We all write bad code from time to time. I tend to do it deliberately when I’m experimenting in the interpreter or the debugger. I can’t say why I do it exactly except that it’s fun to see what I can fit in one line of code. Anyway, this week I needed to parse a […]
Python: Bad Code of the Day (Oct 30th, 2013 Ed) Read More »
This topic is actually more complicated then it first appears. In this article, we’ll spend a little time looking at this problem and some of the solutions.
Python 101: How to Find the Path of a Running Script Read More »
A couple of months ago, Dzone contacted me to partner with them in finishing a Python cheat sheet that another writer had started. About two weeks ago, I found out that the other author was Naomi Ceder. Anyway, after lots of reviewing on DZone’s part, they have finally released the finished product. You can check
The DZone Essential Core Python Cheat Sheet Read More »
Configuration files are used by both users and programmers. They are usually used for storing your applications settings or even your operating system’s settings. Python’s core library includes a module called ConfigParser that you can use for creating and interacting with configuration files. We’ll spend a few minutes learning how it works in this article.
Python 101: An Intro to ConfigParser Read More »
The wxPython GUI toolkit comes with lots of widgets. We will be covering some widgets that are somewhat harder to get ones mind wrapped around. In this case, we will be talking about splitter windows. WxPython includes three types of splitter windows: wx.SplitterWindow fourwaysplitter which you can find in wx.lib.agw MultiSplitterWindow which you can find
wxPython: An Introduction to SplitterWindows Read More »
I do a lot of PDF report creation with Python using Reportlab. Occasionally I’ll throw PyPDF in as well. So I’m always on the lookout for other mature Python PDF tools. PDFDocument isn’t exactly mature, but it’s kind of interesting. The PDFDocument project is actually a wrapper for Reportlab. You can get it on github.
Python: PDF Creation with pdfdocument Read More »
The other day, I wrote an updated version of my wxPython pubsub article for wxPython 2.9 and realized I had never gotten around to trying PyDispatcher to see how it differed from pubsub. I’m still not sure how it differs internally, but I thought it would be fun to “port” the pubsub code from the
wxPython: Using PyDispatcher instead of Pubsub Read More »
NOTE: This article is for wxPython 2.9-3.0. If you are using wxPython 4, you should go to my newer article Several years ago, I wrote a tutorial about wxPython 2.8 and its built-in pubsub module which you can read here. Back then, a new API for pubsub was added in wxPython 2.8.11.0 that could be
wxPython 2.9 and the Newer Pubsub API: A Simple Tutorial Read More »
Every now and then, I see someone wondering how to create a progress bar and update it. So I decided to whip up an example application that updates a progress bar (technically a wx.Gauge widget) from a thread. In this tutorial, we will create a frame with a button. When the button is pushed, it
wxPython: How to Update a Progress Bar from a Thread Read More »
Earlier this year, Packt Publishing asked me to be a technical reviewer of one of their upcoming books, “Building Machine Learning Systems with Python” by Willi Richert and Luis Pedro Coelho. Now the book is available for purchase and they have asked me to write a little about it. I haven’t read through the finished
Book Preview: Building Machine Learning Systems with Python Read More »
Have you ever needed to add page numbers to your Reportlab generated PDF but didn’t know how? Well you’ve come to the right place. We’re going to look at how to add page number in three different circumstances: How to add page numbers with just the canvas object How to add page numbers using the
Reportlab: How to Add Page Numbers Read More »
This week I was trying to figure out how to make Reportlab do something I had never attempted before. Namely, I wanted to create about a half page’s worth of static text positioned exactly and then have a table of line items that could potentially fill the rest of the page and continue for N
Reportlab: How to Combine Static Content and Multipage Tables Read More »
Today I was reading the wxPython Google group / mailing list and there was someone asking about how to make Python’s logging module write its output to file and to a TextCtrl. It turns out that you need to create a custom logging handler to do it. At first, I tried just using a normal
wxPython: How to Redirect Python’s Logging Module to a TextCtrl Read More »
Today, I came across an interesting question on StackOverflow where the author was asking how he could write a wxPython program dynamically. In other words, he wanted to be able to edit the code and basically refresh the application without closing and re-running his code. The simplest way would be to use Python’s built-in reload
wxPython: How to Edit Your GUI Interactively Using reload() Read More »
I recently became aware of a Tic-Tac-Toe challenge on github where the programmer is supposed to create a Tic-Tac-Toe game that let’s the player win every time. You have to code it in Python, although the people behind this challenge prefer you do it with Django. I don’t know Django very well, so I decided
wxPython: Creating a Simple Tic-Tac-Toe Game Read More »