django-docketsearch

[DEPRECATED]

A Django Rest Framework app that adds endpoints useful for searching the PA UJS portal for public records.

Endpoints

The app provides three endpoints for searching the UJS portal.

searching by name

POST /search/name/ accepts three parameters:

{
    first_name: "",
    last_name: "",
    dob: "",
}

dob is optional.

searching for a specific docket

POST /search/docket/ accepts just one parameter: a docket_number.

searching for multiple dockets at once

POST /search/docket/many/ accepts docket_numbers, which is a list of docket numbers.

Return values All three endpoints, if they return a 200 response, return an object with the same shape:

{
    searchResults: [
        {
            "docket_number": "CP-1234",
            "court": "Common Pleas",
            "docket_sheet_url": "https://ujsportal.pacourts.us/Report/CpDocketSheet?docketNumber=CP-1234",
            "summary_url": "https://ujsportal.pacourts.us/Report/CpCourtSummary?docketNumber=CP-1234",
            "caption": "Comm. v. Rabbit, Bunny.",
            "filing_date": "01/01/2020",
            "case_status": "Active",
            "otn": "U4321",
            "dob": "01/01/1950",
            "participants": "Rabbit, Bunny"
        },
        [...]
    ],
    errors: ['descriptive errors, if there were any.']

}

Getting started

1. Add "ujs" to your INSTALLED_APPS setting like this::

    from rest_framework import permissions
    UJS_SEARCH_PERMISSION_CLASSES = [permissions.IsAuthenticatedOrReadOnly]

    INSTALLED_APPS = [
        ...
        'ujs_search',
    ]

2. Include the ujs_search URLconf in your project urls.py like this::

   path('ujs/', include('ujs_search.urls')),

Testing

Test with pytest --log-cli-level info (include the switch to see helpful logging info)

You'll need a .env file, something like:

DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE=tests.test_settings

REAL_NETWORK_TESTS=False

UJS_SEARCH_TEST_FNAME=Greasy
UJS_SEARCH_TEST_LNAME=Spoon
UJS_SEARCH_TEST_DOB=1950-05-05

cp_search_docket_test=cp-43-cr-1234567-2020
mdj_search_docket_test=mj-01234-cr-7654321-2020

# vars for testing whether the name search can collect from multiple pages.
# need to use a name that returns multiple pages (obviously?).
UJS_SEARCH_TEST_FNAME_MULTIPAGE=John
UJS_SEARCH_TEST_LNAME_MULTIPAGE=Smith
UJS_SEARCH_TEST_DOB=1950-05-05
# how many results should this return, if we're succesfully scraping multiple pages?
UJS_SEARCH_TEST_MULTIPAGE_RESULTCOUNT=50

Additional Information

This project began as an app in RecordLib.