| --- Log opened Sat Dec 15 00:00:09 2007 |
| --- Day changed Sat Dec 15 2007 |
| 00:00 | | You're now known as TheWatcher[zZzZ] |
| 00:03 | <@C_tiger> | ... or not. |
| 00:03 | <@ilovefire> | well, we start by inputting a number n, and we've got a blank list called known_primes, and then something about time that I don't understand but I know works because it dosen't give me errors, and then we check all numbers k in a range between 2 and n, and we check all of those numbers generated with the script is_prime to see if is_prime returns true to us, if so we add that number to the blank list known_primes, and we [CONT] |
| 00:03 | <@ilovefire> | print the lsit of known primes, and umm, more things that vorn put in there that I'm nto sure I understand. |
| 00:04 | <@C_tiger> | Ok. |
| 00:04 | <@ilovefire> | (and then we return known_primes) |
| 00:04 | <@C_tiger> | Now do that step by step. |
| 00:04 | <@C_tiger> | keeping track of what you know at each step. |
| 00:04 | <@C_tiger> | So you know a number n and you've made a new blank list called known_primes |
| 00:05 | <@C_tiger> | Now what? |
| 00:06 | <@C_tiger> | (forget the time thing) |
| 00:07 | <@Vornicus> | (indeed, once we get this to completion, we will remove the time thing, so no worries) |
| 00:07 | <@ilovefire> | well,then we get a list of numbers, collectively labeled k, between 2 and the imput number. |
| 00:07 | <@C_tiger> | No, they're not collectively labeled k. |
| 00:07 | <@C_tiger> | they actually don't have a name. |
| 00:07 | <@Vornicus> | For goes through things /one at a time, in turn/ |
| 00:08 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, so you take the first item in that list, you call it k. |
| 00:09 | <@C_tiger> | Now what? |
| 00:10 | <@ilovefire> | well, one by one these numbers are run through the is_prime script. |
| 00:10 | <@ilovefire> | to see if, when checked by that script, the script returns true. |
| 00:10 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, so you call your friend is_prime |
| 00:10 | <@Vornicus> | s/script/function/ |
| 00:10 | <@C_tiger> | slow down. |
| 00:10 | <@C_tiger> | so you call your friend is_prime, what do you tell him? |
| 00:12 | <@ilovefire> | the number that I am currently calling k, plus the numbers I allready know are prime. |
| 00:12 | <@C_tiger> | wait, is that what your code says? |
| 00:12 | <@C_tiger> | What does your code say you're telling him? |
| 00:13 | <@C_tiger> | Look at the line where you are calling him... |
| 00:14 | | ilovefire [~santros_v@209.82.191.ns-11321] has quit [Killed (NickServ (GHOST command used by Karl))] |
| 00:15 | | ilovefire [~santros_v@209.82.191.ns-11321] has joined #code |
| 00:15 | < ilovefire> | UIrg. |
| 00:17 | <@Vornicus> | [Fri 19:14:11] ilovefire the number that I am currently calling k, plus the numbers I allready know are prime. |
| 00:17 | <@Vornicus> | [Fri 19:14:20] C_tiger wait, is that what your code says? |
| 00:17 | <@Vornicus> | [Fri 19:14:35] C_tiger What does your code say you're telling him? |
| 00:17 | <@Vornicus> | [Fri 19:14:58] C_tiger Look at the line where you are calling him... |
| 00:17 | < ilovefire> | Well, umm. |
| 00:17 | < ilovefire> | I guess it's just saying i'm telling him k? |
| 00:17 | <@C_tiger> | Right. |
| 00:18 | <@Vornicus> | And what's he asking for? |
| 00:18 | <@C_tiger> | And now... yeah. |
| 00:18 | <@C_tiger> | (or what is he expecting?) |
| 00:22 | < ilovefire> | k and known_primes |
