Unable to create an external dataset, using Python

[DLakin01]

I'm working on automating more of USAID's uploads to its Development Data Library via the Socrata API, and I'm getting stuck when trying to create one or more external datasets (with a link to data on another site, no actual data uploaded). For a given dataset entity, I'm trying to set the external url in accessPoints and metadata:additionalAccessPoints:urls, but the link does not appear after creation in Socrata.

Code:

(ok, revision) = Socrata(self.auth_obj).new({
                "name": dataset["name"],
                "description": dataset["description"],
                "accessPoints": {
                    dataset["type"]: dataset["url"]
                }
            })

................

if "url" in dataset:
            metadata["metadata"]["additionalAccessPoints"] = [{
                "urls": {
                    dataset["type"]: dataset["url"]
                }
            }]

  r = push_metadata(ds_fourfour, self.link, self.username, self.password, metadata, '1')

  r = apply_revision(ds_fourfour, self.link, self.username, self.password, '1')

Any tips?

[evantayloryates]

I am running into the same problem, but I am starting to doubt the functionality is available with this existing codebase. If you look at the code for Revisions.new:

@staticmethod
def new(auth, metadata):
    path = 'https://{domain}/api/publishing/v1/revision'.format(
        domain = auth.domain,
    )

    response = post(
        path,
        auth = auth,
        data = json.dumps({
            'action': {
                'type': 'update'
            },
            'metadata': metadata
        })
    )
    return Revision(auth, response)

The revision's JSON data has two top-level attributes, action and metadata. However, if you look at Socrata's Publishing api (which socrata-py wraps around), you'll see that in order to add an external URL, you need a third top-level attribute, href (pictured below).

I added a small amount of code to implement external datasets. Check out the Pull Request here