Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
I'm the OP. Nick Zarr, alias Jack Trades, has done something really marvelous. He's made a thorough critique and refactoring of my phone_book.py, in its last incarnation as http://pastebin.com/2wm4Vf1P. See https://gist.github.com/1212290. He'll be making that part of his blog (http://pointlessprogramming.wordpress.com/), and may turn it into an article. Dick ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
So I've done quite a bit more work. With phone_book.py the user can not only access phone numbers by the person's initials, but can add items to the data file. I've also solved the problem of adding a person who's initials have already been used in a key. I've pasted phone_book_for_pasting.py at http://pastebin.com/2wm4Vf1P. I'd appreciate any comments, instructive criticism, etc. Some have suggested using the shelve module. I looked at it but couldn't see in detail how to use it. If someone could write a short demo script, or send me to one that pretty much does what my phone_book.py does, that would be terrific. Dick Moores ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 1:08 PM, Richard D. Moores rdmoo...@gmail.comwrote:
So I've done quite a bit more work. With phone_book.py the user can
not only access phone numbers by the person's initials, but can add
items to the data file. I've also solved the problem of adding a
person who's initials have already been used in a key.
I've pasted phone_book_for_pasting.py at http://pastebin.com/2wm4Vf1P.
I'd appreciate any comments, instructive criticism, etc.
It looks pretty good overall, though I didn't examine it too closely. IMHO
there are some awkward bits which I think come from your representation of
the data.
I would probably make the phonebook itself a list, with each entry being a
dict. Something like:
book = [
{'name':'Mark Sanders', 'cell':'422-318-2346', '
email':'msand...@stanfordalumni.org'},
{'name':'AAA', 'phone':'575-3992', 'phone2':'1-800-472-4630',
'notes':'Membership #422 260 0131863 00 8'},
#...
]
Then you can easily search your phone book by name, email, type of contact,
relation, etc. A search by name would look like this:
def find_by_name(name):
for entry in book:
if entry['name'] == name:
return entry
find_by_name('Mark Sanders')
#== {'name':'Mark Sanders', 'cell':'422-318-2346', '
email':'msand...@stanfordalumni.org}
or a more general procedure for doing searches on your book could be:
def find(criteria, term):
for entry in book:
if entry[criteria] == term:
return entry
find('name', 'Mark Sanders')
#== {'name':'Mark Sanders', 'cell':'422-318-2346', '
email':'msand...@stanfordalumni.org}
Similarly you could search for initials by providing a to_initials
procedure:
def to_initials(name):
return ''.join([i[0] for i in name.split(' ')])
def find_by_initials(initials):
for entry in book:
if to_initials(entry['name']) == initials:
return entry
find_by_initials('MS')
#== {'cell': '422-318-2346', 'name': 'Mark Sanders', 'email': '
msand...@stanfordalumni.org'}
Adding a new entry would then be as simple as:
def add_new_entry(entry, book):
book.append(entry)
For storing data I would probably use Pickle, which would look something
like this:
from cPickle import load, dump
f = open('book.pk', 'w')
dump(book, f)
f.close()
and loading your book is similar
f = open('book.pk', 'r')
book = load(f)
f.close()
If you want a human readable storage format I would look into json, but
pickle has served me well for most purposes. Surely you can store your
phonebook as plain text and parse it the way you have, but it's not
necessary to do that with all the tools that exist for that purpose.
