Python code templates

From raju

Template1

Self contained python3 code that involves argument parsing, classes, unit tests and regression tests.

Directory Structure

     % tree                                
    .
    ├── readme.txt
    ├── tests
    │   ├── __init__.py
    │   └── test_time_calc.py
    └── time_calc.py
    
    1 directory, 4 files
    

The main code is in time_calc.py and it is tested in tests/test_time_calc.py .

The tests/__init__.py is an empty file. It is needed for the tests to be discovered automatically. If the file is present, we can simply do

    % python3 -m unittest -v
    

to run all the tests. If it is not there, the tests have to be specified manually. For example

    % python3 -m unittest -v tests/test_time_calc.py
    

Sample Run

Run the script

     % python3 time_calc.py --start 2:05 --end 5:13
    188.0
    

which shows the number of minutes between two time stamps specified in hours:minutes format.

Run the tests

     % python3 -m unittest -v
    test_convert_to_minutes (tests.test_time_calc.ConvertTime) ... ok
    test_diff_time (tests.test_time_calc.ConvertTime) ... ok
    
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Ran 2 tests in 0.002s
    
    OK
    

File Contents

  • time_calc.py
     % cat time_calc.py 
    import sys
    
    """
    Utility script to calculate difference between two time stamps.
    
    Sample usage:
     % python3 time_calc.py --start 2:05 --end 5:13
    188.0
    """
    
    
    def parse_arguments(args):
        import argparse
        parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
            description='get difference between two timestamps'
            )
        parser.add_argument(
            "--start", action='store',
            default="0:0", dest="start",
            help="Starting timestamp HH:MM")
        parser.add_argument(
            "--end", action='store',
            default="0:0", dest="end",
            help="Ending timestamp HH:MM")
        return parser.parse_args(args)
    
    
    def diff_time(begin, end):
        hm_begin = HourMinute(begin)
        hm_end = HourMinute(end)
        total_minutes_begin = hm_begin.total_minutes()
        total_minutes_end = hm_end.total_minutes()
        return (total_minutes_end - total_minutes_begin)
    
    
    class HourMinute:
        hours = 0
        mins = 0
    
        def __init__(self, hhmm_str):
            tokens = hhmm_str.split(":")
            self.hours = float(tokens[0])
            self.mins = float(tokens[1])
    
        def total_minutes(self):
            return self.hours*60 + self.mins
    
        def dump(self):
            print("hours = ", self.hours)
            print("minutes = ", self.mins)
    
    if __name__ == "__main__":
        args = parse_arguments(sys.argv[1:])
        print(diff_time(args.start, args.end))
    
  • readme.txt
     % cat readme.txt 
    To run the unit tests simply do
    
     % python3 -m unittest -v                 
    test_convert_to_minutes (tests.test_time_calc.TestConvertTime) ... ok
    test_diff_time (tests.test_time_calc.TestConvertTime) ... ok
    
    ----------------------------------------------------------------------
    Ran 2 tests in 0.001s
    
    OK
    
  • tests/test_time_calc.py
     % cat tests/test_time_calc.py 
    import unittest
    
    import time_calc
    
    
    class ConvertTime(unittest.TestCase):
        def test_convert_to_minutes(self):
            hm = time_calc.HourMinute("8:25")
            total_minutes = 505
            result = hm.total_minutes()
            self.assertEqual(result, total_minutes)
    
            hm = time_calc.HourMinute("14:12")
            total_minutes = 852
            result = hm.total_minutes()
            self.assertEqual(result, total_minutes)
    
        def test_diff_time(self):
            args = time_calc.parse_arguments(['--start', '2:05', '--end', '5:13'])
            difference = 188
            result = time_calc.diff_time(args.start, args.end)
            self.assertEqual(result, difference)
    
            args = time_calc.parse_arguments(['--start', '5:30', '--end', '10:05'])
            difference = 275
            result = time_calc.diff_time(args.start, args.end)
            self.assertEqual(result, difference)
    
    
    if __name__ == '__main__':
        unittest.main()
    
  • tests/__init__.py

This is just an empty file. It is useful for automatically discovering the tests.

