How to Visualize WordPress Data in Python with pandas

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData Python Connector for Wordpress, the pandas & Matplotlib modules, and the SQLAlchemy toolkit, you can build WordPress-connected Python applications and scripts for visualizing WordPress data. This article shows how to use the pandas, SQLAlchemy, and Matplotlib built-in functions to connect to WordPress data, execute queries, and visualize the results.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData Python Connector offers unmatched performance for interacting with live WordPress data in Python. When you issue complex SQL queries from WordPress, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to WordPress and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to WordPress Data

Connecting to WordPress data looks just like connecting to any relational data source. Create a connection string using the required connection properties. For this article, you will pass the connection string as a parameter to the create_engine function.

To connect to WordPress, set the URL property and other authentication properties. WordPress supports Basic (User and Password) and OAuth2.0 authentication, though Basic is recommended for a testing environment only. To connect with OAuth you will need to register an app with WordPress.

See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

Follow the procedure below to install the required modules and start accessing WordPress through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the pandas & Matplotlib modules and the SQLAlchemy toolkit:

pip install pandas
pip install matplotlib
pip install sqlalchemy

Be sure to import the module with the following:

import pandas
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sqlalchemy import create_engine

Visualize WordPress Data in Python

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the create_engine function to create an Engine for working with WordPress data.

engine = create_engine("wordpress:///?Url=http://www.yourwordpresshost.com&InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH&OAuthSettingsLocation=/PATH/TO/OAuthSettings.txt")

Execute SQL to WordPress

Use the read_sql function from pandas to execute any SQL statement and store the resultset in a DataFrame.

df = pandas.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM Categories WHERE Id = '1'", engine)

Visualize WordPress Data

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, use the plot function to build a chart to display the WordPress data. The show method displays the chart in a new window.

df.plot(kind="bar", x="Id", y="Name")
plt.show()

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData Python Connector for Wordpress to start building Python apps and scripts with connectivity to WordPress data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import pandas
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from sqlalchemy import create_engin

engine = create_engine("wordpress:///?Url=http://www.yourwordpresshost.com&InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH&OAuthSettingsLocation=/PATH/TO/OAuthSettings.txt")
df = pandas.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM Categories WHERE Id = '1'", engine)

df.plot(kind="bar", x="Id", y="Name")
plt.show()