RedditPushshiftAPI-DataCollection

Introduction:

This program is intended to search though Reddit for post submissions by a keyword specification and allows for specifying data results by time period. This program also allows for collecting the comments given a specified submission ID. The program utalizes the Pushshift API and the API wrapper pmaw for submission data collection. The program uses the official reddit API praw for comments data collection.

Using this program for data collection:

1.) Installations:

• Install pmaw, pandas and datetime packages in terminal(MacOS) or command prompt(Windows)
• Download an Python IDE (recomended: PyCharm) to run the program on (note: The program can also be run on terminal or command prompt)
• Download the files labled submissionCollection.py and commentCollection in this repository and open it with an IDE

2.) Changing program for specified data collection:

submissionCollection.py (Allows for search though Reddit post submissions by a keyword specification)

• line 17: keyword = "* INSERT WORD/PHRASE YOU WOULD LIKE TO SEARCH REDDIT POSTS FOR *"
• line 18: start_time = int(dt.datetime(* INSERT START YEAR *, * INSERT START MONTH *, * INSERT START DAY *).timestamp())
• line 19: end_time = int(dt.datetime(* INSERT END YEAR *, * INSERT END MONTH *, * INSERT END DAY *).timestamp())
• line 20: limit = * ENTER NUMBER OF ENTRIES YOU WOULD LIKE TO RECIVE *

commentCollection.py (Allows for collecting the comments given a specified submission ID)

• line 21: id_list = ["* INSERT LIST OF SUBMISSION IDS *"]

3.) Running the program:

• Click the green play button on the upper right hand corner of PyCharm
• Note: Running the program will vary depending on where the user is exicuting the program