| 00:22 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, so why don't we fix that. |
| 00:23 | <@C_tiger> | Now keep stepping through your program... just to make sure nothing else is wrong (and because it's good practice.) |
| 00:23 | < ilovefire> | well, after that, it appends any newly discovered prime numbers to known_primes, then prints out the number of primes between 2 and n, and returns the list of known of primes. |
| 00:24 | <@C_tiger> | slow down. |
| 00:24 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, so after you call is_prime, he tells you something. |
| 00:24 | <@C_tiger> | What does he tell you? |
| 00:25 | <@C_tiger> | (It may help to pretend you're is_prime, read through your code, what do you tell the person who called you?) |
| 00:26 | < ilovefire> | whether or not... argh, I've got to go clean off and set the table for supper, err, sort of RIGHT NOW. |
| 00:26 | < ilovefire> | be back soon |
| 00:26 | | ilovefire is now known as ilf_AFK |
| 00:28 | <@C_tiger> | Man, this had better work. |
| 00:29 | <@Vornicus> | Yes. |
| 01:04 | | ilf_AFK is now known as ilovefire |
| 01:05 | <@Vornicus> | wiblets. |
| 01:05 | <@Vornicus> | So, where were we. |
| 01:05 | < ilovefire> | Okay, two things: first off, he tells me whether or not the number that is currently assigned to k is prime, and second off, I thought I'd fixed it with an addition to the code but apprently I did not. |
| 01:07 | <@C_tiger> | Hmmm... first off, what specifically does he tell you? |
| 01:07 | <@C_tiger> | He tells you one of two things? |
| 01:07 | <@C_tiger> | ... |
| 01:08 | <@C_tiger> | what are those two things? |
| 01:08 | <@Vornicus> | no, two things |
| 01:08 | <@Vornicus> | That ilf has to say. |
| 01:08 | < ilovefire> | Right. |
| 01:08 | < ilovefire> | I had tow things to say. |
| 01:08 | < ilovefire> | err, two |
| 01:09 | <@C_tiger> | Huh? |
| 01:09 | <@Vornicus> | Not two things that is_prime talks about. |
| 01:09 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, now pretend you're is_prime |
| 01:10 | <@C_tiger> | I'm calling you, I tell you k and give you a list of primes. |
| 01:10 | <@C_tiger> | What do you tell me back? |
| 01:10 | < ilovefire> | I tell you if the number you told me is prime, by comparing it to the list of primes you gave me. |
| 01:10 | <@C_tiger> | Specifically if the number is prime, what do you tell me? |
| 01:11 | < ilovefire> | I tell you True. |
| 01:11 | <@C_tiger> | Bingo. |
| 01:11 | <@C_tiger> | So you either say True or False |
| 01:12 | <@C_tiger> | Now go back to being primes |
| 01:12 | <@C_tiger> | is_prime has just told you "True", now what happens? |
| 01:12 | < ilovefire> | well, first I add that number to the known_primes list. |
| 01:12 | < ilovefire> | that number being the one I told is_prime |
| 01:13 | <@C_tiger> | right. |
| 01:13 | <@C_tiger> | then what? |
| 01:13 | < ilovefire> | I keep a tally of the total numbers I get told are True by is_prime, and once everyone number's been tested, I print out the tally of prime numbers, and I return the known_prime list. |
| 01:14 | <@C_tiger> | Erm, not quite what I was looking for. |
| 01:14 | <@C_tiger> | You add the number to the list, what does the code say is the next step. |
| 01:15 | <@C_tiger> | (not what is the purpose of the next step, specifically what do you do?) |
| 01:16 | <@C_tiger> | Remember: the program doesn't know WHY you're adding a number to a list or WHY you are calling your buddy is_prime. It just knows that that's what the code says. |
