Automate the Boring Stuff with Python · Practical Programming for Total Beginners by Sweigart, Al -- Read -- Imperial Library of Trantor

Index

Automate the Boring Stuff with Python: Practical Programming for Total Beginners Dedication About the Author About the Tech Reviewer Acknowledgments Introduction

Whom Is This Book For? Conventions What Is Programming?

What Is Python? Programmers Don’t Need to Know Much Math Programming Is a Creative Activity

About This Book Downloading and Installing Python Starting IDLE

The Interactive Shell

How to Find Help Asking Smart Programming Questions Summary

I. Python Programming Basics

1. Python Basics

Entering Expressions into the Interactive Shell The Integer, Floating-Point, and String Data Types String Concatenation and Replication Storing Values in Variables

Assignment Statements Variable Names

Your First Program Dissecting Your Program

Comments The print() Function The input() Function Printing the User’s Name The len() Function The str(), int(), and float() Functions

Summary Practice Questions

2. Flow Control

Boolean Values Comparison Operators Boolean Operators

Binary Boolean Operators The not Operator

Mixing Boolean and Comparison Operators Elements of Flow Control

Conditions Blocks of Code

Program Execution Flow Control Statements

if Statements else Statements elif Statements while Loop Statements

An Annoying while Loop

break Statements continue Statements for Loops and the range() Function

An Equivalent while Loop The Starting, Stopping, and Stepping Arguments to range()

Importing Modules

from import Statements

Ending a Program Early with sys.exit() Summary Practice Questions

3. Functions

def Statements with Parameters Return Values and return Statements The None Value Keyword Arguments and print() Local and Global Scope

Local Variables Cannot Be Used in the Global Scope Local Scopes Cannot Use Variables in Other Local Scopes Global Variables Can Be Read from a Local Scope Local and Global Variables with the Same Name

The global Statement Exception Handling A Short Program: Guess the Number Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

The Collatz Sequence Input Validation

4. Lists

The List Data Type

Getting Individual Values in a List with Indexes Negative Indexes Getting Sublists with Slices Getting a List’s Length with len() Changing Values in a List with Indexes List Concatenation and List Replication Removing Values from Lists with del Statements

Working with Lists

Using for Loops with Lists The in and not in Operators The Multiple Assignment Trick

Augmented Assignment Operators Methods

Finding a Value in a List with the index() Method Adding Values to Lists with the append() and insert() Methods Removing Values from Lists with remove() Sorting the Values in a List with the sort() Method

Example Program: Magic 8 Ball with a List List-like Types: Strings and Tuples

Mutable and Immutable Data Types The Tuple Data Type Converting Types with the list() and tuple() Functions

References

Passing References The copy Module’s copy() and deepcopy() Functions

Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Comma Code Character Picture Grid

5. Dictionaries and Structuring Data

The Dictionary Data Type

Dictionaries vs. Lists The keys(), values(), and items() Methods Checking Whether a Key or Value Exists in a Dictionary The get() Method The setdefault() Method

Pretty Printing Using Data Structures to Model Real-World Things

A Tic-Tac-Toe Board Nested Dictionaries and Lists

Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Fantasy Game Inventory List to Dictionary Function for Fantasy Game Inventory

6. Manipulating Strings

Working with Strings

String Literals

Double Quotes Escape Characters Raw Strings Multiline Strings with Triple Quotes Multiline Comments

Indexing and Slicing Strings The in and not in Operators with Strings

Useful String Methods

The upper(), lower(), isupper(), and islower() String Methods The isX String Methods The startswith() and endswith() String Methods The join() and split() String Methods Justifying Text with rjust(), ljust(), and center() Removing Whitespace with strip(), rstrip(), and lstrip() Copying and Pasting Strings with the pyperclip Module

Project: Password Locker

Step 1: Program Design and Data Structures Step 2: Handle Command Line Arguments Step 3: Copy the Right Password

Project: Adding Bullets to Wiki Markup

Step 1: Copy and Paste from the Clipboard Step 2: Separate the Lines of Text and Add the Star Step 3: Join the Modified Lines

