Azure Blob - Read using Python

Question

Can someone tell me if it is possible to read a csv file directly from Azure blob storage as a stream and process it using Python? I know it can be done using C#.Net (shown below) but wanted to know the equivalent library in Python to do this.

CloudBlobClient client = storageAccount.CreateCloudBlobClient();
CloudBlobContainer container = client.GetContainerReference("outfiles");
CloudBlob blob = container.GetBlobReference("Test.csv");*

Answer 1

Yes, it is certainly possible to do so. Check out Azure Storage SDK for Python

from azure.storage.blob import BlockBlobService

block_blob_service = BlockBlobService(account_name='myaccount', account_key='mykey')

block_blob_service.get_blob_to_path('mycontainer', 'myblockblob', 'out-sunset.png')

You can read the complete SDK documentation here: http://azure-storage.readthedocs.io.

Answer 2

Here's a way to do it with the new version of the SDK (12.0.0):

from azure.storage.blob import BlobClient

blob = BlobClient(account_url="https://<account_name>.blob.core.windows.net"
                  container_name="<container_name>",
                  blob_name="<blob_name>",
                  credential="<account_key>")

with open("example.csv", "wb") as f:
    data = blob.download_blob()
    data.readinto(f)

See here for details.

Answer 3

One can stream from blob with python like this:

from tempfile import NamedTemporaryFile
from azure.storage.blob.blockblobservice import BlockBlobService

entry_path = conf['entry_path']
container_name = conf['container_name']
blob_service = BlockBlobService(
            account_name=conf['account_name'],
            account_key=conf['account_key'])

def get_file(filename):
    local_file = NamedTemporaryFile()
    blob_service.get_blob_to_stream(container_name, filename, stream=local_file, 
    max_connections=2)

    local_file.seek(0)
    return local_file