Creating new notes and attaching files using Evernote's Python API

I managed to piece together how to attach a new PDF file to an Evernote note using their Python API, so I thought it might be useful to have a post that has all of this information together in one place. I've put together a complete example that will:

Authenticate to Evernote using a developer token (Oauth2 is a topic for another day)
Check if a notebook exists; if not, it will create it for you.
Create a new note in the notebook
Attach a PDF file to that note (including calculating the necessary MD5 hash)
Upload the new note

The complete file is shown at the end of this post, and I'll go through each function separately in the next sections.

1 Imports

Here's the complete set of imports that took me a while to track down, even from Evernote's own examples:

import os import hashlib import sys from evernote.api.client import EvernoteClient import evernote.edam.type.ttypes as Types import evernote.edam.userstore.constants as UserStoreConstants from evernote.edam.error.ttypes import EDAMUserException from evernote.edam.error.ttypes import EDAMSystemException from evernote.edam.error.ttypes import EDAMNotFoundException from evernote.edam.error.ttypes import EDAMErrorCode

2 Authentication

And here's how to do the authentication using a developer token (Go to the following places to get a token: Sandbox evernote server or Production Evernote server

def _connect_to_evernote(self, dev_token): user = None try: self.client = EvernoteClient(token=dev_token) self.user_store = self.client.get_user_store() user = self.user_store.getUser() except EDAMUserException as e: err = e.errorCode print("Error attempting to authenticate to Evernote: %s - %s" % (EDAMErrorCode._VALUES_TO_NAMES[err], e.parameter)) return False except EDAMSystemException as e: err = e.errorCode print("Error attempting to authenticate to Evernote: %s - %s" % (EDAMErrorCode._VALUES_TO_NAMES[err], e.message)) sys.exit(-1) if user: print("Authenticated to evernote as user %s" % user.username) return True else: return False

The important thing is to keep the EvernoteClient object around in self.client, as this will proved the authenticated access to the note stores.

3 Handle notebooks

The next step is to check whether the required notebook is available, or if we need to make it. See the _check_and_make_notebook function.

def _get_notebooks(self): note_store = self.client.get_note_store() notebooks = note_store.listNotebooks() return {n.name:n for n in notebooks} def _create_notebook(self, notebook): note_store = self.client.get_note_store() return note_store.createNotebook(notebook) def _update_notebook(self, notebook): note_store = self.client.get_note_store() note_store.updateNotebook(notebook) return def _check_and_make_notebook(self, notebook_name, stack=None): notebooks = self._get_notebooks() if notebook_name in notebooks: # Existing notebook, so just update the stack if needed notebook = notebooks[notebook_name] if stack: notebook.stack = stack self._update_notebook(notebook) return notebook else: # Need to create a new notebook notebook = Types.Notebook() notebook.name = notebook_name if stack: notebook.stack = stack notebook = self._create_notebook(notebook) return notebook

We use the get_note_store API call to get all the notebooks, and return a dict with the notebook name mapping to the notebook, in function _get_notebooks. Then, if the desired notebook is present, we update the stack (in Evernote, a notebook can be in a collection called a "stack" of notebooks) and return the notebook pointer. If not, we create a new notebook using the Types.Notebook() call, and store it using the createNotebook API call in the note_store.

4 Create the new note with attachment

Next is the real meat of this example, where we create the note with the attachment:

def _create_evernote_note(self, notebook, filename): # Create the new note note = Types.Note() note.title = os.path.basename(filename) note.notebookGuid = notebook.guid note.content = '' note.content += 'My first PDF upload ' # Calculate the md5 hash of the pdf md5 = hashlib.md5() with open(filename,'rb') as f: pdf_bytes = f.read() md5.update(pdf_bytes) md5hash = md5.hexdigest() # Create the Data type for evernote that goes into a resource pdf_data = Types.Data() pdf_data.bodyHash = md5hash pdf_data.size = len(pdf_bytes) pdf_data.body = pdf_bytes # Add a link in the evernote boy for this content link = '' % md5hash note.content += link note.content += '' # Create a resource for the note that contains the pdf pdf_resource = Types.Resource() pdf_resource.data = pdf_data pdf_resource.mime = "application/pdf" # Create a resource list to hold the pdf resource resource_list = [] resource_list.append(pdf_resource) # Set the note's resource list note.resources = resource_list return note

We create a new note using Types.Note(), and set its containing notebook using the GUID of the notebook. We then start setting the contents of the note using the Evernote markup language. All the text and attachment links must be inside the "en-note" tag. The content is then built up as follows:

Read in the PDF file to attach
Calculate the MD5 hash
Create a new Data container for Evernote and store the hash, size, and data from the file
Create a link to this file to insert into the content of the note
Create a Resource type to hold the PDF Data, and put it into a Resource list
Append the resource list to the note
Return this newly formed note

5 Uploading the note

The final step is to upload the note:

def upload_to_notebook(self, filename, notebookname): # Check if the evernote notebook exists print ("Checking for notebook named %s" % notebookname) notebook = self._check_and_make_notebook(notebookname, "my_stack") print("Uploading %s to %s" % (filename, notebookname)) note = self._create_evernote_note(notebook, filename) # Store the note in evernote note_store = self.client.get_note_store() note = note_store.createNote(note)

6 Complete example

import os import hashlib import sys from evernote.api.client import EvernoteClient import evernote.edam.type.ttypes as Types import evernote.edam.userstore.constants as UserStoreConstants from evernote.edam.error.ttypes import EDAMUserException from evernote.edam.error.ttypes import EDAMSystemException from evernote.edam.error.ttypes import EDAMNotFoundException from evernote.edam.error.ttypes import EDAMErrorCode class EvernoteUpload(object): def __init__(self, dev_token): self._connect_to_evernote(dev_token) def _connect_to_evernote(self, dev_token): user = None try: self.client = EvernoteClient(token=dev_token) self.user_store = self.client.get_user_store() user = self.user_store.getUser() except EDAMUserException as e: err = e.errorCode print("Error attempting to authenticate to Evernote: %s - %s" % (EDAMErrorCode._VALUES_TO_NAMES[err], e.parameter)) return False except EDAMSystemException as e: err = e.errorCode print("Error attempting to authenticate to Evernote: %s - %s" % (EDAMErrorCode._VALUES_TO_NAMES[err], e.message)) sys.exit(-1) if user: print("Authenticated to evernote as user %s" % user.username) return True else: return False def _get_notebooks(self): note_store = self.client.get_note_store() notebooks = note_store.listNotebooks() return {n.name:n for n in notebooks} def _create_notebook(self, notebook): note_store = self.client.get_note_store() return note_store.createNotebook(notebook) def _update_notebook(self, notebook): note_store = self.client.get_note_store() note_store.updateNotebook(notebook) return def _check_and_make_notebook(self, notebook_name, stack=None): notebooks = self._get_notebooks() if notebook_name in notebooks: # Existing notebook, so just update the stack if needed notebook = notebooks[notebook_name] if stack: notebook.stack = stack self._update_notebook(notebook) return notebook else: # Need to create a new notebook notebook = Types.Notebook() notebook.name = notebook_name if stack: notebook.stack = stack notebook = self._create_notebook(notebook) return notebook def _create_evernote_note(self, notebook, filename): # Create the new note note = Types.Note() note.title = os.path.basename(filename) note.notebookGuid = notebook.guid note.content = '' note.content += 'My first PDF upload ' # Calculate the md5 hash of the pdf md5 = hashlib.md5() with open(filename,'rb') as f: pdf_bytes = f.read() md5.update(pdf_bytes) md5hash = md5.hexdigest() # Create the Data type for evernote that goes into a resource pdf_data = Types.Data() pdf_data.bodyHash = md5hash pdf_data.size = len(pdf_bytes) pdf_data.body = pdf_bytes # Add a link in the evernote boy for this content link = '' % md5hash note.content += link note.content += '' # Create a resource for the note that contains the pdf pdf_resource = Types.Resource() pdf_resource.data = pdf_data pdf_resource.mime = "application/pdf" # Create a resource list to hold the pdf resource resource_list = [] resource_list.append(pdf_resource) # Set the note's resource list note.resources = resource_list return note def upload_to_notebook(self, filename, notebookname): # Check if the evernote notebook exists print ("Checking for notebook named %s" % notebookname) notebook = self._check_and_make_notebook(notebookname, "my_stack") print("Uploading %s to %s" % (filename, notebookname)) note = self._create_evernote_note(notebook, filename) # Store the note in evernote note_store = self.client.get_note_store() note = note_store.createNote(note) if __name__ == '__main__': dev_token = "YOUR_DEV_TOKEN" p = EvernoteUpload(dev_token) p.upload_to_notebook('test_sherlock.pdf', 'boom')

Category: Tech

Tags: evernote, python, tech