Summary Practice Questions Practice Project

Table Printer

II. Automating Tasks

7. Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions

Finding Patterns of Text Without Regular Expressions Finding Patterns of Text with Regular Expressions

Creating Regex Objects Matching Regex Objects Review of Regular Expression Matching

More Pattern Matching with Regular Expressions

Grouping with Parentheses Matching Multiple Groups with the Pipe Optional Matching with the Question Mark Matching Zero or More with the Star Matching One or More with the Plus Matching Specific Repetitions with Curly Brackets

Greedy and Nongreedy Matching The findall() Method Character Classes Making Your Own Character Classes The Caret and Dollar Sign Characters The Wildcard Character

Matching Everything with Dot-Star Matching Newlines with the Dot Character

Review of Regex Symbols Case-Insensitive Matching Substituting Strings with the sub() Method Managing Complex Regexes Combining re.IGNORECASE, re.DOTALL, and re.VERBOSE Project: Phone Number and Email Address Extractor

Step 1: Create a Regex for Phone Numbers Step 2: Create a Regex for Email Addresses Step 3: Find All Matches in the Clipboard Text Step 4: Join the Matches into a String for the Clipboard Running the Program Ideas for Similar Programs

Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Strong Password Detection Regex Version of strip()

8. Reading and Writing Files

Files and File Paths

Backslash on Windows and Forward Slash on OS X and Linux The Current Working Directory Absolute vs. Relative Paths Creating New Folders with os.makedirs()

The os.path Module

Handling Absolute and Relative Paths Finding File Sizes and Folder Contents Checking Path Validity

The File Reading/Writing Process

Opening Files with the open() Function Reading the Contents of Files Writing to Files

Saving Variables with the shelve Module Saving Variables with the pprint.pformat() Function Project: Generating Random Quiz Files

Step 1: Store the Quiz Data in a Dictionary Step 2: Create the Quiz File and Shuffle the Question Order Step 3: Create the Answer Options Step 4: Write Content to the Quiz and Answer Key Files

Project: Multiclipboard

Step 1: Comments and Shelf Setup Step 2: Save Clipboard Content with a Keyword Step 3: List Keywords and Load a Keyword’s Content

Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Extending the Multiclipboard Mad Libs Regex Search

9. Organizing Files

The shutil Module

Copying Files and Folders Moving and Renaming Files and Folders Permanently Deleting Files and Folders Safe Deletes with the send2trash Module

Walking a Directory Tree Compressing Files with the zipfile Module

Reading ZIP Files Extracting from ZIP Files Creating and Adding to ZIP Files

Project: Renaming Files with American-Style Dates to European-Style Dates

Step 1: Create a Regex for American-Style Dates Step 2: Identify the Date Parts from the Filenames Step 3: Form the New Filename and Rename the Files Ideas for Similar Programs

Project: Backing Up a Folder into a ZIP File

Step 1: Figure Out the ZIP File’s Name Step 2: Create the New ZIP File Step 3: Walk the Directory Tree and Add to the ZIP File Ideas for Similar Programs

Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Selective Copy Deleting Unneeded Files Filling in the Gaps

10. Debugging

Raising Exceptions Getting the Traceback as a String Assertions

Using an Assertion in a Traffic Light Simulation Disabling Assertions

Logging

Using the logging Module Don’t Debug with print() Logging Levels Disabling Logging Logging to a File

IDLE’s Debugger

Go Step Over Out Quit Debugging a Number Adding Program Breakpoints

Summary Practice Questions Practice Project

Debugging Coin Toss

11. Web Scraping

Project: mapit.py with the webbrowser Module

Step 1: Figure Out the URL Step 2: Handle the Command Line Arguments Step 3: Handle the Clipboard Content and Launch the Browser Ideas for Similar Programs