| 01:16 | < ilovefire> | I print, umm... ah, that's what it is. I print out the number of entries in the known_prime list. |
| 01:17 | <@C_tiger> | Not quite, you go back and do the next cycle of the loop. |
| 01:17 | <@C_tiger> | (that's what the indenting is supposed to help show.) |
| 01:17 | <@C_tiger> | When you end a block of indents, always go back to the top to check if you're done with this block before moving on. |
| 01:18 | < ilovefire> | Right... |
| 01:19 | <@C_tiger> | So you go back to the top, take a new k, repeat... , ok, last k, k = 9, walk me through the last iteration of the loop. |
| 01:20 | <@C_tiger> | (Yes, I know you just did this but it's really good practice.) |
| 01:20 | < ilovefire> | Having produced 9, I send k, which is 9, and my list of known primes, to my good buddy is_prime. |
| 01:20 | <@C_tiger> | He says "False" |
| 01:21 | <@C_tiger> | what does that mean for you? |
| 01:21 | < ilovefire> | That 9 is not added to the known_primes list |
| 01:21 | <@C_tiger> | Not quite, you don't even see that block of code. |
| 01:21 | < ilovefire> | ... Oh. |
| 01:22 | <@C_tiger> | You just skip right on ahead. |
| 01:22 | < ilovefire> | well, then, I print out the lenght of the list known_primes. |
| 01:22 | <@C_tiger> | Right. |
| 01:22 | <@C_tiger> | (Actually, you should go back to check that there are no more things in the list to loop over.) |
| 01:22 | <@C_tiger> | Always check when you backindent. |
| 01:23 | <@C_tiger> | But we know there are none, so we print the length... |
| 01:23 | <@C_tiger> | Nicely done. |
| 01:24 | <@C_tiger> | Now, every time you hit a bug, play the same game. It fixes many many bugs and weird times when something doesn't act the way it should. |
| 01:25 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, so, now what's the error you're getting? |
| 01:26 | < ilovefire> | no actual ERROR, it just dosen't stop checking after break_even |
| 01:26 | < ilovefire> | well, as best I can tell. |
| 01:26 | <@Vornicus> | Pastie time! |
| 01:26 | <@C_tiger> | Heh. |
| 01:26 | | mode/#code [+o ilovefire] by C_tiger |
| 01:27 | <@ilovefire> | of course, hmm. |
| 01:27 | <@ilovefire> | http://rafb.net/p/NnEcj725.html |
| 01:27 | <@ilovefire> | it may be and I'm just over-worried about it |
| 01:27 | <@C_tiger> | (Also what is the expected behavior if it is working correctly, and what is the expected behavior if it's not?) |
| 01:27 | <@ilovefire> | Well, hmm. |
| 01:28 | <@Vornicus> | You can check: print the b you're getting in each iteration. |
| 01:28 | | * ilovefire checks a few things |
| 01:29 | <@ilovefire> | well, it's giving me all the primes, at least, and rather quickly. |
| 01:30 | <@Vornicus> | Try primes(1000000), tell us the line it prints. |
| 01:30 | <@C_tiger> | Um, assuming of course that you didn't add any print statements. |
| 01:31 | <@ilovefire> | vorn: slightly ahead of you. |
| 01:31 | <@C_tiger> | This may be a good place to introduce (if you haven't already) commenting out. |
| 01:31 | <@Vornicus> | You can take a line of live code, and remove it from consideration, by turning the line it's on into a comment. |
| 01:32 | | * ilovefire eyes. Still running. |
| 01:32 | <@Vornicus> | ilf: that's not very auspicious. Are you printing a lot of stuff or something? |
| 01:32 | <@ilovefire> | and using 97% of my CPU process. |
| 01:33 | <@ilovefire> | vorn: Well, the list known_primes. |
| 01:33 | <@ilovefire> | ... oh shit. |
| 01:33 | <@C_tiger> | I did say.... |
