Comments on: Getting Basecamp API Working with Python

By: » Basecamp Python Client

» Basecamp Python Client — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 23:32:43 +0000

[...] Added also some suggestions from Greg Allard. [...]

By: Django App to connect to Basecamp API | Digital Trends & Technologies

Django App to connect to Basecamp API | Digital Trends & Technologies — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 13:39:35 +0000

[...] Please note: Though that version has been updated to work with the current Basecamp API and Django 1.2 I did a fix from Greg Allard to rectify the basecamp.py wrapper. http://codespatter.com/2009/04/01/getting-basecamp-api-working-with-python/ [...]

By: Benjamin Buch

Benjamin Buch — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 15:36:44 +0000

I couldn't get this code running.
But I stumbled upon a working basecamp.py - it's part of the basecampreporting library (http://github.com/cmheisel/bas....

According to Chris Heisel, the author of basecampreporting, the reason why the original basecamp.py is not working properly is the use of base64. When you encode a string with base64, it adds a newline at the end of the encoded string. The newline is what irritates basecamp. Get rid of the newline, and basecamp.py works.

This is how Chris Heisel did it (again around line 64):

def __init__(self, baseURL, username, password):
self.baseURL = baseURL
if self.baseURL[-1] == '/':
self.baseURL = self.baseURL[:-1]

self.opener = urllib2.build_opener()

self.auth_string = '%s:%s' % (username, password)
self.encoded_auth_string = base64.encodestring(self.auth_string)

#Python 2.5, at least on Ubuntu is adding a newline when encoding,
#which Basecamp chokes on and returns an HTTP 400
self.encoded_auth_string = self.encoded_auth_string.replace('n', '')
self.headers = [
('Content-Type', 'application/xml'),
('Accept', 'application/xml'),
('Authorization', 'Basic %s' % self.encoded_auth_string), ]
self.opener.addheaders = self.headers

By: Benjamin Buch

Benjamin Buch — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 09:36:44 +0000

I couldn't get this code running.
But I stumbled upon a working basecamp.py - it's part of the basecampreporting library (http://github.com/cmheisel/basecampreporting/).

According to Chris Heisel, the author of basecampreporting, the reason why the original basecamp.py is not working properly is the use of base64. When you encode a string with base64, it adds a newline at the end of the encoded string. The newline is what irritates basecamp. Get rid of the newline, and basecamp.py works.

This is how Chris Heisel did it (again around line 64):

def __init__(self, baseURL, username, password):
self.baseURL = baseURL
if self.baseURL[-1] == '/':
self.baseURL = self.baseURL[:-1]

self.opener = urllib2.build_opener()

self.auth_string = '%s:%s' % (username, password)
self.encoded_auth_string = base64.encodestring(self.auth_string)

#Python 2.5, at least on Ubuntu is adding a newline when encoding,
#which Basecamp chokes on and returns an HTTP 400
self.encoded_auth_string = self.encoded_auth_string.replace('n', '')
self.headers = [
('Content-Type', 'application/xml'),
('Accept', 'application/xml'),
('Authorization', 'Basic %s' % self.encoded_auth_string), ]
self.opener.addheaders = self.headers

By: Greg

Greg — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:03:01 +0000

Is this code still working for you? I made your changes but basecamp dumps me into the login page now.