Soundcloud to CSV File

This program connects to Soundcloud and turns the supplied username into a CSV file with the user's like list. The code accomplishes this although it looks rather messy and was wondering what I could change to improve it.

```
import soundcloud
import urllib.request
import json
import requests

client = soundcloud.Client(client_id="**")

def get_username():
"""
Asks user for their Soundcloud username.
"""
username = input("Please enter your Soundcloud username: ")
user_id = (valid_username(username))
print(user_id)

def valid_username(username):
"""
Checks if supplied username is valid.
"""
global user
try:
user = client.get("/resolve", url="http://soundcloud.com/{}/".format(username))
user_info(user.id)
except requests.HTTPError: # Runs if account cannot be found.
print("The username you entered is invalid, please try again")
get_username()

def user_info(user_id):
"""
Retrieves the users information from their user ID
and prints the number of tracks they have liked.
"""
global number_of_user_likes
retrieve = urllib.request.urlopen("https://api.soundcloud.com/users/{}.json?consumer_key="
"**".format(user_id)).read()
decode_user_info = json.loads(retrieve.decode())
number_of_user_likes = decode_user_info['public_favorites_count']
username = decode_user_info['username']
print("You have liked a total of {} tracks".format(number_of_user_likes))
save_likes(username)

def save_likes(username):
"""
Creates a CSV file with headers and then saves the users likes to the CSV file.
"""
csv_file = open("{}s like list.csv".format(username), 'w', encoding='UTF-8')
csv_file.write("Track Title, Track URL\n") # Writes headers to CSV file.
offset_number = 0
complete = False
while number_of_user_likes > 0 and complete is False:

Use of functions

Functions can return values. You should do that instead of passing back results indirectly via global variables.

In get_username(), user_id = (valid_username(username)) is nonsense, since the valid_username() function never returns anything.

Worse, you are misusing functions as if they were goto labels. get_username() and valid_username() are mutually recursive, which is inappropriate. Furthermore, get_username() triggers all of the activity in the program, which is much more than getting the username as the function name would suggest.

Rearranging everything…

def prompt_username():
    return input("Please enter your Soundcloud username: ")

def get_account(username):
    try:
        return client.get("/resolve", url="http://soundcloud.com/{}/".format(username))
    except requests.HTTPError:
        raise ValueError("Invalid username")

def prompt_account():
    while True:
        try:
            return get_account(prompt_username())
        except ValueError:
            print("The username you entered is invalid.  Please try again")

def get_favorites(account):
    req = urllib.request.urlopen("https://api.soundcloud.com/users/{}.json?consumer_key={}",
                                 account.id, consumer_key)
    …
    return decoded_user_info['username']

def save_favorites(account, favorites):
    …

Now you can write this, which does convey what the program does, unlike your get_username() "function" which was really just a goto label:

account = prompt_account()
save_favorites(account, get_favorites(account))

StackExchange Code Review Q#82589, answer score: 5