--
Nick Zarczynski
Pointless Programming Blog http://pointlessprogramming.wordpress.com
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Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
Thanks so much, Jack. You've given me much to chew on. I began phone_book.py without much need for it -- I already had an RTF file with 786 lines that I grepped using a script I wrote with Tutor help long ago. I used an RTF file instead of a text file so that any URLs in it would be live. But I wanted to refresh what little I used to know about dicts and see where I could go with it. It turns out to be something I'll actually use for quickly looking up phone numbers of people (friends, relatives, doctors, etc.) and some businesses, and the occasional address. For adding key=value items to the data file, values can be copied as is from the RTF file. It'll probably have fewer than 100 entries. Your idea doesn't seem efficient for me -- lots of typing and editing. But very interesting! I'll probably have fewer than 100 entries. Your pickle examples give me a start on using the cPickle module. Dick ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
Thanks so much, Jack. You've given me much to chew on. I began phone_book.py without much need for it -- I already had an RTF file with 786 lines that I grepped using a script I wrote with Tutor help long ago. I used an RTF file instead of a text file so that any URLs in it would be live. But I wanted to refresh what little I used to know about dicts and see where I could go with it. It turns out to be something I'll actually use for quickly looking up phone numbers of people (friends, relatives, doctors, etc.) and some businesses, and the occasional address. For adding key=value items to the data file, values can be copied as is from the RTF file. It'll probably have fewer than 100 entries. Your idea doesn't seem efficient for me -- lots of typing and editing. But very interesting! I'll probably have fewer than 100 entries. Your pickle examples give me a start on using the cPickle module. Dick ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
Jack Trades (actually Nick Zarczynski) just sent me this link to a Simple phone book app, and has agreed to let me post it to this thread: https://gist.github.com/1208786#file_book.py Dick ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Richard D. Moores rdmoo...@gmail.comwrote: Your idea doesn't seem efficient for me -- lots of typing and editing. Not sure what you mean by that? I've updated the gist with a quick 5min implementation of a GUI using Tkinter and the approach I outlined. I think using a GUI is best way to minimize typing and editing in an app like this. You can find it here: https://gist.github.com/1208786#file_book.py If you're talking about re-entering all your data from your file, you would write a script to do that. This program assumes that you are starting from scratch with a blank phone book. If you would like help converting your existing file, I'm sure I or others can help, but I'd need to see the original file. -- Nick Zarczynski Pointless Programming Blog http://pointlessprogramming.wordpress.com ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On 10/09/11 19:08, Richard D. Moores wrote: Some have suggested using the shelve module. I looked at it but couldn't see in detail how to use it. Did you read the help page? It says: import shelve d = shelve.open(filename) # open, with (g)dbm filename -- no suffix d[key] = data # store data at key data = d[key] # retrieve a COPY of the data at key del d[key] # delete data stored at key flag = d.has_key(key) # true if the key exists list = d.keys() # a list of all existing keys (slow!) d.close() # close it So you open the file and from that point on treat it exactly like a dictionary. Then close the file at the end. Now which part don't you understand? The ony bit that migt confuse is the mention of gdbm filename which just means give it a filename without any suffix...just ignore the gdbm reference. -- Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.alan-g.me.uk/ ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 15:32, Alan Gauld alan.ga...@btinternet.com wrote: On 10/09/11 19:08, Richard D. Moores wrote: Some have suggested using the shelve module. I looked at it but couldn't see in detail how to use it. Did you read the help page? I did. I can see it would be a useful reference once I learned from elsewhere how to use shelve. It says: import shelve d = shelve.open(filename) # open, with (g)dbm filename -- no suffix d[key] = data # store data at key data = d[key] # retrieve a COPY of the data at key del d[key] # delete data stored at key flag = d.has_key(key) # true if the key exists list = d.keys() # a list of all existing keys (slow!) d.close() # close it So you open the file and from that point on treat it exactly like a dictionary. I'm still a bit shaky about dictionaries. Then close the file at the end. Now which part don't you understand? Much of what comes after that is beyond me. The ony bit that migt confuse is the mention of gdbm filename which just means give it a filename without any suffix...just ignore the gdbm reference. Thanks for your encouragement Alan, but I'm still looking among my Python books for a good exposition of shelve. Dick ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On 11/09/11 00:18, Richard D. Moores wrote: So you open the file and from that point on treat it exactly like a dictionary. I'm still a bit shaky about dictionaries. But you started the post with using a dictionary. Shelve is just a dictionary that lives in a file instead of memory. If you can put data into or read it out of a dictionary then you can do the same with shelve. The only complexity is you have to open the file before sing it and close it when your done. Much of what comes after that is beyond me. Thanks for your encouragement Alan, but I'm still looking among my Python books for a good exposition of shelve. You probably won't find much in books because shelve has such a specific purpose. As a result there isn't much to say about it if you've already covered dictionaries. It's a file based dictionary. So read up on dictionaries. Then just use it. There are a few limitations with shelve but for most normal cases you can ignore that and just use it like any normal dictionary. -- Alan G Author of the Learn to Program web site http://www.alan-g.me.uk/ ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 4:18 PM, Richard D. Moores rdmoo...