developer token: <ENTER DEVELOPER TOKEN HERE>
>>> user = client.user().get()
GET https://api.box.com/2.0/users/me {'headers': {'Authorization': '---wXyZ',
'User-Agent': 'box-python-sdk-2.0.0',
'X-Box-UA': 'agent=box-python-sdk/2.0.0; env=python/3.6.5'},
'params': None}
"GET https://api.box.com/2.0/users/me" 200 454
{'Date': 'Thu, 01 Nov 2018 23:32:11 GMT', 'Content-Type': 'application/json', 'Transfer-Encoding': 'chunked', 'Connection': 'keep-alive', 'Strict-Transport-Security': 'max-age=31536000', 'Cache-Control': 'no-cache, no-store', 'Content-Encoding': 'gzip', 'Vary': 'Accept-Encoding', 'BOX-REQUEST-ID': '0b50luc09ahp56m2jmkla8mgmh2', 'Age': '0'}
{'address': '',
'avatar_url': 'https://cloud.app.box.com/api/avatar/large/123456789',
'created_at': '2012-06-07T11:14:50-07:00',
'id': '123456789',
'job_title': '',
'language': 'en',
'login': 'user@example.com',
'max_upload_size': 16106127360,
'modified_at': '2018-10-30T17:01:27-07:00',
'name': 'Example User',
'phone': '',
'space_amount': 1000000000000000.0,
'space_used': 14330018065,
'status': 'active',
'timezone': 'America/Los_Angeles',
'type': 'user'}
>>> print(f'The current user ID is {user.id}')
The current user ID is 123456789Outside of a REPL, you can initialize a new Client with just the
Developer Token to get started.
from boxsdk import OAuth2, Client
auth = OAuth2(
client_id='YOUR_CLIENT_ID',
client_secret='YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET',
access_token='YOUR_DEVELOPER_TOKEN',
)
client = Client(auth)
user = client.user().get()
print(f'The current user ID is {user.id}')The Box API uses OAuth2 for auth. The SDK makes it relatively painless to work with OAuth2 tokens.
The Python SDK supports your JWT Authentication applications.
Authenticating with a JWT requires some extra dependencies. To get them, simply
pip install "boxsdk[jwt]"Instead of instantiating your Client with an instance of OAuth2,
instead use an instance of JWTAuth.
from boxsdk import JWTAuth
from boxsdk import Client
auth = JWTAuth(
client_id='YOUR_CLIENT_ID',
client_secret='YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET',
enterprise_id='YOUR_ENTERPRISE_ID',
jwt_key_id='YOUR_JWT_KEY_ID',
rsa_private_key_file_sys_path='CERT.PEM',
rsa_private_key_passphrase='PASSPHRASE',
)
access_token = auth.authenticate_instance()
client = Client(auth)This client is able to create application users:
ned_stark_user = client.create_user('Ned Stark')These users can then be authenticated:
ned_auth = JWTAuth(
client_id='YOUR_CLIENT_ID',
client_secret='YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET',
user=ned_stark_user,
jwt_key_id='YOUR_JWT_KEY_ID',
rsa_private_key_file_sys_path='CERT.PEM',
rsa_private_key_passphrase='PASSPHRASE'
)
ned_auth.authenticate_user()
ned_client = Client(ned_auth)Requests made with ned_client (or objects returned from
ned_client's methods) will be performed on behalf of the newly
created app user.
from boxsdk import OAuth2
oauth = OAuth2(
client_id='YOUR_CLIENT_ID',
client_secret='YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET',
store_tokens=your_store_tokens_callback_method,
)
auth_url, csrf_token = oauth.get_authorization_url('http://YOUR_REDIRECT_URL')store_tokens is a callback used to store the access token and refresh token. You might want to define something like this:
def store_tokens(access_token, refresh_token):
# store the tokens at secure storage (e.g. Keychain)The SDK will keep the tokens in memory for the duration of the Python script run, so you don't always need to pass store_tokens.
If you navigate the user to the auth_url, the user will eventually get redirected to http://YOUR_REDIRECT_URL?code=YOUR_AUTH_CODE. After getting the code, you will be able to use the code to exchange for an access token and refresh token.
The SDK handles all the work for you; all you need to do is run:
# Make sure that the csrf token you get from the `state` parameter
# in the final redirect URI is the same token you get from the
# get_authorization_url method.
assert 'THE_CSRF_TOKEN_YOU_GOT' == csrf_token
access_token, refresh_token = oauth.authenticate('YOUR_AUTH_CODE')from boxsdk import Client
client = Client(oauth)And that's it! You can start using the client to do all kinds of cool stuff and the SDK will handle the token refresh for you automatically.
Alternatively, you can instantiate an OAuth2 object with the access token and refresh token. Once you have an oauth object you can pass that into the Client object to instantiate a client and begin making calls.
from boxsdk import Client, OAuth2
oauth = OAuth2(
client_id='YOUR_CLIENT_ID',
client_secret='YOUR_CLIENT_SECRET',
access_token='ACCESS_TOKEN',
refresh_token='REFRESH_TOKEN',
)
client = Client(oauth)
user = client.user().get()This will retrieve the current user! From here you can use the client you created to start making calls.
