Tag Archives: utilities

Python module dis

Python documentation here

Example

python -m dis myFile.py provides an interesting look into a python file’s guts
I could easily imagine this being part of some sort of static time inspect system where dis sits at the front and a parse
walks down the output lines, turning the data into a dependency and symbol graph. Unfortunately it doesn’t seem to provide anything more and is really just a test function most likely intended for unit-testing the python stdlib.

Python SimpleHTTPServer

When working on pure javascript applications ( canvas widgets & such ), I’ve found using the SimpleHTTPServer disgustingly useful as it serves the current working directly without much thrills.

Python documentation here

Usage

$ python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8081 0.0.0.0
Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8081 ...

Note that it’s not necessary to set the 2nd argument to 0.0.0.0 if you want the service to listen on all routes. It normally will by default listen on everything… just habit for me to always append that.

Another useful part of this server is that it servers an apache directory style listing of all file’s present unless there is a valid index file like index.htm present.

Python json.tool module

Python documentation here

Example usage:

$ echo '{"json":"obj"}' | python -mjson.tool
{
    "json": "obj"
}
$ echo '{ 1.2:3.4}' | python -mjson.tool
Expecting property name: line 1 column 2 (char 2)
   

All argument patterns are:

  • piped json string | python -m json.tool which syntax checks then outputs the results to stdout
  • python -m json.tool input_file.json which reads the path relative file and outputs the results
  • python -m json.tool input_file.json output_file.json only difference here is that the output is directed to the specified file

My thoughts, this could be part of some sort of data validation check, looking for corrupted json static files.

Example

$ echo '{"a":123, "foo":"bar" }' | python -m json.tool && echo "IS valid" || echo "Is not valid"
{
    "a": 123,
    "foo": "bar"
}
IS valid
$ echo '{"a"1:123, "foo":"bar" }' | python -m json.tool && echo "IS valid" || echo "Is not valid"
Expecting : delimiter: line 1 column 4 (char 4)
Is not valid

Python – batteries included

Inspired by this
AND here

I’m going to do my best to either write up some examples of how to use these or link to someone/somewhere else on the
internet where someone did a better job then my grammar handicapped self can

For those to lazy to click the above liniks, the list below is a semi-complete list of command line accessible modules
to perform utility work.

So python -m calendar prints out a pretty calendar of the year, much like the GNU linux cal command line function.

  • json.tool -> pretty prints JSON Examples
  • SimpleHTTPServer -> serve the current directory over HTTP on port 8080 Examples
  • quopri / uu / binhex / base64 -> encode / decode Quoted-Printable / UUEncoded content.
  • telnetlib -> ghetto telnet client
  • filecmp -> directory entry comparison tool
  • ftplib -> ghetto FTP client
  • smtpd -> SMTP proxy
  • timeit -> command line profiling interface. Very handy
  • calendar -> prints year calendar
  • urllib -> ghetto wget Example
  • zipfile -> ghetto info-zip
  • aifc -> dumps some info about the provided aiff file (if given two paths, also copies path1 to path2)
  • cgi -> dumps a bunch of information as HTML to stdout
  • CGIHTTPRequestHandler -> same as SimpleHTTPServer except via the CGIHTTPRequestHandler: it will executes scripts it recognizes as CGI, instead of just sending them over (has not survived the transition to Python 3)
  • compileall -> compiles a tree of Python files to bytecode, has a bunch of options. Does not compile to stripped files (pyo)
  • cProfiler -> runs the provided script file (argument) under cProfiler
  • dis -> disassembles a python script Example
  • doctest -> runs doctests on the provided files (which can be python scripts or doctest files)
  • encodings.rot_13 -> rot13 encodes stdin to stdout (has not survived the transition to Python 3)
  • fileinput -> some kind of ghetto pseudo-annotate. No idea what use that thing might be of
  • formatter -> reformats the provided file argument (or stdin) to stdout: 80c paragraphs &etc
  • gzip -> ghetto gzip (or gunzip with -d), can only compress and decompress, does not delete the archive file
  • htmllib -> strips HTML tags off of an HTML file
  • imaplib -> ghetto IMAP client
  • locale -> displays current locale information
  • mimify -> converts (mail) messages to and from MIME format
  • modulefinder -> lists the modules imported by the provided script argument, and their location
  • pdb scriptfile.py -> automatically enters PDB post-mortem mode if the script crashes
    platform, displays the platform string
  • poplib -> dumps a bunch of info on a POP mailbox
  • profile -> see cProfile
  • pstats -> opens a statistics browser (for profile files)
  • pydoc -> same as the pydoc command Example
  • sgmllib -> see htmllib (as far as I can tell)
  • shlex -> displays tokenization result of the provided file argument (one token per line prefixed with Token:)
  • SimpleXMLRPCServer -> XMLRPC server for power and addition
  • telnetlib -> telnet client
  • tokenize -> dumps tokenization result of a Python file
  • webbrowser -> opens provided URL in your default web browser (options: in a new window, in a new tab)
  • whichdb -> A helpful little tool to try and tell which DB-api driver to use on a specified DB file

Canvas tag: Collision detection & pixel decay

UPDATED: March 14, 2011 here

Continuing my tests/experiments with the Canvas tag has led to the Ping prototype. I had 3 minimal things I wanted to accomplish: Detecting the intersection of a 360 degree arc of ray/line segments to previously defined in map shapes; a visual decay/fade out of intersection points on the canvas, and lastly a test of performance. In addition I decided to experiment with another approach to Javascript object construction in the hopes of getting a performance gain.
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