Using Google Cloud APIs with Python

Google Cloud Platform (GCP) provides powerful APIs that allow you to manage and interact with its services programmatically. Python is one of the most popular languages for this, thanks to the comprehensive Google Cloud Client Libraries.

Prerequisites

Before you start, ensure you have the following:

Official Link

https://docs.cloud.google.com/sdk/docs/install-sdk

Setting Up Virtual Environment

It is highly recommended to use a virtual environment to isolate your project dependencies.

Bash

# Create a virtual environment
python -m venv gcp-env

# Activate it (Windows)
.\gcp-env\Scripts\activate

# Activate it (macOS/Linux)
source gcp-env/bin/activate

Installing Client Libraries

You can install the specific libraries for the services you need. For this course, we will primarily use BigQuery and Cloud Storage.

Bash

pip install google-cloud-bigquery google-cloud-storage

Authentication

The easiest way to authenticate during local development is using Application Default Credentials (ADC).

Bash

gcloud auth application-default login

This command opens a browser to log in to your Google account. Once authenticated, the client libraries will automatically find your credentials.

Basic Example: Listing Buckets

Here is a simple script to verify your setup by listing all buckets in your project.

Python

from google.cloud import storage

def list_buckets():
    # Initialize the storage client
    # Automatically uses credentials from ADC
    storage_client = storage.Client()
    
    # Retrieve buckets
    buckets = list(storage_client.list_buckets())
    
    if not buckets:
        print("No buckets found.")
    else:
        for bucket in buckets:
            print(f"Bucket Name: {bucket.name}")

if __name__ == "__main__":
    list_buckets()

Note: Ensure the Cloud Storage API is enabled in your Google Cloud Console for the project you are using.

Next