     % ls -al tests/__init__.py
    -rw-r--r-- 1 rajulocal rajulocal 0 Aug 28 22:54 tests/__init__.py
    
     % cat tests/__init__.py
    

Finally, check code style by running pep8 on all python programs. A successful run will not print any output.

     % pep8 time_calc.py tests/test_time_calc.py
    

Template2

In some cases, the test involves computing a dataset first and comparing it with an existing "raw" dataset. The test is presumed to be a success if the computed dataset matches with the raw dataset.

The directory structure in this case can be

    % tree
    .
    |-- mocks
    |   `-- raw_data.csv
    |-- src
    `-- tests
    
    

where all the raw datasets are stored in the mocks directory. A sample test function looks like

    import unittest
    import mymod
    import pandas as pd
    import pandas.util.testing as tm
    import tempfile
    
    class TestMyMod(unittest.TestCase):
        def test_foo(self):
            a = mymod.compute_df(arg1, arg2)
    
            tmp = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile()
            a.to_csv(tmp.name, sep=',', index=False)
            df = pd.read_csv(tmp)
            tmp.close()
    
            raw = pd.read_csv('mocks/raw_data.csv')
            tm.assert_frame_equal(df, raw)
            self.assertTrue(df.equals(raw))
            self.assertTrue(raw.equals(df))
    
    if __name__=='__main__':
        unittest.main()
    

Template 3

Demonstrates the following

  • Run a python script every night using cron.
  • The python script logs its output into a file using the logger module.
  • It also calls a shell script.
  • The output from shell script is sent to the same log file.
  • Test run the python script in an emulated cron environment.

tags | nightly

cron setup

    % crontab -l | stuff.py
    MAILTO=""
    0 0 * * * $HOME/bin/nightly.py > /dev/null 2>&1
    

Here stuff.py is a python script that weeds out comments from its input.

The MAILTO line optional. It basically tells cron not to send any emails when it finishes running.

the python script

    % cat $HOME/bin/nightly.py
    #! /usr/bin/env python3
    import os
    from datetime import datetime
    import logging
    import subprocess
    
    
    def main():
        # See https://docs.python.org/3/howto/logging.html for a tutorial on how to
        # do logging.
        home_dir = os.environ['HOME']
        log_dir = os.path.join(home_dir, 'logs')
        if not os.path.exists(log_dir):
            os.makedirs(log_dir, exist_ok=True)
        log_file_name = "nightly.txt"
        log_file_path = os.path.join(log_dir, log_file_name)
        logging.basicConfig(filename=log_file_path,
                            level=logging.INFO,
                            format='%(asctime)s %(message)s')
        logging.info('Started %s', os.path.abspath(__file__))
        # note_time()
        script_path = os.path.join(home_dir, 'bin', 'nightly.sh')
        run_nightly_sh(script_path, log_file_path)
        logging.info('finished\n')
    
    
    def note_time():
        a = datetime.now().strftime("%Y%m%d_%H%M%S")
        logging.info('%s', a)
    
    
    def run_nightly_sh(script_path, log_file_path):
        cmd = os.path.join(script_path) + \
              " >> " + log_file_path + " 2>&1"
        logging.info('%s', cmd)
        subprocess.call(cmd, shell=True)
    
    
    if __name__ == '__main__':
        main()
    

the shell script

    % cat $HOME/bin/nightly.sh
    #!/usr/bin/env dash
    set -e -u -x
    
    uptime
    

Test the script

    % run_as_cron.sh $HOME/bin/nightly.py
    

which will produce something like this in the log file

    % tail -n 20 $HOME/logs/nightly.txt
    ...
    
    2018-03-12 16:01:17,451 Started /home/raju/bin/nightly.py
    2018-03-12 16:01:17,451 /home/raju/bin/nightly.sh >> /home/raju/logs/nightly.txt 2>&1
    + uptime
     16:01:17 up 3 days, 22:51,  1 user,  load average: 0.00, 0.00, 0.00
    2018-03-12 16:01:17,455 finished
    
    

where run_as_cron.sh is a shell script that let's us run any shell script in an emulated cron environment.

Note:- The run_as_cron.sh script requires some initial set up. Check the comments in that script for more details. Basically, we need to dump the cron environment into a file first and then point to it in the script.