arxiv.py

Python wrapper for the arXiv API.

About arXiv

arXiv is a project by the Cornell University Library that provides open access to 1,000,000+ articles in Physics, Mathematics, Computer Science, Quantitative Biology, Quantitative Finance, and Statistics.

Usage

Installation

$ pip install arxiv

Verify the installation with

$ python setup.py test

In your Python script, include the line

import arxiv

Query

arxiv.query(
  query="",
  id_list=[],
  max_results=None,
  start = 0,
  sort_by="relevance",
  sort_order="descending",
  prune=True,
  iterative=False,
  max_chunk_results=1000
)

• query: an arXiv query string. Format documented here.

  • Note: multi-field queries must be space-delimited. au:balents_leon AND cat:cond-mat.str-el is valid; au:balents_leon+AND+cat:cond-mat.str-el is not valid.

• id_list: list of arXiv record IDs (typically of the format "0710.5765v1").

• max_results: the maximum number of results returned by the query. Note: if this is unset amd iterative=False, the call to query can take a long time to resolve.

• start: the offset of the first returned object from the arXiv query results.

• sort_by: the arXiv field by which the result should be sorted.

• sort_order: the sorting order, i.e. "ascending", "descending" or None.

• prune: when True, received abstract objects will be simplified.

• iterative: when True, query() will return an iterator. Otherwise, query() iterates internally and returns the full list of results.

• max_chunk_results: the maximum number of abstracts ot be retrieved by a single internal request to the arXiv API.

Query examples:

import arxiv

# Keyword queries
arxiv.query(query="quantum", max_results=100)

# Multi-field queries
arxiv.query(query="au:balents_leon AND cat:cond-mat.str-el")

# Get single record by ID
arxiv.query(id_list=["1707.08567"])

# Get multiple records by ID
arxiv.query(id_list=["1707.08567", "1707.08567"])

# Get an interator over query results
result = arxiv.query(
  query="quantum",
  max_chunk_results=10,
  max_results=100,
  iterative=True
)

for paper in result():
   print(paper)

For a more detailed description of the interaction between the query and id_list arguments, see this section of the arXiv documentation.

Download article PDF or source tarfile

arxiv.arxiv.download(obj, dirpath='./', slugify=slugify, prefer_source_tarfile=False)

• obj is a result object, one of a list returned by query(). obj must at minimum contain values corresponding to pdf_url and title.

• dirpath is the relative directory path to which the downloaded PDF will be saved. It defaults to the present working directory.

• slugify is a function that processes obj into a filename. By default, arxiv.download(obj) prepends the object ID to the object title.

• If prefer_source_tarfile is True, this function will download the source files for obj––rather than the rendered PDF––in .tar.gz format.

import arxiv

# Query for a paper of interest, then download it.
paper = arxiv.query(id_list=["1707.08567"])[0]
arxiv.download(paper)

# You can skip the query step if you have the paper info.
paper2 = {"pdf_url": "http://arxiv.org/pdf/1707.08567v1",
          "title": "The Paper Title"}
arxiv.download(paper2)

# Use prefer_source_tarfile to download the gzipped tar file.
arxiv.download(paper, prefer_source_tarfile=True)

# Override the default filename format by defining a slugify function.
arxiv.download(paper, slugify=lambda paper: paper.get('id').split('/')[-1])

Contributors