bggcompare.py

from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
import urllib2
import time
import sys

def get_collection(username):
    base_url = 'http://www.boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi2/'
    get_url = 'collection?username={0}&subtype=boardgame&own=1'.format(username)
    bggfile = urllib2.urlopen(base_url + get_url)
    bggxml = bggfile.read()


    bggfile.close()

    # find returns -1 if it fails to find something
    # BGG takes time to render a user's list - if it does, it returns a nessage page
    # check for that message, and if we see it, wait 5 seconds and try again
    if bggxml.find('Your request for this collection has been accepted and will be processed.') != -1:
        time.sleep(5)
        game_list = get_collection(username)
    else:
        soup = BeautifulSoup(bggxml)
        game_list = [game.string for game in soup.findAll('name')]

    return game_list


user1 = sys.argv[1]
user2 = sys.argv[2]
print 'fetching games for ' + user1 + ' and ' + user2

# super simple approach to make sure we get the real results, since BGG takes a few seconds to render a collection
# to XML
user1coll = get_collection(user1)
user2coll = get_collection(user2)

print user1 + ' has the following games which ' + user2 + 'does not:'
print set(user1coll).difference(set(user2coll))
print '*********'
print user1 + ' and ' + user2 + 'have the following games in common:'
print set(user1coll).intersection(set(user2coll))