I'm pretty new to this whole "programming thing" but at age 34 I thought that I'd like to learn the basics.
I unfortunately don't know any python programmers. I'm learning programming due to personal interest (and more and more for the fun of it) but my "social habitat" is not "where the programmers roam" ;) .
I'm almost finished with Zed Shaws "Learn Python the Hard Way" and for the first time I can't figure out a solution to a problem. The last two days I didn't even stumble upon useful hints where to look when I repeatedly rephrased (and searched for) my question.
So stackoverflow seems to be the right place.
Btw.: I lack also the correct vocabular quite often so please don't hesitate to correct me :) . This may be one reason why I can't find an answer.
I use Python 2.7 and nosetests.
How far I solved the problem (I think) in the steps I solved it:
Function 1:
def inp_1():
s = raw_input(">>> ")
return s
All tests import the following to be able to do the things below:
from nose.tools import *
import sys
from StringIO import StringIO
from mock import *
import __builtin__
# and of course the module with the functions
Here is the test for inp_1:
import __builtin__
from mock import *
def test_inp_1():
__builtin__.raw_input = Mock(return_value="foo")
assert_equal(inp_1(), 'foo')
This function/test is ok.
Quite similar is the following function 2:
def inp_2():
s = raw_input(">>> ")
if s == '1':
return s
else:
print "wrong"
Test:
def test_inp_2():
__builtin__.raw_input = Mock(return_value="1")
assert_equal(inp_1(), '1')
__builtin__.raw_input = Mock(return_value="foo")
out = StringIO()
sys.stdout = out
inp_1()
output = out.getvalue().strip()
assert_equal(output, 'wrong')
This function/test is also ok.
Please don't assume that I really know what is happening "behind the scenes" when I use all the stuff above. I have some layman-explanations how this is all functioning and why I get the results I want but I also have the feeling that these explanations may not be entirely true. It wouldn't be the first time that how I think sth. works turns out to be different after I've learned more. Especially everything with "__" confuses me and I'm scared to use it since I don't really understand what's going on. Anyway, now I "just" want to add a while-loop to ask for input until it is correct:
def inp_3():
while True:
s = raw_input(">>> ")
if s == '1':
return s
else:
print "wrong"
The test for inp_3 I thought would be the same as for inp_2 . At least I am not getting error messages. But the output is the following:
$ nosetests
......
# <- Here I press ENTER to provoke a reaction
# Nothing is happening though.
^C # <- Keyboard interrupt (is this the correct word for it?)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Ran 7 tests in 5.464s
OK
$
The other 7 tests are sth. else (and ok).
The test for inp_3 would be test nr. 8.
The time is just the times passed until I press CTRL-C.
I don't understand why I don't get error- or "test failed"-meassages but just an "ok".
So beside the fact that you may be able to point out bad syntax and other things that can be improved (I really would appreciate it, if you would do this), my question is:
How can I test and abort while-loops with nosetest?
So, the problem here is when you call inp_3 in test for second time, while mocking raw_input with Mock(return_value="foo"). Your inp_3 function runs infinite loop (while True) , and you're not interrupting it in any way except for if s == '1' condition. So with Mock(return_value="foo") that condition is never satisfied, and you loop keeps running until you interrupt it with outer means (Ctrl + C in your example). If it's intentional behavior, then How to limit execution time of a function call in Python will help you to limit execution time of inp_3 in test. However, in cases of input like in your example, developers often implement a limit to how many input attempts user have. You can do it with using variable to count attempts and when it reaches max, loop should be stopped.
def inp_3():
max_attempts = 5
attempts = 0
while True:
s = raw_input(">>> ")
attempts += 1 # this is equal to "attempts = attempts + 1"
if s == '1':
return s
else:
print "wrong"
if attempts == max_attempts:
print "Max attempts used, stopping."
break # this is used to stop loop execution
# and go to next instruction after loop block
print "Stopped."
Also, to learn python I can recommend book "Learning Python" by Mark Lutz. It greatly explains basics of python.
UPDATE:
I couldn't find a way to mock python's True (or a builtin.True) (and yea, that sounds a bit crazy), looks like python didn't (and won't) allow me to do this. However, to achieve exactly what you desire, to run infinite loop once, you can use a little hack.
Define a function to return True
def true_func():
return True
, use it in while loop
while true_func():
and then mock it in test with such logic:
def true_once():
yield True
yield False
class MockTrueFunc(object):
def __init__(self):
self.gen = true_once()
def __call__(self):
return self.gen.next()
Then in test:
true_func = MockTrueFunc()
With this your loop will run only once. However, this construction uses a few advanced python tricks, like generators, "__" methods etc. So use it carefully.
