Last month we looked at how to create Microsoft Excel (i.e. *.xls) files using the xlwt package. Today we will be looking at how we can read an *.xls/*.xlsx file using a package called xlrd. The xlrd package can be run on Linux and Mac as well as Windows. This is great when you need […]
Reading Excel Spreadsheets with Python and xlrd Read More »
Reportlab recently released version 3.1 which now fully supports Python 3 and Python 2.7. They had actually released a Python 3 compatible version about a month or so ago, but this one sounds like they’ve worked the bugs out of that initial release as this version also supports their commercial customers. I find this exciting
Reportlab for Python 3 is here! Read More »
If you’re like me, you missed PyCon North America 2014 this year. It happened last weekend. While the main conference days are over, the code sprints are still running. Anyway, for those of you who missed PyCon, they have released a bunch of videos on pyvideo! Every year, they seem to get the videos out
Miss PyCon 2014? Watch the Replay! Read More »
PyCon US / Canada (North America?) is starting this week and in honor of my favorite conference, I am having a pre-order sale for my book, Python 101. From now through April 17th, you can get $7 off (almost 50%) of Python 101. Just enter the following code at checkout: pycon2014
PyCon US Discount for Python 101 Read More »
I just wanted to drop a quick note that the Python 101 book is now available for Pre-order here. Currently you will receive the draft versions of the book as they become available. Right now, Parts I and II have been released which amounts to approx. 115 pages of content. You can read more about
Python 101 Book is Available for Pre-order Read More »
When you’re first starting out as a Python programmer, you don’t think about how you might need to install an external package or module. But when that need appears, you’ll want to know how to in a hurry! Python packages can be found all over the internet. Most of the popular ones can be found
Python 101 – Installing Packages Read More »
The lxml.objectify sub-package is extremely handy for parsing and creating XML. In this article, we will show how to create XML using the lxml package. We’ll start with some simple XML and then try to replicate it. Let’s get started!
Python: Creating XML with lxml.objectify Read More »
There are a couple of ways to create Microsoft Excel spreadsheets with Python. You can use PyWin32’s win32com.client method, which was discussed in an old article a number of years ago or you could use the xlwt package. We’ll be looking at the latter in this article. You will learn how to create an Excel
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The Python 101 book campaign finished today. I am now well funded to create the book and get all the artwork done. I think I may try to get additional illustrations too. While we didn’t hit the next stretch goal, I plan to go ahead and work on screencasts anyway. As I mentioned previously, I
Python 101 Book Campaign is Finished! Read More »
Code profiling is an attempt to find bottlenecks in your code. Profiling is supposed to find what parts of your code take the longest. Once you know that, then you can look at those pieces of your code and try to find ways to optimize it. Python comes with three profilers built in: cProfile, profile
Python 102: How to Profile Your Code Read More »
Python comes with its own debugger module that is named pdb. This module provides an interactive source code debugger for your Python programs. You can set breakpoints, step through your code, inspect stack frames and more. We will look at the following aspects of the module: How to start the debugger Stepping through your code
Python 101: An Introduction to Python’s Debugger Read More »
There are under 2 days left in the book campaign! I think that’s pretty exciting. I hope you do too! I’ve been busy writing the new Part 3 lately. I only have two more chapters to go before it’s done. My hope is that Part 3 will be done by the end of the week.
Pyhon 101 Book Writing Update #2 Read More »
Python 3.4 released today (2014-03-17) and includes a lot of neat stuff. According to the Python Insider, these are the major changes / additions: PEP 428, a “pathlib” module providing object-oriented filesystem paths PEP 435, a standardized “enum” module PEP 436, a build enhancement that will help generate introspection information for builtins PEP 442, improved
Python 3.4 Released Today! Read More »
Python includes a couple of modules for testing in its standard library: doctest and unittest. We will be looking at doctest in this article. The doctest module will search for pieces of text in your code that resemble interactive Python sessions. It will then execute those sessions to verify that they work exactly as written.
Python Testing with doctest Read More »
Kivy is an open source Python library for rapid development of applications that make use of innovative user interfaces, such as multi-touch apps. The Kivy organization is organizing its second application development contest.! This is a great chance for new and experienced users to show off their skills and compete for prizes. Entries will be
Kivy App Contest 2014 Read More »