For advanced uses of the SDK, three additional auth classes are provided:
CooperativelyManagedOAuth2: Allows multiple auth instances to share tokens.RemoteOAuth2: Allows use of the SDK on clients without access to your application's client secret. Instead, you provide aretrieve_access_tokencallback. That callback should perform the token refresh, perhaps on your server that does have access to the client secret.RedisManagedOAuth2: Stores access and refresh tokens in Redis. This allows multiple processes (possibly spanning multiple machines) to share access tokens while synchronizing token refresh. This could be useful for a multiprocess web server, for example.
Full documentation of the available functionality with example code is available in the SDK documentation pages, and there is also method-level documentation available on ReadTheDocs.
The Box API is continually evolving. As such, there are API endpoints
available that are not specifically supported by the SDK. You can still
use these endpoints by using the make_request method of the Client.
# https://developer.box.com/en/reference/get-metadata-templates-id/
# Returns a Python dictionary containing the result of the API request
json_response = client.make_request(
'GET',
client.get_url('metadata_templates', 'enterprise', 'customer', 'schema'),
).json()make_request() takes two parameters:
method- an HTTP verb likeGETorPOSTurl- the URL of the requested API endpoint
The Client class and Box objects have a get_url method. Pass it an
endpoint to get the correct URL for use with that object and endpoint.
For API calls which require body or query params, you can use **kwargs
to pass extra params:
data- takes a jsonified dictionary of body parametersparams- takes a dictionary of query parameters
# https://developer.box.com/reference/post-folders/
# Creates a new folder
# JSONify the body
body = json.dumps({
'name': 'test-subfolder',
'parent': {
'id': '0',
}
})
client.make_request(
'POST',
client.get_url('folders'),
params={'fields': 'name,id'},
data=body
)For more insight into the network calls the SDK is making, you can use
the LoggingClient class. This class logs information about network
requests and responses made to the Box API.
>>> from boxsdk import LoggingClient
>>> client = LoggingClient()
>>> client.user().get()
GET https://api.box.com/2.0/users/me {'headers': {u'Authorization': u'Bearer ---------------------------kBjp',
u'User-Agent': u'box-python-sdk-1.5.0'},
'params': None}
{"type":"user","id":"..","name":"Jeffrey Meadows","login":"..",..}
<boxsdk.object.user.User at 0x10615b8d0>The Box Developer Console allows for the creation of short-lived
developer tokens. The SDK makes it easy to use these tokens. Use the
get_new_token_callback parameter to control how the client will get
new developer tokens as needed. The default is to prompt standard input
for a token.
For exploring the Box API, or to quickly get going using the SDK, the
DevelopmentClient class combines the LoggingClient with the
DeveloperTokenClient.
Custom object subclasses can be defined:
from boxsdk import Client
from boxsdk import Folder
class MyFolderSubclass(Folder):
pass
client = Client(oauth)
client.translator.register('folder', MyFolderSubclass)
folder = client.folder('0')
>>> print folder
>>> <Box MyFolderSubclass - 0>If an object subclass is registered in this way, instances of this
subclass will be returned from all SDK methods that previously returned
an instance of the parent. See BaseAPIJSONObjectMeta and Translator
to see how the SDK performs dynamic lookups to determine return types.
The Python SDK allows the use of FIPS 140-2 validated SSL libraries, such as OpenSSL 3.0. However, some actions are required to enable this functionality.
Currently, the latest distributions of Python default to OpenSSL v1.1.1, which is not FIPS compliant. Therefore, if you want to use OpenSSL 3.0 in your network communication, you need to ensure that Python uses a custom SSL library. One way to achieve this is by creating a custom Python distribution with the ssl module replaced.
If you are using JWT for authentication, it is also necessary to ensure that the cryptography library,
which is one of the extra dependencies for JWT, uses OpenSSL 3.0.
To enable FIPS mode for the cryptography library, you need to install a FIPS-compliant version of OpenSSL
during the installation process of cryptography using the pip command.
We use a modified version of Semantic Versioning for all changes. See version strategy for details which is effective from 30 July 2022.
Only the current MAJOR version of SDK is supported. New features, functionality, bug fixes, and security updates will only be added to the current MAJOR version.
A current release is on the leading edge of our SDK development, and is intended for customers who are in active development and want the latest and greatest features. Instead of stating a release date for a new feature, we set a fixed minor or patch release cadence of maximum 2-3 months (while we may release more often). At the same time, there is no schedule for major or breaking release. Instead, we will communicate one quarter in advance the upcoming breaking change to allow customers to plan for the upgrade. We always recommend that all users run the latest available minor release for whatever major version is in use. We highly recommend upgrading to the latest SDK major release at the earliest convenient time and before the EOL date.
| Version | Supported Environments | State | First Release | EOL/Terminated |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 | Python 3.6+ | Supported | 17 Jan 2022 | TBD |
| 2 | EOL | 01 Nov 2018 | 17 Jan 2022 | |
| 1 | EOL | 10 Feb 2015 | 01 Nov 2018 |
See CONTRIBUTING.md.
Create a virtual environment and install packages -
mkvirtualenv boxsdk
pip install -r requirements-dev.txtRun all tests using -
toxThe tox tests include code style checks via pep8 and pylint.
The tox tests are configured to run on Python 3.6, 3.7, 3.8, 3.9, 3.10, 3.11 and PyPy (our CI is configured to run PyPy tests on pypy-3.6, pypy-3.7, pypy-3.8).
Need to contact us directly? Browse the issues tickets! Or, if that doesn't work, file a new one and we will get back to you. If you have general questions about the Box API, you can post to the Box Developer Forum.
Copyright 2019 Box, Inc. All rights reserved.
Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You may obtain a copy of the License at
http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
limitations under the License.