@gmail.comwrote: On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 15:32, Alan Gauld alan.ga...@btinternet.com wrote: So you open the file and from that point on treat it exactly like a dictionary. I'm still a bit shaky about dictionaries. That right there is the salient bit. Using shelve is just like using a dictionary; probably that's why you're finding the documentation sparse: dictionaries are core Python, so they assume you know how to use them. (First, catch your rabbit...) I was about to write an introduction to dictionaries, but I realized it's been done, and done better than I could. I really recommend that you learn them; I think that once you do, you'll find that they're a better fit in all sorts of places where you've been using lists. (Speaking from personal experience...) ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On 11/09/11 00:18, Richard D. Moores wrote: Now which part don't you understand? Much of what comes after that is beyond me. I meant to add, you can pretty much ignore all the stuff at the end of the Help page about class definitions. You only need that if you intend to create your own specialised Shelf object. All you need to know is in the pseudocode bit that I posted. open() the file use the shelf like a dictionary close() the file And there are two main caveats given: 1) Don't try to edit mutable data objects (lists) in place. Extract them, modify them and replace them 2) Don't use the writeback=True setting when you open large data sets. That's it. Alan G. ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 17:34, Marc Tompkins marc.tompk...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 4:18 PM, Richard D. Moores rdmoo...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 15:32, Alan Gauld alan.ga...@btinternet.com wrote: So you open the file and from that point on treat it exactly like a dictionary. I'm still a bit shaky about dictionaries. That right there is the salient bit. Using shelve is just like using a dictionary; probably that's why you're finding the documentation sparse: dictionaries are core Python, so they assume you know how to use them. (First, catch your rabbit...) I was about to write an introduction to dictionaries, but I realized it's been done, and done better than I could. I really recommend that you learn them; I think that once you do, you'll find that they're a better fit in all sorts of places where you've been using lists. (Speaking from personal experience...) Well, I wrote a BIT shaky. I sure learned a lot writing my phone_book.py, with important input from you . And am still pretty happy with it. And dictionaries seem to be well-covered in some of the Python books I have. Dick ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 17:34, Alan Gauld alan.ga...@btinternet.com wrote: On 11/09/11 00:18, Richard D. Moores wrote: So you open the file and from that point on treat it exactly like a dictionary. I'm still a bit shaky about dictionaries. But you started the post with using a dictionary. Shelve is just a dictionary that lives in a file instead of memory. If you can put data into or read it out of a dictionary then you can do the same with shelve. The only complexity is you have to open the file before sing it and close it when your done. Much of what comes after that is beyond me. Thanks for your encouragement Alan, but I'm still looking among my Python books for a good exposition of shelve. You probably won't find much in books because shelve has such a specific purpose. As a result there isn't much to say about it if you've already covered dictionaries. It's a file based dictionary. So read up on dictionaries. Then just use it. There are a few limitations with shelve but for most normal cases you can ignore that and just use it like any normal dictionary. OK, Alan, I really will give shelve a try. Dick ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 15:15, Jack Trades jacktradespub...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Sep 10, 2011 at 4:36 PM, Richard D. Moores rdmoo...@gmail.com wrote: Your idea doesn't seem efficient for me -- lots of typing and editing. Not sure what you mean by that? I've updated the gist with a quick 5min implementation of a GUI using Tkinter and the approach I outlined. I think using a GUI is best way to minimize typing and editing in an app like this. You can find it here: https://gist.github.com/1208786#file_book.py Using Python 2.7 for it, it seems to work fine, except that I can't see how the GUI helps. It opens only when I use the g option to find an entry already made. Useful for editing an entry, though. As for the non-GUI script, I get this error no matter which choice I make. I'm too dumb, and have forgotten too much of Python 2.x to debug: == What's next: (q) Quit (a) Add new Entry (v) View all Entries (s) General Search (si) Search by Initials (sn) Search by Name q Traceback (most recent call last): File c:\P32Working\Pickles\nicks_simple_phone_book_app.py, line 171, in module main_loop() File c:\P32Working\Pickles\nicks_simple_phone_book_app.py, line 94, in main_loop ) File string, line 1, in module NameError: name 'q' is not defined Process terminated with an exit code of 1 If you're talking about re-entering all your data from your file, you would write a script to do that. Ha! I would? This program assumes that you are starting from scratch with a blank phone book. If you would like help converting your existing file, I'm sure I or others can help, but I'd need to see the original file. I'll take you up on that. I'll have to edit it some first. What I have now with grepping that 786-line RTF file is maximum flexibility. A line in the file always begins with a name, with at least one phone number, then if a company, the hours they are reachable by phone, possibly their web address, maybe an email address, my contact there plus maybe her secretary. If a physician, there might very well be his specialty, his nurse's name, mention of who recommended him to me, etc. It seems that the format of info for your way is set rigidly in advance, or am I wrong? Dick -- Nick Zarczynski Pointless Programming Blog ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