Downloading Files from the Web with the requests Module

Downloading a Web Page with the requests.get() Function Checking for Errors

Saving Downloaded Files to the Hard Drive HTML

Resources for Learning HTML A Quick Refresher Viewing the Source HTML of a Web Page Opening Your Browser’s Developer Tools Using the Developer Tools to Find HTML Elements

Parsing HTML with the BeautifulSoup Module

Creating a BeautifulSoup Object from HTML Finding an Element with the select() Method Getting Data from an Element’s Attributes

Project: “I’m Feeling Lucky” Google Search

Step 1: Get the Command Line Arguments and Request the Search Page Step 2: Find All the Results Step 3: Open Web Browsers for Each Result Ideas for Similar Programs

Project: Downloading All XKCD Comics

Step 1: Design the Program Step 2: Download the Web Page Step 3: Find and Download the Comic Image Step 4: Save the Image and Find the Previous Comic Ideas for Similar Programs

Controlling the Browser with the selenium Module

Starting a Selenium-Controlled Browser Finding Elements on the Page Clicking the Page Filling Out and Submitting Forms Sending Special Keys Clicking Browser Buttons More Information on Selenium

Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Command Line Emailer Image Site Downloader 2048 Link Verification

12. Working with Excel Spreadsheets

Excel Documents Installing the openpyxl Module Reading Excel Documents

Opening Excel Documents with OpenPyXL Getting Sheets from the Workbook Getting Cells from the Sheets Converting Between Column Letters and Numbers Getting Rows and Columns from the Sheets Workbooks, Sheets, Cells

Project: Reading Data from a Spreadsheet

Step 1: Read the Spreadsheet Data Step 2: Populate the Data Structure Step 3: Write the Results to a File Ideas for Similar Programs

Writing Excel Documents

Creating and Saving Excel Documents Creating and Removing Sheets Writing Values to Cells

Project: Updating a Spreadsheet

Step 1: Set Up a Data Structure with the Update Information Step 2: Check All Rows and Update Incorrect Prices Ideas for Similar Programs

Setting the Font Style of Cells Font Objects Formulas Adjusting Rows and Columns

Setting Row Height and Column Width Merging and Unmerging Cells Freeze Panes

Charts Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Multiplication Table Maker Blank Row Inserter Spreadsheet Cell Inverter Text Files to Spreadsheet Spreadsheet to Text Files

13. Working with PDF and word Documents

PDF Documents

Extracting Text from PDFs Decrypting PDFs Creating PDFs

Copying Pages Rotating Pages Overlaying Pages Encrypting PDFs

Project: Combining Select Pages from Many PDFs

Step 1: Find All PDF Files Step 2: Open Each PDF Step 3: Add Each Page Step 4: Save the Results Ideas for Similar Programs

Word Documents

Reading Word Documents Getting the Full Text from a .docx File Styling Paragraph and Run Objects Creating Word Documents with Nondefault Styles Run Attributes Writing Word Documents Adding Headings Adding Line and Page Breaks Adding Pictures

Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

PDF Paranoia Custom Invitations as Word Documents Brute-Force PDF Password Breaker

14. Working with CSV Files and JSON Data

The CSV Module

Reader Objects Reading Data from Reader Objects in a for Loop Writer Objects The delimiter and lineterminator Keyword Arguments

Project: Removing the Header from CSV Files

Step 1: Loop Through Each CSV File Step 2: Read in the CSV File Step 3: Write Out the CSV File Without the First Row Ideas for Similar Programs

JSON and APIs The JSON Module

Reading JSON with the loads() Function Writing JSON with the dumps() Function

Project: Fetching Current Weather Data

Step 1: Get Location from the Command Line Argument Step 2: Download the JSON Data Step 3: Load JSON Data and Print Weather Ideas for Similar Programs

Summary Practice Questions Practice Project

Excel-to-CSV Converter

15. Keeping Time, Scheduling Tasks, and Launching Programs

The time Module

The time.time() Function The time.sleep() Function

Rounding Numbers Project: Super Stopwatch

Step 1: Set Up the Program to Track Times Step 2: Track and Print Lap Times Ideas for Similar Programs

