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Prerequisites

1. Have You need to have a CDS or ADS account. If you don't have an account, please self register at the CDS registration page or the ADS registration, whichever is appropriate.

2. Have You need to have Python (and pip) installed on your Windows environment.

   Expand
   title Instructions to install Python (no admin privileges needed)
   Download windows installer exe from Python.org download page Run the exe. Screen will be shown to chose the installation option. Uncheck "install for all user" option. Go for the custom installation. On next screen specify the directory path for which your user have full access on the computer (take a note of this as you will need it to set the environment variables). Uncheck "create shortcuts for installed application" option. Make sure "Add python to environment variable" option is Unchecked . Complete the installation.

   
   

3. Add the installation and Script folder path in PATH using set (temporary) or setx (permanent) in a Command Prompt window.

   This is to make sure that your computer knows where to find the Python interpreter. To do this you will have to modify a setting called PATH, which is a list of directories where Windows will look for programs.

   Further details and examples are available here.

   You may choose also to set your environment variables into a batch file (e.g. set-env.bat which you will need to run from the Command Prompt).

   Expand
   title Example of the content of a batch file to run in Command Prompt window
   @echo off set PY_HOME=C:\...\python37 set PATH=%PY_HOME%;%PY_HOME%\Scripts;%PATH%

   
   

4. If you have Anaconda installed you can install the CDS API by

   Code Block
   /<install_path>/conda/anaconda2/bin/conda config --add channels conda-forge /<install_path>/conda/anaconda2/bin/conda install cdsapi

   
   

Step-by-step guide

1. Login to CDS (or Login to ADS)
2. Copy a and copy the 2 line code displayed on this page. The code , which shows a url and your own uid:API key details as followed:
   1. For CDS users, Go to this page and copy the 2 line code displayed in the black box in the "Install the CDS API key" section.
   2. For ADS users, Go to this page and copy the 2 line code displayed in the black box in the "Install the CDS API key" section.
3. Paste the 2 line code into a  %USERPROFILE%\.cdsapirc file, where in your windows environment, %USERPROFILE% is usually located at C:\Users\Username folder). The CDS API expects to find the .cdsapirc file in your home directory.

   For instructions on how to create a dot file on Windows, please see here or check the instructions provided by one of users on the User Forum.

4. Install the CDS API client by running the following command in a Command Prompt window:

          pip install cdsapi     (or try pip install --user cdsapi)

   Code Block
   pip install cdsapi # for Python 2.7 pip3 install cdsapi # for Python 3

   or try

   Code Block
   pip install --user cdsapi # for Python 2.7 pip3 install --user cdsapi # for Python 3

   
   

5. Once the CDS API client is installed, it can be used to request data from the datasets listed in the CDS catalogueand ADS catalogues. It is necessary to agree to the Terms of Use of every datasets that you intend to download. Attached to each dataset download form, the "Show API request" button displays the python code to be used. Examples are also shown here

For those using Ubuntu on Windows, installing pyopenssl might help.

pip install pyopenssl # for Python 2.7 
pip3 install pyopenssl # for Python 3

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