use python package-specific "user agent" string

[melange396]

closes #660

[melange396]

@capnrefsmmat thoughts?

[capnrefsmmat]

Seems reasonable to me. I had considered putting the version information in the user-agent previously, but didn't know how to get the version information without hardcoding it in a constant somewhere.

[dshemetov]

I couldn't find documentation for pkg_resources. My guess is it comes from setuptools which is being deprecated.

Maybe use importlib.metadata to future-proof? From docs:

importlib.metadata is a library that provides access to the metadata of an installed Distribution Package, such as its entry points or its top-level names (Import Packages, modules, if any). Built in part on Python’s import system, this library intends to replace similar functionality in the entry point API and metadata API of pkg_resources. Along with importlib.resources, this package can eliminate the need to use the older and less efficient pkg_resources package.

> import pkg_resources
> import importlib.metadata
> print(pkg_resources.get_distribution('wheel'))
> print(importlib.metadata.version('wheel'))
wheel 0.41.2
0.41.2

[melange396]

I shamelessly stole the version determination code from the delphi-epidata python client (that this client depends on): https://github.com/cmu-delphi/delphi-epidata/blob/d42517e714d6d1deebb6cffcdf3fb5adadc54481/src/client/delphi_epidata.py#L17-L25

I dont see where setuptools (as a whole) is being deprecated, but pkg_resources did get marked as such about half a year ago... But before we rush into yanking it out: importlib.metadata requires python3.8 or a fancy requirements directive to pull in its backport, so its not such a simple drop-in replacement. There are also two other files in this repo that already use pkg_resources (

covidcast/Python-packages/covidcast-py/covidcast/plotting.py

Line 12 in 31c8bf8

import pkg_resources

and

covidcast/Python-packages/covidcast-py/covidcast/geography.py

Line 7 in 31c8bf8

import pkg_resources

), plus one in covidcast-indicators (https://github.com/cmu-delphi/covidcast-indicators/blob/39c02fa228fcb4de2b3f3d19469e862861351a18/_delphi_utils_python/delphi_utils/geomap.py#L15) as well as the aforementioned delphi-epidata client.

Lets kick this down the road a bit -- ill make GH issues to remove pkg_resources in each of the 3 repos.

[dshemetov]

Got it, thanks for the clarifications. Not super critical as Python packaging evolves super slowly, so makes sense to just stay consistent with our other code.

[melange396]

Suggested change

	Epidata.BASE_URL = "https://api.covidcast.cmu.edu/epidata/api.php"
	Epidata.BASE_URL = "https://api.covidcast.cmu.edu/epidata"

whoops, i mustve edited the wrong version of the file which got api.php back into the BASE_URL