Using Python 2.7 for it, it seems to work fine, except that I can't see how the GUI helps. It opens only when I use the g option to find an entry already made. Useful for editing an entry, though. Well the idea would be to build the app as a full-blown GUI. The GUI search and edit functionality was just a proof-of-concept to show how that may work. I was just having some fun and seeing what I could do in less than an hour. Turning this into a full blown app is not what I had in mind, though if you want to build on it to learn I would be willing to help. As for the non-GUI script, I get this error no matter which choice I make. I'm too dumb, and have forgotten too much of Python 2.x to debug: == What's next: (q) Quit (a) Add new Entry (v) View all Entries (s) General Search (si) Search by Initials (sn) Search by Name q Traceback (most recent call last): File c:\P32Working\Pickles\nicks_simple_phone_book_app.py, line 171, in module main_loop() File c:\P32Working\Pickles\nicks_simple_phone_book_app.py, line 94, in main_loop ) File string, line 1, in module NameError: name 'q' is not defined Process terminated with an exit code of 1 My guess is that this has something to do with Python 3.x not having raw_input. Try changing the raw_input calls to input. I don't get that error with 2.7. If you're talking about re-entering all your data from your file, you would write a script to do that. Ha! I would? Well, yeah. A line in the file always begins with a name, with at least one phone number, then if a company, the hours they are reachable by phone, possibly their web address, maybe an email address, my contact there plus maybe her secretary. If a physician, there might very well be his specialty, his nurse's name, mention of who recommended him to me, etc. Like I said, I'd have to see the file to comment more, but it sounds like it may be too irregular to make writing a script an easy process. Though I can't be sure without seeing it. You could always enter these things by hand... I should probably ask; what is your goal for this app? Is it to learn some Python while making a usable app? Or are you looking for a robust address book for quick lookups of information? If it's the latter, I'd recommend you look around for something that's already made. It will save you a lot of trouble in the long run. If you're looking for a good learning experience this kind of app is a great starting place. However expect to run into problems along the way, up to and possibly beyond possibly hosing all the data you have entered into the app. Make regular backups of the data and keep your original around. It seems that the format of info for your way is set rigidly in advance, or am I wrong? Not really. Key/value pairs can be entered in arbitrary order. I used = to seperate key/values because that's what you used in your app and | to seperate k/v pairs to allow spaces without quoting strings. You could easily replace these tokens (= or |) with whatever you want. If you have another format that differs by more than those characters you would need to write a different parser. However there does have to be some consistency to the format of your data to make parsing easier. The less rigid your data the more work you will have to do to parse it. Since you said earlier that you will probably have less than 100 entries in your phone book, you may want to think about restructuring your data by hand to make it easier to parse before writing your parser. -- Nick Zarczynski Pointless Programming Blog http://pointlessprogramming.wordpress.com ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
[Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
I've succeeded in writing a dictionary ({}) that I can use as a small
personal phone book. The dictionary (very shortened and simplified)
looks like this in the script;
p = {}
p['bp1'] = 'xxx'
p['bp2'] = 'ooo'
p['ch'] = 'zzz'
p['me'] = 'aaa'
p['mg'] = 'vvv'
p['pu1'] = 'bbb'
p['pu2'] = 'ccc'
p['pw'] = 'kkk'
I have a function that enables the user to enter 'bp', for example,
and return both 'xxx' and 'ooo'.
(The keys are initials; I've disguised the values, each of which of
course are name, home number, mobile number, speed dial number,
etc.)
But I'd like to put the lines of the dictionary in a text file so that
I can add key/value items to it by writing to it with another script.
I think I can do that, but I need some hints about how to get the
script to access the text file in a way that lets the user look up a
phone number. I'm thinking that the script needs to recreate the
dictionary each time it's called, but I don't know how to do that.
Thanks,
Dick Moores
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Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On 2011/09/08 12:58 PM, Richard D. Moores wrote:
I've succeeded in writing a dictionary ({}) that I can use as a small
personal phone book. The dictionary (very shortened and simplified)
looks like this in the script;
p = {}
p['bp1'] = 'xxx'
p['bp2'] = 'ooo'
p['ch'] = 'zzz'
p['me'] = 'aaa'
p['mg'] = 'vvv'
p['pu1'] = 'bbb'
p['pu2'] = 'ccc'
p['pw'] = 'kkk'
I have a function that enables the user to enter 'bp', for example,
and return both 'xxx' and 'ooo'.