But anyway, generally infinite loops considered to be bad design solutions. Better to not getting used to it :).
It's always important to remind me that infinite loops are bad. So thank you for that and even more so for the short example how to make it better. I will do that whenever possible.
However, in the actual program the infinite loop is how I'd like to do it this time. The code here is just the simplified problem.
I very much appreciate your idea with the modified "true function". I never would have thought about that and thus I learned a new "method" how tackle programming problems :) .
It is still not the way I would like to do it this time, but this was the so important clue I needed to solve my problem with existing methods. I never would have thought about returning a different value the 2nd time I call the same method. It's so simple and brilliant it's astonishing me :).
The mock-module has some features that allows a different value to be returned each time the mocked method is called - side effect .
side_effect can also be set to […] an iterable.
[when] your mock is going to be
called several times, and you want each call to return a different
value. When you set side_effect to an iterable every call to the mock
returns the next value from the iterable:
The while-loop HAS an "exit" (is this the correct term for it?). It just needs the '1' as input. I will use this to exit the loop.
def test_inp_3():
# Test if input is correct
__builtin__.raw_input = Mock(return_value="1")
assert_equal(inp_1(), '1')
# Test if output is correct if input is correct two times.
# The third time the input is corrct to exit the loop.
__builtin__.raw_input = Mock(side_effect=['foo', 'bar', '1'])
out = StringIO()
sys.stdout = out
inp_3()
output = out.getvalue().strip()
# Make sure to compare as many times as the loop
# is "used".
assert_equal(output, 'wrong\nwrong')
Now the test runs and returns "ok" or an error e.g. if the first input already exits the loop.
Thank you very much again for the help. That made my day :)
Related
Is there an easy way to execute time delay (like time.sleep(3)) between every statement of Python code without having to explicitly write between every statement?
Like in the below Python Script which performs certain action on SAP GUI window. Sometimes, the script continues to the next statement before the previous statement is complete. So, I had to add a time delay between every statement so that it executes correctly. It is working with time delay, but I end up adding time.sleep(3) between every line. Just wondering if there is a better way?
import win32com.client
import time
sapgui = win32com.client.GetObject("SAPGUI").GetScriptingEngine
session = sapgui.FindById("ses[0]")
def add_record(employee_num, start_date, comp_code):
try:
time.sleep(3)
session.findById("wnd[0]/tbar[0]/okcd").text = "/npa40"
time.sleep(3)
session.findById("wnd[0]").sendVKey(0)
time.sleep(3)
session.findById("wnd[0]/usr/ctxtRP50G-PERNR").text = employee_num
time.sleep(3)
session.findById("wnd[0]").sendVKey(0)
time.sleep(3)
session.findById("wnd[0]/usr/ctxtRP50G-EINDA").text = start_date
time.sleep(3)
session.findById("wnd[0]/usr/tblSAPMP50ATC_MENU_EVENT/ctxtRP50G-WERKS[1,0]").text = comp_code
time.sleep(3)
session.findById("wnd[0]/usr/tblSAPMP50ATC_MENU_EVENT/ctxtRP50G-PERSG[2,0]").text = "1"
time.sleep(3)
session.findById("wnd[0]/usr/tblSAPMP50ATC_MENU_EVENT/ctxtRP50G-PERSK[3,0]").text = "U1"
time.sleep(3)
session.findById("wnd[0]/usr/tblSAPMP50ATC_MENU_EVENT").getAbsoluteRow(0).selected = True
time.sleep(3)
return "Pass"
except:
return "failed"
The right way to do what you asked for is almost certainly to use the debugger, pdb.
The right way to do what you want is probably something completely different: find some signal that tells you that the step is done, and wait for that signal. With problems like this, almost any time you pick will be way, way too long 99% of the time, but still too short 1% of the time. That signal may be joining a thread, or waiting on a (threading or multiprocessing) Condition, or getting from a queue, or awaiting a coroutine or future, or setting the sync flag on an AppleEvent, or… It really depends on what you're doing.
But if you really want to do this, you can use settrace:
def sleeper(frame, event, arg):
if event == 'line':
time.sleep(2)
return sleeper
sys.settrace(sleeper)
One small problem is that the notion of line used by the interpreter may well not be what you want. Briefly, a 'line' trace event is triggered whenever the ceval loop jumps to a different lnotab entry (see lnotab_notes.txt in the source to understand what that means—and you'll probably need at least a passing understanding of how bytecode is interpreted, at least from reading over the dis docs, to understand that). So, for example, a multiline expression is a single line; the line of a with statement may appear twice, etc.1
And there's probably an even bigger problem.
