Use Dash to Build to Web Apps on SerpApi Data

The rich ecosystem of Python modules lets you get to work quickly and integrate your systems more effectively. With the CData API Driver for Python, the pandas module, and the Dash framework, you can build SerpApi-connected web applications for SerpApi data. This article shows how to connect to SerpApi with the CData Connector and use pandas and Dash to build a simple web app for visualizing SerpApi data.

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

Connecting to SerpApi Data

Connecting to SerpApi 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.

Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the SerpAPI Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\SerpAPI.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for SerpAPI (see below).

SerpAPI API Profile Settings

SerpAPI uses API key authentication. To obtain an API key:

1. Sign in to your SerpAPI account at https://serpapi.com
2. Navigate to the API Key page at https://serpapi.com/manage-api-key
3. Copy your private API key

After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.

Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:

• APIKey: Set this to your SerpAPI private API key.

After installing the CData SerpApi Connector, follow the procedure below to install the other required modules and start accessing SerpApi through Python objects.

Install Required Modules

Use the pip utility to install the required modules and frameworks:

pip install pandas
pip install dash
pip install dash-daq

Visualize SerpApi Data in Python

Once the required modules and frameworks are installed, we are ready to build our web app. Code snippets follow, but the full source code is available at the end of the article.

First, be sure to import the modules (including the CData Connector) with the following:

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.api as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

You can now connect with a connection string. Use the connect function for the CData SerpApi Connector to create a connection for working with SerpApi data.

cnxn = mod.connect("Profile=C:\profiles\SerpAPI.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key_here';")

Execute SQL to SerpApi

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

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Asin, Title FROM AmazonSearch WHERE SearchQuery = 'mechanical keyboard'", cnxn)

Configure the Web App

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, we can begin configuring the web app, assigning a name, stylesheet, and title.

app_name = 'dash-apiedataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'

Configure the Layout

The next step is to create a bar graph based on our SerpApi data and configure the app layout.

trace = go.Bar(x=df.Asin, y=df.Title, name='Asin')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='SerpApi AmazonSearch Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

Set the App to Run

With the connection, app, and layout configured, we are ready to run the app. The last lines of Python code follow.

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)

Now, use Python to run the web app and a browser to view the SerpApi data.

python api-dash.py

Free Trial & More Information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData API Driver for Python to start building Python apps with connectivity to SerpApi data. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

Full Source Code

import os
import dash
import dash_core_components as dcc
import dash_html_components as html
import pandas as pd
import cdata.api as mod
import plotly.graph_objs as go

cnxn = mod.connect("Profile=C:\profiles\SerpAPI.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key_here';")

df = pd.read_sql("SELECT Asin, Title FROM AmazonSearch WHERE SearchQuery = 'mechanical keyboard'", cnxn)
app_name = 'dash-apidataplot'

external_stylesheets = ['https://codepen.io/chriddyp/pen/bWLwgP.css']

app = dash.Dash(__name__, external_stylesheets=external_stylesheets)
app.title = 'CData + Dash'
trace = go.Bar(x=df.Asin, y=df.Title, name='Asin')

app.layout = html.Div(children=[html.H1("CData Extension + Dash", style={'textAlign': 'center'}),
	dcc.Graph(
		id='example-graph',
		figure={
			'data': [trace],
			'layout':
			go.Layout(title='SerpApi AmazonSearch Data', barmode='stack')
		})
], className="container")

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app.run_server(debug=True)