Fetches geocode lat and lng for Hamilton building permits

permits.py

import xlrd
import json
import urllib

path = 'permits.xls'
outfile = 'permits.csv'
template = 'http://maps.googleapis.com/maps/api/geocode/json?sensor=false&address='

def get_data(path=path):
    """Gets the records from the excel file"""
    wb = xlrd.open_workbook(path)
    sh = wb.sheet_by_name(u'Section A')
    data = []
    for rownum in range(6,sh.nrows): # skip garbage at top
        data.append(sh.row_values(rownum))
    return data

def get_coordinates(addr, template=template, city='Hamilton, ON', debug=False):
    """Returns x/y coordinates and full address for an address"""
    address = '%s %s' % (addr, city)
    address = address.replace('  ', ' ')
    url = '%s%s' % (template, urllib.quote(address))
    if debug == True: print url
    response = urllib.urlopen(url)
    content = response.read()
    try:
        obj = json.loads(content)
    except:
        obj = None
        print 'No json content for %s' % (url)
    if obj == None:
        return ['', '', '']
    lat = obj['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lat'] # get latitude
    lng = obj['results'][0]['geometry']['location']['lng'] # get longitude
    full_address = obj['results'][0]['formatted_address'] # get full address
    return [lat, lng, full_address]

def process_data(data):
    """adds coordinates to data"""
    with open('/home/ryan/Desktop/permits.csv', 'w') as file:
        file.write('')
    
    for row in data:
        print row
        print 'Processing %s...' % (row[0])
        print
        addr = ''
        extra = []
        try:
            addr = row[6]
        except:
            print row
        if addr != '':
            extra = get_coordinates(row[6])
        rowlist = row + extra
        with open(outfile, 'a') as file:
            file.write('%s\n' % (
                ', '.join(['%s' % ('"'+item+'"' if type(item).__name__ == 'unicode' else item) for item in rowlist])
                )
            )

    return True