(The keys are initials; I've disguised the values, each of which of
course are name, home number, mobile number, speed dial number,
etc.)
But I'd like to put the lines of the dictionary in a text file so that
I can add key/value items to it by writing to it with another script.
I think I can do that, but I need some hints about how to get the
script to access the text file in a way that lets the user look up a
phone number. I'm thinking that the script needs to recreate the
dictionary each time it's called, but I don't know how to do that.
Thanks,
Dick Moores
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You could pickle your dictionary object which will give you the
persistence and then when your script starts up you can unpickle the
file if it exists else create a new one. Of course if you make any
changes to your object you'll need to pickle it once your app finishes
otherwise new changes won't be written out.
With just a plain text file you can also just grep the info out
$ cat test.file
bp1:xxx|yyy
bp2:ooo|ppp
ch:zzz|asf
me:agkjh|agjh
$ grep -i ^bp* test.file
bp1:xxx|yyy
bp2:ooo|ppp
$ grep -i ^BP* test.file
bp1:xxx|yyy
bp2:ooo|ppp
--
Christian Witts
Python Developer
//
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Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 04:36, Christian Witts cwi...@compuscan.co.za wrote:
On 2011/09/08 12:58 PM, Richard D. Moores wrote:
I've succeeded in writing a dictionary ({}) that I can use as a small
personal phone book. The dictionary (very shortened and simplified)
looks like this in the script;
p = {}
p['bp1'] = 'xxx'
p['bp2'] = 'ooo'
p['ch'] = 'zzz'
p['me'] = 'aaa'
p['mg'] = 'vvv'
p['pu1'] = 'bbb'
p['pu2'] = 'ccc'
p['pw'] = 'kkk'
I have a function that enables the user to enter 'bp', for example,
and return both 'xxx' and 'ooo'.
(The keys are initials; I've disguised the values, each of which of
course are name, home number, mobile number, speed dial number,
etc.)
But I'd like to put the lines of the dictionary in a text file so that
I can add key/value items to it by writing to it with another script.
I think I can do that, but I need some hints about how to get the
script to access the text file in a way that lets the user look up a
phone number. I'm thinking that the script needs to recreate the
dictionary each time it's called, but I don't know how to do that.
Thanks,
Dick Moores
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You could pickle your dictionary object which will give you the persistence
and then when your script starts up you can unpickle the file if it exists
else create a new one. Of course if you make any changes to your object
you'll need to pickle it once your app finishes otherwise new changes won't
be written out.
With just a plain text file you can also just grep the info out
$ cat test.file
bp1:xxx|yyy
bp2:ooo|ppp
ch:zzz|asf
me:agkjh|agjh
$ grep -i ^bp* test.file
bp1:xxx|yyy
bp2:ooo|ppp
$ grep -i ^BP* test.file
bp1:xxx|yyy
bp2:ooo|ppp
I should have stated that I'm using Win 7, Python 3.2.1. No Unix.
Dick
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Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
Richard D. Moores wrote:
I've succeeded in writing a dictionary ({}) that I can use as a small
personal phone book. The dictionary (very shortened and simplified)
looks like this in the script;
p = {}
p['bp1'] = 'xxx'
p['bp2'] = 'ooo'
p['ch'] = 'zzz'
p['me'] = 'aaa'
p['mg'] = 'vvv'
p['pu1'] = 'bbb'
p['pu2'] = 'ccc'
p['pw'] = 'kkk'
I have a function that enables the user to enter 'bp', for example,
and return both 'xxx' and 'ooo'.
(The keys are initials; I've disguised the values, each of which of
course are name, home number, mobile number, speed dial number,
etc.)
But I'd like to put the lines of the dictionary in a text file so that
I can add key/value items to it by writing to it with another script.
I think I can do that, but I need some hints about how to get the
script to access the text file in a way that lets the user look up a
phone number. I'm thinking that the script needs to recreate the
dictionary each time it's called, but I don't know how to do that.
