# Should be obsolete, keeping around for reference
from urllib2 import Request, urlopen, URLError

coll_req = Request('http://www.boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi2/collection?username=selwyth')
item_req = Request('http://www.boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi2/thing?id=53223')
item_req2 = Request('http://www.boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi2/thing?id=53223,53243')

print 'type of coll_req is %s' % type(coll_req)

response = urlopen(coll_req)
print 'type of response is %s' % type(response)

coll_output = response.read()
print 'type of coll_output is %s' % type(coll_output)

# trying this out
  # import requests
  # query_string = 'http://www.boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi2/thing?id={}'.format()
  # bggapi = requests.get(query_string)
  # print(bggapi.text)
  
def coll(user):
    # return collection for any user
    xml_string = 'http://www.boardgamegeek.com/xmlapi2/collection?username={}'.format(user)
    coll_req = Request(xml_string)
    response = urlopen(coll_req)
    return response.read()

print coll('selwyth')

import time

def coll_final(user):
  # return collection for any user (building off base earlier), but wait 1 second and retry if error
    for i in range(10): # try 10 times
        coll(user)
        if coll(user).find("Please try again later for access.") > -1:
            time.sleep(1)
            i += 1
            continue
        else:
            print '# of query attempts is {}'.format(i)
            return coll(user)
            break
        
test = coll_final('blindspot')

from lxml import etree

parsed = etree.fromstring(test)
    
for i in parsed:
    print i.items()

parsed