had been having a bit of trouble trying to get the python steem library to work, but I have made a breakthrough. I have also learned a couple of neat python tricks for finding out things about libraries you have imported what is inside them and even their documentation (it even is displayed in a pager so you can browse it).

Here is the code that will print out the data of each new block as it comes in:

#!/usr/bin/python3
import steem
from pprint import pprint

st = steem.blockchain.Blockchain ( )

for a in st.blocks():
    pprint(a)

You can browse the help within the python shell like so:

 ✘ loki@vaioe  ~  python3
Python 3.4.3 (default, Nov 17 2016, 01:08:31) 
[GCC 4.8.4] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import steem
>>> help (steem)

>>> help (steem.blockchain)

In the first you see a list of all the submodules, and then you can add that with a '.' between and get more info.

Update:

This was what I am working towards, now I can grab the current data, so I can process it and generate something from it:

#!/usr/bin/python3
import requests
import json

r = requests.post ( 'https://node.steem.ws', data = '{"id":8,"method":"get_witnesses_by_vote","params":["","100"]}' )
output = json.loads ( r.text )
print ( output )

The output is a bit different to using curl to make the same request:

curl https://node.steem.ws --data '{"id":8,"method":"get_witnesses_by_vote","params":["","100"]}'

But the content is the same otherwise.

This particular function is missing from @xeroc's steem (formerly piston) library, this is why I have had to learn how to write the requests. This site helped a lot:

http://steemroll.io/api-explorer/#method=get_witnesses_by_vote&params=["","100"]

Yes, that is the same query but through the api explorer. Nice huh?

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