Start with a simple file format. If you don't allow = in the key and \n
in either key or value
bp1=xxx
bp2=ooo
...
pw=kkk
should do. I suppose you know how to read a file one line at a time? Before
you add the line into the dictionary you have to separate key and value
(str.partition() may help with that) and remove the trailing newline from
the value. If you need more flexibility look into the json module. This
makes reading and writing the file even easier, and while the format is a
bit more complex than key=value
print json.dumps(p, indent=2)
{
me: aaa,
mg: vvv,
ch: zzz,
pw: kkk,
bp1: xxx,
bp2: ooo,
pu1: bbb,
pu2: ccc
}
it can still be edited by a human.
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Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
Richard D. Moores wrote: But I'd like to put the lines of the dictionary in a text file so that I can add key/value items to it by writing to it with another script. If you expect human beings (yourself, or possibly even the user) to edit the text file, then you should look at a human-writable format like these: Good ol' fashioned Windows INI files: import configparser JSON: import json PLIST: import plistlib YAML: download from http://pyyaml.org/wiki/PyYAML If the ability to edit the files isn't important, then I suggest using the pickle module instead. -- Steven ___ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor
Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 04:43, Peter Otten __pete...@web.de wrote:
Richard D. Moores wrote:
I've succeeded in writing a dictionary ({}) that I can use as a small
personal phone book. The dictionary (very shortened and simplified)
looks like this in the script;
p = {}
p['bp1'] = 'xxx'
p['bp2'] = 'ooo'
p['ch'] = 'zzz'
p['me'] = 'aaa'
p['mg'] = 'vvv'
p['pu1'] = 'bbb'
p['pu2'] = 'ccc'
p['pw'] = 'kkk'
I have a function that enables the user to enter 'bp', for example,
and return both 'xxx' and 'ooo'.
(The keys are initials; I've disguised the values, each of which of
course are name, home number, mobile number, speed dial number,
etc.)
But I'd like to put the lines of the dictionary in a text file so that
I can add key/value items to it by writing to it with another script.
I think I can do that, but I need some hints about how to get the
script to access the text file in a way that lets the user look up a
phone number. I'm thinking that the script needs to recreate the
dictionary each time it's called, but I don't know how to do that.
Start with a simple file format. If you don't allow = in the key and \n
in either key or value
bp1=xxx
bp2=ooo
...
pw=kkk
should do. I suppose you know how to read a file one line at a time? Before
you add the line into the dictionary you have to separate key and value
(str.partition() may help with that) and remove the trailing newline from
the value. If you need more flexibility look into the json module. This
makes reading and writing the file even easier, and while the format is a
bit more complex than key=value
print json.dumps(p, indent=2)
{
me: aaa,
mg: vvv,
ch: zzz,
pw: kkk,
bp1: xxx,
bp2: ooo,
pu1: bbb,
pu2: ccc
}
it can still be edited by a human.
Thanks Peter!
You made it a lot easier than I thought it would be. Please see
http://pastebin.com/NbzBNMDW for the script's current incarnation.
The text of the demo data file is quoted in the script, lines 6-13. It
doesn't seem I need to use the json module, though I want to learn it
eventually.
The data file very easily edited. However, as the number of lines gets
large (maybe 100?) I'll need a way to determine if the new key is
already in the file. So I'll be working on a script that I can use to
safely add lines to the the file, by keeping all the keys unique.
Dick
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Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 04:43, Peter Otten __pete...@web.de wrote:
Richard D. Moores wrote:
I've succeeded in writing a dictionary ({}) that I can use as a small
personal phone book. The dictionary (very shortened and simplified)
looks like this in the script;
p = {}
p['bp1'] = 'xxx'
p['bp2'] = 'ooo'
p['ch'] = 'zzz'
p['me'] = 'aaa'
p['mg'] = 'vvv'
p['pu1'] = 'bbb'
p['pu2'] = 'ccc'
p['pw'] = 'kkk'
I have a function that enables the user to enter 'bp', for example,
and return both 'xxx' and 'ooo'.
(The keys are initials; I've disguised the values, each of which of
course are name, home number, mobile number, speed dial number,
etc.)
But I'd like to put the lines of the dictionary in a text file so that
I can add key/value items to it by writing to it with another script.
I think I can do that, but I need some hints about how to get the
script to access the text file in a way that lets the user look up a
phone number. I'm thinking that the script needs to recreate the
dictionary each time it's called, but I don't know how to do that.