Sometimes, the script continues to next step before the previous step is fully complete.
I don't know what those steps are, but if you put the whole thread to sleep for 2 seconds, there's a good chance the step you're waiting for won't make any progress, because the thread is asleep. (For example, you're not looping through any async or GUI event loops, because you're doing nothing at all.) If so, then after 2 seconds, it'll still be just as incomplete as it was before, and you'll have wasted 2 seconds for nothing.
1. If your notion of "line" is closer to what's described in the reference docs on lexing and parsing Python, you could create an import hook that walks the AST and adds an expression statement with a Call to time.sleep(2) after each list element in each body with a module, definition, or compound statement (and then compiles and execs the result as usual).
Anything you want to happen in a program has to be explicitly stated - this is the nature of programming. This is like asking if you can print hello world without calling print("hello world").
I think the best advice to give you here is: don't think in terms of "lines", but think in term of functions.
use debugging mode and watch each and every line executing line by line.
Is it possible to return from a function and continue executing code from just under the function. I know that may sound vague but here is an example:
def sayhi():
print("hi")
continue_function() #makes this function continue below in stead of return
#the code continues here with execution and will print hey
print("hey")
sayhi()
when executing this the code should do this:
it prints "hey"
it calls the sayhi() function
it prints "hi"
it calls a function to make it continue after the function (in theory similar behavour could be achieve by using decorators)
it prints "hey" again
it calls sayhi() again
etc
i am fully aware of the fact that similar behaviour can be achieved by just using for loops but for the project i am working on this functionality is required and not achievable by using looping.
some solutions i have thought of (but i have no clue how i could execute them) are:
somehow clearing the stack python uses to return from one function to another
changing return values
changing python itself (just to make clear: it would solve the problem but it is something i do not want to do beacuse the project must be usable on non-altered versions of python
using some c extension to change python's behaviour from within python itself
Repetition without loops can be done with recursion:
def sayhi():
print("hey")
print("hi")
sayhi()
sayhi()
I assume you have some terminating condition to insert. If not, this code will give a RecursionError.
I have got stuck with a problem.
It goes like this,
A function returns a single result normally. What I want is it to return continuous streams of result for a certain time frame(optional).
Is it feasible for a function to repeatedly return results for a single function call?
While browsing through the net I did come across gevent and threading. Will it work if so any heads up how to solve it?
I just need to call the function carry out the work and return results immediately after every task is completed.
Why you need this is not specified in the question, so it is hard to know what you need, but I will give you a general idea, and code too.
You could return in that way: return var1, var2, var3 (but that's not what you need I think)
You have multiple options: either blocking or non-blocking. Blocking means your code will no longer execute while you are calling the function. Non-blocking means that it will run in parallel. You should also know that you will definitely need to modify the code calling that function.
That's if you want it in a thread (non-blocking):
def your_function(callback):
# This is a function defined inside of it, just for convenience, it can be any function.
def what_it_is_doing(callback):
import time
total = 0
while True:
time.sleep(1)
total += 1
# Here it is a callback function, but if you are using a
# GUI application (not only) for example (wx, Qt, GTK, ...) they usually have
# events/signals, you should be using this system.
callback(time_spent=total)
import thread
thread.start_new_thread(what_it_is_doing, tuple(callback))
# The way you would use it:
def what_I_want_to_do_with_each_bit_of_result(time_spent):
print "Time is:", time_spent
your_function(what_I_want_to_do_with_each_bit_of_result)
# Continue your code normally
The other option (blocking) involves a special kind of functions generators which are technically treated as iterators. So you define it as a function and acts as an iterator. That's an example, using the same dummy function than the other one:
def my_generator():
import time
total = 0
while True:
time.sleep(1)
total += 1
yield total
# And here's how you use it:
# You need it to be in a loop !!
for time_spent in my_generator():
print "Time spent is:", time_spent
# Or, you could use it that way, and call .next() manually:
my_gen = my_generator()
# When you need something from it:
time_spent = my_gen.next()
Note that in the second example, the code would make no sense because it is not really called at 1 second intervals, because there's the other code running each time it yields something or .next is called, and that may take time. But I hope you got the point.
Again, it depends on what you are doing, if the app you are using has an "event" framework or similar you would need to use that, if you need it blocking/non-blocking, if time is important, how your calling code should manipulate the result...
