How to Visualize Yelp 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 API Driver for Python, the pandas & Matplotlib modules, and the SQLAlchemy toolkit, you can build Yelp-connected Python applications and scripts for visualizing Yelp data. This article shows how to use the pandas, SQLAlchemy, and Matplotlib built-in functions to connect to Yelp data, execute queries, and visualize the results.

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

Connecting to Yelp Data

Connecting to Yelp 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 Yelp Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Yelp.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Yelp (see below).

Yelp API Profile Settings

Create an app at yelp.com/developers/v3/manage_app to automatically generate a private API token.

Follow the procedure below to install the required modules and start accessing Yelp 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 Yelp Data in Python

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

engine = create_engine("api:///?Profile=C:\profiles\Yelp.apip&ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key'")

Execute SQL to Yelp

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 AutocompleteBusinesses WHERE Name = 'Coffee'", engine)

Visualize Yelp Data

With the query results stored in a DataFrame, use the plot function to build a chart to display the Yelp 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 API Driver for Python to start building Python apps and scripts with connectivity to Yelp 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("api:///?Profile=C:\profiles\Yelp.apip&ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key'")
df = pandas.read_sql("SELECT Id, Name FROM AutocompleteBusinesses WHERE Name = 'Coffee'", engine)

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