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Pandora API Client

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This code is licensed under the MIT license. The code is maintained on GitHub.

This is a reasonably complete implementation of the Pandora API in pure Python that supports Python 3.5+. It contains a complete implementation of the core radio features but does not implement account management or Pandora Plus functionality; pull requests adding that functionality are welcomed from anyone needing those features.

Keys or passwords for Pandora are not provided in this repo, you'll have to go get those for yourself. Make something awesome with this library, don't abuse Pandora, that's not cool.

Project Complete

This project is actively maintained but the author considers it to be both stable and complete. There will be very few new changes initiated by the author outside of bug fixes and security updates.

If you run into a problem, file an issue and we'll respond. Pull requests for new features and fixes will be reviewed and accepted if they meet our criteria for stability, see below for contributing instructions.

Compatibility

This is the 2.x series which supports only Python 3.5+. For older versions of Python please use the 1.x series. The 1.x series is no longer maintained but pull requests to fix bugs are still welcomed.

This package uses semantic versioning. The API is guaranteed to be stable within a major version release. Please constrain your dependencies to major versions. For example, to depend on version 2.x use this line in your setup.py install_requires:

pydora>=2,<3

Installing

Installing is as simple as using pip and running the built-in configuration command to create a ~/.pydora.cfg file. If you already have a PianoBar config file Pydora will automatically use that.

$ pip install pydora
$ pydora-configure

On Ubuntu install vlc or vlc:

# apt-get install vlc

To install VLC on Mac OS X visit the VLC site to download VLC.app, then drag-and-drop the bundle into your /Applications folder. Pydora will auto-detect this.

Audio Output Back-end

The pydora player does not directly support audio output but instead relies upon external audio output back-ends. The two supported back-ends are VLC and mpg123. The main difference between the two back-ends is the supported file formats. VLC supports a vast array of codecs, including MP3 and AAC, the two formats that Pandora uses. mpg123 on the other hand supports only MP3. As of 2017 Pandora has started to prefer AAC files over MP3 which necessitates VLC. The pydora player will try to auto-detect whatever player exists on your system, preferring VLC, and will use that audio output back-end. If you notice a lot of skipping in a playlist consider installing VLC.

Remote VLC Back-end

It is also possible to remotely control a copy of VLC running on another machine if you're unable or unwilling to install Pydora on your playback machine. To do this start VLC on the remote machine with the rc-host option set. For example:

vlc -I rc --advanced --rc-host=0.0.0.0:1234

Once VLC is running start Pydora with the vlc-net option and specify the remote host and port that VLC is listening on. For example:

pydora --vlc-net 192.168.0.12:1234

Pydora will now send all audio playback requests to the remote VLC. It does this using a text control protocol; all audio data is streamed directly from the internet to VLC and is not passed over the Pydora control channel. Because of this it is possible for the control channel to run over a very low bandwidth connection.

Note: VLC doesn't provide any security so anyone on the network will be able to control VLC. It is generally safer to bind VLC to 127.0.0.1 and use something like SSH forwarding to securely forward the port to a remote host but that's outside of the scope of this README.

Simple Player

Included is pydora, a simple Pandora stream player that runs at the command line. It requires that mpg123 or VLC be installed with HTTP support as well as a settings file (example below) located in ~/.pydora.cfg. Alternatively an environment variable PYDORA_CFG can point to the path of the config file.

The player only supports basic functionality for now. It will display a station list, allow listening to any station, basic feedback and bookmarking are also supported. The player starts an mpg123 or VLC process in remote control mode and feeds commands to it. It does not download any music but rather streams them directly from Pandora.

When playing the following keys work (press enter afterwards):

  • n - next song
  • p - pause or resume song
  • s - station list (stops song)
  • d - thumbs down track
  • u - thumbs up track
  • b - bookmark song
  • a - bookmark artist
  • S - sleep song
  • Q - quit program
  • vu - volume up
  • vd - volume down
  • ? - display help

Note: volume control is currently only supported with the VLC back-end.

Sample Config File

The built-in pydora-configure script can be run to create a configuration file automatically if you don't already have one. This will download the keys from the link below and pick a suitable one when writing the config file. If you want to create the config file manually the format is:

[api]
api_host = hostname
encryption_key = key
decryption_key = key
username = partner username
password = partner password
device = key
default_audio_quality = mediumQuality

[user]
username = your username
password = your password
default_audio_quality
Default audio quality to request from the API; can be one of lowQuality, mediumQuality (default), or highQuality. If the preferred audio quality is not available for the device specified, then the next-highest bit-rate stream that Pandora supports for the chosen device will be used.

Programmatic Use

The Pydora distribution contains two python packages. The pandora package is the API for interacting with the Pandora service. The pydora package is a very small reference implementation of using the API to drive a command line player. If you're interested in the command line skip this section and read Installing below to get started.

The easiest way to get started is by using the pandora.clientbuilder package. This package contains a set of factories that can be used to build a Pandora client with some configuration. The classes in the package that end in Builder are the factories and the rest of the classes are implementation details. All of the builders will return an instance of pandora.client.APIClient that is completely configured and ready for use in your program.

If you have an existing program and would like to connect to Pandora the easiest way is to use the SettingsDictBuilder class like so:

client = SettingsDictBuilder({
    "DECRYPTION_KEY": "see_link_above",
    "ENCRYPTION_KEY": "see_link_above",
    "PARTNER_USER": "see_link_above",
    "PARTNER_PASSWORD": "see_link_above",
    "DEVICE": "see_link_above",
}).build()

client.login("username", "password")

At this point the client is ready for use, see pandora.client.APIClient for a list of methods that can be called. All responses from the API will return Python objects from the pandora.models.pandora package or raise exceptions from pandora.errors

For a more functional example look at the file pydora/player.py which shows how to use the API in a simple command line application.

Pandora API Spec and Partner Keys

If you're interested in the underlying API or need to download the keys yourself you can find more details at the links below. This documentation is community maintained and not official.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING

Contributors

Thanks to the contributors who make Pydora possible by adding features and fixing bugs. List is organized by date of first contribution.

© 2015 Mike Crute