Specific exception in case an authorization has expired

[fredericomattos]

In order not to need to create a new authorization each time I need it (sometimes I use it 8 times per code loop), I create a global object:

import gspread

client_gspread = None
def send_sheet(id_sheet, page_sheet, sheet_data):
    global client_gspread
    if not client_gspread:
        client_gspread = gspread.service_account(filename='client_secret.json')

    sheet = client_gspread.open_by_key(id_sheet).worksheet(page_sheet)
    sheet.clear()
    sheet.update([sheet_data.columns.values.tolist()] + sheet_data.values.tolist())

The problem with this is that authorization has an expiration time, which we find in client_gspread.auth.expiry

It would be interesting if there was a single exception that handled the case of expired authorization, to be used directly when you need to update the authorization.

In the documentation in the area explaining how to authorization, it would be nice to also add how long an authorization lasts, so that new users can already create their projects knowing the time limitations of authorizations (putting the path to find the expiry time in the object created in the authorization, so there are no doubts between timeout or expiry). Oh sure, it would also be nice to add to the documentation the answer to the question "if I perform a real action using gspread, is the authorization expiration time updated or fixed?"

Because when the authorization is created, when analyzing its vars, we find the timeout attribute, which has no value, so the person may mistakenly understand that there is no expiration date.

[lavigne958]

Hi I had a look at the Credentials object, you're right it hold the expiry date, it's a date object so we could do something quiet nice with it.

We could add some feature that returns the expiry, raise some exception when it has expired (by checking the return code etc).
I found that the expiry only exists for oauth access, when using the service_account the property simply does not exists, so I need to find a way to make it work for both (no complicated just extra work).

I might make it fit for the next release, not 100% sure though.

[lavigne958]

@fredericomattos I added the extra property expiry in gspread client.

it returns the expiry for the current oauth credentials.

I tried to run some code with a few days between each run and every time I open a sheet, the token is being refreshed and the expiry time changes.

from there you can use this property to check the datetime and raise your Exception as you need.

Hope it solves your issue.

[lavigne958]

Hi @fredericomattos I ran some tests after many weeks.

I noticed the following behavior:

• the expiry date is never in the future (it's always a data + time already in the past), so it does not provide any information
• the expiry data + the flag expired in the credentials when using oauth is always refreshed (even after a long pause like a week without using the credentials).

I will go ahead with the PR exposing if the credentials are expired but I think its usage is limited. Just to let you know.