Your gevent and threading are on the right track, because a function does what it is programmed to do, either accepting 1 var at a time or taking a set and returning either a set or a var. The function has to be called to return either result, and the continuous stream of processing is probably taking place already or else you are asking about a loop over a kernel pointer or something similar, which you are not, so ...
So, your calling code which encapsulates your function is important, the function, any function, eg, even a true/false boolean function only executes until it is done with its vars, so there muse be a calling function which listens indefinitely in your case. If it doesn't exist you should write one ;)
Calling code which encapsulates is certainly very important.
Folks aren't going to have enough info to help much, except in the super generic sense that we can tell you that you are or should be within in some framework's event loop, or other code's loop of some form already- and that is what you want to be listening to/ preparing data for.
I like "functional programming's," "map function," for this sort of thing. I think. I can't comment at my rep level or I would restrict my speculation to that. :)
To get a better answer from another person post some example code and reveal your API if possible.
I'm trying to learn Python with the help of Learning Python the Hard Way.
I've reached exercise 41 (Gothons from Planet Percal #25), you can see the full code >here<
I understand everything until the last function runner()
def runner(map, start)
next = start
while True:
room = map[next]
print "\n--------"
next = room()
runner(ROOMS, 'central_corridor')
As far as I can understand, next is assigned the value of start, being the key of the first function to run. The the while loop is initiated assigning the function at that key to room.
Then the function prints out a line of dashes and after that it assigns the returned value of the function call to the variable next.
What I don't understand is why the user "sees" the function being called. To me it looks like the function call is just assigned to a variable next. I would expect something like next() or room() being the next line. Secondly I don't understand why the while-loop stops, shouldn't it just continue until false or quit?
These might seem like foolish questions to most of you, but I'm new to the programming game and I don't understand the answers being given to this question elsewhere on this site.
Hope someone can dumb down to my level and explain it to me...
The user sees the function being called, because the function prints things.
The function is actually being called (with "room()") and the result of the call is set to next.
E.g. If the room is "the_bridge", some stuff is printed and then "death", "escape_pod" or "the_bridge" is returned.
While it's true that "while True:" is an infinite loop, Python has a way to quit the program entirely.
The call "exit(0)" quits the whole program right there and then, no questions asked.
I'm not sure how many questions you have, but I'll clarify two things:
(1) next = room() works because map is a dict, the values of which are functions, so room = map[next] retrieves a function from map, and stores that function in the variable room. The expression room() calls that function.
(2) Looking at the code, it does appear that the only exit from the loop will be when the programme exits, or when an exception (if any) is thrown.
The Gothon thing is not even Ex 41.
(Maybe it was before, when this post was written? It's Ex 43 now.)
Anyway, it's confusing.
I thought i finally found something relevant to ex 41, then i come here and see this...
Since there is no goto operator in Python, what technique can be used instead?
Condition
If it is true, go to thread 1, if is false, go to thread 2
In thread we do something small and after that we go to thread 2 where all other actions take place.
Since there is no goto operator in Python, what technique can be used instead?
Constructing your code logically and semantically.
if condition:
perform_some_action()
perform_other_actions()
def thread_1():
# Do thread_1 type stuff here.
def thread_2():
# Do thread_2 type stuff here.
if condition:
thread_1()
# If condition was false, just run thread_2().
# If it was true then thread_1() will return to this point.
thread_2()
edit: I'm assuming that by "thread" you mean a piece of code (otherwise known as a subroutine or a function). If you're talking about threads as in parallel execution then you'll need more detail in the question.
To the best of my knowledge it's not present (thankfully), but you should check this link
The "goto" module was an April Fool's joke, published on 1st April
2004. Yes, it works, but it's a joke nevertheless. Please don't use it in real code!
Python is designed to support good coding practices and GOTO is not one of them. It may lead to unreadable program logic, if not used properly.
I suggest to learn code your program in a Python way, do not stick with (sometimes bad) habits from other programming languages. See Python documentation, real mature Python programs and learn.
def thread1():
#write your thread 1 code here
print("entered no is 1")
def thread2():
#write your thread 2 code here
print("Number is greater or less then one.")
def main():
a=input()
if a==1:
thread1()
elif a<=1 or a>=1:
thread2()
#you can use recursion here in case if you want to use agin and again
#if you want to print serveral time you can use looping.
for i in range(4):
main()
#if you want to run goto forever and ever and ever then remove loop in
#this code.
#this code will enable you the equivalent of goto statement.
This is what I use every time in Python 3.x.