gbif "client" apt for scripting

askGBIF

#!/usr/bin/env python
import urllib2, json, sys

def askGBIF(entity, entityId):
  GBIF_GENERIC_WS="http://api.gbif.org/v1/%s/%s"
  opener = urllib2.build_opener()
  
  return (opener.open(GBIF_GENERIC_WS % (entity, entityId)))

def askGBIFasText(entity, entityId):
  return askGBIF(entity, entityId).read()

if __name__ == "__main__":
  try:
    entity = sys.argv[1]
    entityId = sys.argv[2]
  
    print askGBIFasText(entity, entityId)
  except IndexError:
    print "usage: %s service uniqueId\n" % sys.argv[0]
    print "  service\toccurrence, organization, dataset, installation, etc"
    print "  uniqueId\tcorresponding entity's id"

  except Exception as e:
    print e