The RudderStack Python SDK lets you track your customer event data from your Python applications and send it to your specified destinations via RudderStack.

Check out the GitHub codebase to get a more hands-on understanding of the SDK.

SDK setup requirements

To set up the RudderStack Python SDK, the following prerequisites must be met:

• You will need to set up a RudderStack account.
• Once signed up, set up a Python source in the dashboard. For more information, see Adding a source. You should then see a Write Key for this source, as shown below:

• You will also need a data plane URL. Follow this section for more information on the data plane URL and where to get it.

Installing the Python SDK

To install the RudderStack Python SDK using pip, run the following command:

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pip install rudder-sdk-python

Initializing the RudderStack client

To initialize the RudderStack client, run the following code snippet:

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import rudder_analytics

rudder_analytics.write_key = WRITE_KEY
rudder_analytics.data_plane_url = DATA_PLANE_URL

Sending events from the RudderStack client

Once the RudderStack client is initialized, you can use it to send your customer events.

A sample track call is as shown :

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rudder_analytics.track('developer_user_id', 'Simple Track Event', {
  'key1': 'val1'
})

Identify

The identify call lets you identify a visiting user and capture any related information such as their name, email address, etc.

A sample identify call is as shown:

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rudder_analytics.identify('123456', {
    'email': 'name@surname.com',
    'name': 'John Doe',
    'friends': 16
})

The identify method parameters are as described below:

Track

The track call lets you record the user actions along with their associated properties. Each user action is called an event.

A sample track call is shown below:

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rudder_analytics.track('123456', 'Article Read', {
    'title': 'The Independence',
    'subtitle': 'Story of the Weak',
    'author': 'John Doe'
})

The track method parameters are as described below:

Page

The page call allows you to record the page views on your website along with the other relevant information about the viewed page.

A sample page call is as shown:

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rudder_analytics.page('userid', 'Documentation', 'Sample Doc', {
    'url': 'http://rudderstack.com'
})

The page method parameters are as described below:

Screen

The screen call lets you record whenever your user views their mobile screen with any additional relevant information about the viewed screen.

A sample screen call is shown below:

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rudder_analytics.screen('userid', 'Settings', 'Brightness', {
    'from': 'Settings Screen'
})

The screen method parameters are as described below:

Group

The group call lets you associate an identified user to a group - either a company, project or a team and record any custom traits or properties associated with that group.

A sample group call is as shown:

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rudder_analytics.group('userid', 'groupid', {
    'name': 'Company',
    'domain': 'IT'
})

The group method parameters are as follows:

Alias

The alias call lets you merge different identities of a known user.

A sample alias call is as shown:

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rudder_analytics.alias('previousid', 'userid')

The alias method parameters are as mentioned below:

Flushing events

The Python SDK batches the events and flushes them in the background, for faster and more efficient operation. By default, the SDK flushes a batch of 100 events every 0.5 seconds since the last flush.

You can control the event flushing by tweaking the following parameters:

You can also flush the events explicitly by using the SDK's flush() method to make sure no events are left in the queue.

A sample flush call is shown below:

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rudder_analytics.flush()

Error handling

To handle errors that may occur when sending these events via rudder_analytics you can declare a callback called on_error.

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def on_error(error, events):
    print("Error response:", error)

rudder_analytics.on_error = on_error

Some of the common request responses are listed in the following table:

Contact us

For any queries on any of the sections covered in this guide, you can contact us, or start a conversation in our Slack community.