Start with a simple file format. If you don't allow = in the key and \n
in either key or value
bp1=xxx
bp2=ooo
...
pw=kkk
should do. I suppose you know how to read a file one line at a time? Before
you add the line into the dictionary you have to separate key and value
(str.partition() may help with that) and remove the trailing newline from
the value. If you need more flexibility look into the json module. This
makes reading and writing the file even easier, and while the format is a
bit more complex than key=value
print json.dumps(p, indent=2)
{
me: aaa,
mg: vvv,
ch: zzz,
pw: kkk,
bp1: xxx,
bp2: ooo,
pu1: bbb,
pu2: ccc
}
it can still be edited by a human.
Thanks Peter!
You made it a lot easier than I thought it would be. Please see
http://pastebin.com/NbzBNMDW for the script's current incarnation.
The text of the demo data file is quoted in the script, lines 6-13. It
doesn't seem I need to use the json module, though I want to learn it
eventually.
The data file very easily edited. However, as the number of lines gets
large (maybe 100?) I'll need a way to determine if the new key is
already in the file. So I'll be working on a script that I can use to
safely add lines to the the file, by keeping all the keys unique.
Dick
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Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On 08/09/11 11:58, Richard D. Moores wrote:
I've succeeded in writing a dictionary ({}) that I can use as a small
personal phone book. The dictionary (very shortened and simplified)
looks like this in the script;
p = {}
p['bp1'] = 'xxx'
p['bp2'] = 'ooo'
p['ch'] = 'zzz'
p['me'] = 'aaa'
p['mg'] = 'vvv'
p['pu1'] = 'bbb'
p['pu2'] = 'ccc'
p['pw'] = 'kkk'
You could have done that in one line if you preferred:
p = {
'bp1':'xxx',
'bp2':'ooo'
etc/...
'pw':'kkk'
}
But I'd like to put the lines of the dictionary in a text file so that
I can add key/value items to it by writing to it with another script.
Consider using a shelve (See the shelve module)
It is basically a file that you can treat as a dictionary...
Try:
import shelve
help(shelve)
For examples and info.
--
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
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Re: [Tutor] need advice about a dictionary ({})
On Thu, Sep 8, 2011 at 10:03 AM, Alan Gauld alan.ga...@btinternet.comwrote:
On 08/09/11 11:58, Richard D. Moores wrote:
I've succeeded in writing a dictionary ({}) that I can use as a small
personal phone book. The dictionary (very shortened and simplified)
looks like this in the script;
p = {}
p['bp1'] = 'xxx'
p['bp2'] = 'ooo'
p['ch'] = 'zzz'
p['me'] = 'aaa'
p['mg'] = 'vvv'
p['pu1'] = 'bbb'
p['pu2'] = 'ccc'
p['pw'] = 'kkk'
You could have done that in one line if you preferred:
p = {
'bp1':'xxx',
'bp2':'ooo'
etc/...
'pw':'kkk'
}
But I'd like to put the lines of the dictionary in a text file so that
I can add key/value items to it by writing to it with another script.
Consider using a shelve (See the shelve module)
It is basically a file that you can treat as a dictionary...
Try:
import shelve
help(shelve)
For examples and info.
--
Alan G
Author of the Learn to Program web site
http://www.alan-g.me.uk/
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Another option would be for you to use XML and base it off of a schema.
There's a really nifty tool called generate DS (just google it) that will
turn any valid schema into a python module.
I pasted an example schema that you might use here:
http://pastebin.com/AVgVGpgu
Once you install generateds, just cd to where it is installed and type:
python generateds.py -o pn.py PhoneNumber.xsd
This assumes you named the above schema as PhoneNumber.xsd
That will create a file called pn.py. For some reason it generated a bad
line on line 452, which I just commented out.
I then made a script in just a few lines to make a phonebook:
http://pastebin.com/h4JB0MkZ
This outputs XML that looks like this:
PhoneBook
Listing
PersonsNameaaa/PersonsName
Number Type=Mobile
Number1231231234/Number
/Number
/Listing
Listing
PersonsNamebbb/PersonsName
Number Type=Work
Number1231231234/Number
/Number
Number Type=Home
Number6789231234/Number
/Number
/Listing
Listing
PersonsNameccc/PersonsName
Number Type=Fax
Number1231231234/Number
/Number
/Listing
Listing
PersonsNameddd/PersonsName
Number Type=Home
Number1231231234/Number
/Number
/Listing
/PhoneBook
The advantage is, you can immediately grab the generated xml and create
python instances using the build() method for further editing. You would of
course need to create a schema that fits your needs. Mine was just a quick
and dirty example of what you could do.
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