The datetime Module

The timedelta Data Type Pausing Until a Specific Date Converting datetime Objects into Strings Converting Strings into datetime Objects

Review of Python’s Time Functions Multithreading

Passing Arguments to the Thread’s Target Function Concurrency Issues

Project: Multithreaded XKCD Downloader

Step 1: Modify the Program to Use a Function Step 2: Create and Start Threads Step 3: Wait for All Threads to End

Launching Other Programs from Python

Passing Command Line Arguments to Popen() Task Scheduler, launchd, and cron Opening Websites with Python Running Other Python Scripts Opening Files with Default Applications

Project: Simple Countdown Program

Step 1: Count Down Step 2: Play the Sound File Ideas for Similar Programs

Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Prettified Stopwatch Scheduled Web Comic Downloader

16. Sending Email and Text Messages

SMTP Sending Email

Connecting to an SMTP Server Sending the SMTP “Hello” Message Starting TLS Encryption Logging in to the SMTP Server Sending an Email Disconnecting from the SMTP Server

IMAP Retrieving and Deleting Emails with IMAP

Connecting to an IMAP Server Logging in to the IMAP Server Searching for Email

Selecting a Folder Performing the Search Size Limits

Fetching an Email and Marking It As Read Getting Email Addresses from a Raw Message Getting the Body from a Raw Message Deleting Emails Disconnecting from the IMAP Server

Project: Sending Member Dues Reminder Emails

Step 1: Open the Excel File Step 2: Find All Unpaid Members Step 3: Send Customized Email Reminders

Sending Text Messages with Twilio

Signing Up for a Twilio Account Sending Text Messages

Project: “Just Text Me” Module Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Random Chore Assignment Emailer Umbrella Reminder Auto Unsubscriber Controlling Your Computer Through Email

17. Manipulating Images

Computer Image Fundamentals

Colors and RGBA Values Coordinates and Box Tuples

Manipulating Images with Pillow

Working with the Image Data Type Cropping Images Copying and Pasting Images onto Other Images Resizing an Image Rotating and Flipping Images Changing Individual Pixels

Project: Adding a Logo

Step 1: Open the Logo Image Step 2: Loop Over All Files and Open Images Step 3: Resize the Images Step 4: Add the Logo and Save the Changes Ideas for Similar Programs

Drawing on Images

Drawing Shapes

Points Lines Rectangles Ellipses Polygons Drawing Example

Drawing Text

Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Extending and Fixing the Chapter Project Programs Identifying Photo Folders on the Hard Drive Custom Seating Cards

18. Controlling the Keyboard and Mouse with GUI Automation

Installing the pyautogui Module Staying on Track

Shutting Down Everything by Logging Out Pauses and Fail-Safes

Controlling Mouse Movement

Moving the Mouse Getting the Mouse Position

Project: “Where Is the Mouse Right Now?”

Step 1: Import the Module Step 2: Set Up the Quit Code and Infinite Loop Step 3: Get and Print the Mouse Coordinates

Controlling Mouse Interaction

Clicking the Mouse Dragging the Mouse Scrolling the Mouse

Working with the Screen

Getting a Screenshot Analyzing the Screenshot

Project: Extending the mouseNow Program Image Recognition Controlling the Keyboard

Sending a String from the Keyboard Key Names Pressing and Releasing the Keyboard Hotkey Combinations

Review of the PyAutoGUI Functions Project: Automatic Form Filler

Step 1: Figure Out the Steps Step 2: Set Up Coordinates Step 3: Start Typing Data Step 4: Handle Select Lists and Radio Buttons Step 5: Submit the Form and Wait

Summary Practice Questions Practice Projects

Looking Busy Instant Messenger Bot Game-Playing Bot Tutorial

A. Installing Third-Party Modules

The pip Tool Installing Third-Party Modules

B. Running Programs

Shebang Line Running Python Programs on Windows Running Python Programs on OS X and Linux Running Python Programs with Assertions Disabled

C. Answers to the Practice Questions

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18

D. Resources Index Copyright

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