script that connects to several api's to collect download data

the problem: tracking downloads of your plugins from several sources:

• wordpress plugins
• firefox extensions
• chrome extensions
• custom downloads tracked by bit.ly

the solution:

• simple perl script with all four scrapers, utilizing Mechanize library
• configure the list of plugins from simple text file
• configure your secrets from simple text file (keep it safe!)
• sqlite3 database with dates and #downloads for each plugin
• simple flask script that serves the data via json API

see it live at http://ceo.io/zemanta/downloads/

to install:

• clone this repository somewhere where you will be able to access it online
• flush test.db
• edit plugins.txt
• rename secrets-example.txt to secrets.txt and fill it out
• edit agregator.pl to enable $history=1 and run once to collect the history. edit back.
• configure crontab to run the agregator.pl daily
• visit the url and test the api

API

• index.cgi support some basic api calls:
• ?daily=1 spits out json object with all data from yesterday
• ?daily=1&date=2013-04-03 spits out json object with data from given date