| 01:33 | <@Vornicus> | Well, the 97% is not surprising; this is a processor-heavy operation. |
| 01:34 | <@ilovefire> | give me a second to end the processes so I can restart it and NOT screw up this time |
| 01:34 | <@Vornicus> | ctrl-c |
| 01:34 | <@Vornicus> | I think that works when IDLE is thinking too hard. |
| 01:34 | <@C_tiger> | It works. |
| 01:35 | <@ilovefire> | all it did was change it form *Python Shell* to *Python Shell* (Not REsponding) |
| 01:35 | <@ilovefire> | ... there we go |
| 01:35 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, before you run it again, comment out the return known_primes line |
| 01:36 | <@ilovefire> | 78498 8.26599979401 8.26600806001e-006 |
| 01:36 | <@ilovefire> | that's what it returns me |
| 01:36 | <@Vornicus> | 8 seconds. |
| 01:37 | <@C_tiger> | Yeah, the crashing was it trying to display a 78498-length list |
| 01:37 | <@Vornicus> | When you ran it using every number, it was 22 seconds. When you ran it using every number and not stopping at sqrt(n), it would have taken hours. |
| 01:37 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, ilf. |
| 01:38 | <@C_tiger> | Try this, remember in the code where we introduced stopping after the square root? |
| 01:38 | <@ilovefire> | yes... |
| 01:38 | <@C_tiger> | comment that part out. |
| 01:38 | | AnnoDomini [AnnoDomini@Nightstar-29046.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl] has quit [Ping Timeout] |
| 01:38 | <@C_tiger> | (then pastie so we are all on the same page) |
| 01:38 | | AnnoDomini [AnnoDomini@Nightstar-29046.neoplus.adsl.tpnet.pl] has joined #Code |
| 01:38 | | mode/#code [+o AnnoDomini] by ChanServ |
| 01:39 | <@ilovefire> | http://rafb.net/p/J3H9Fb22.html |
| 01:39 | | gnolam [lenin@Nightstar-10613.8.5.253.static.se.wasadata.net] has quit [Quit: Z?] |
| 01:40 | <@C_tiger> | Great, now run primes(100000) |
| 01:40 | <@C_tiger> | Then uncomment those lines (but not the return line) and run it again. |
| 01:40 | <@C_tiger> | compare. |
| 01:43 | <@ilovefire> | do do de do do de de, do do de do de |
| 01:43 | <@ilovefire> | (still running.) |
| 01:43 | <@C_tiger> | Um... |
| 01:44 | <@Vornicus> | (this does not surprise me) |
| 01:44 | <@Vornicus> | wait, are you running a million, or a hundred thousand? |
| 01:44 | <@C_tiger> | But I only did 10^5... |
| 01:44 | <@C_tiger> | yeah. |
| 01:44 | <@C_tiger> | erm 10**5 you gits. |
| 01:45 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, ctrl-c this one. |
| 01:45 | <@ilovefire> | ... Whooooooops. |
| 01:45 | <@ilovefire> | pressed zero one to many times. |
| 01:45 | <@C_tiger> | Yeah... don't. |
| 01:45 | <@ilovefire> | Damnit, Gordon Frohman! You passed part of your curse to me. |
| 01:45 | | * ilovefire restarts shell... |
| 01:46 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, start over, run primes(10**5) |
| 01:46 | <@C_tiger> | this way no errors. |
| 01:46 | <@ilovefire> | running. |
| 01:47 | <@ilovefire> | umm, okay, wow. |
| 01:47 | <@ilovefire> | 13 seconds the first time, .5 the second. |
| 01:47 | <@C_tiger> | Yep. |
| 01:47 | <@C_tiger> | So adding that little bit of extra code really helped. |
| 01:48 | <@Vornicus> | Okay. All this done: remove the print statement, the things that assign to start and end, and the import time. You no longer need them. |
| 01:48 | <@C_tiger> | comment them out. |
| 01:48 | <@Vornicus> | And if we use this thing again, we don't want them to happen, because they're noisy and can waste time. |
| 01:49 | <@ilovefire> | ... so should I remove or comment out? |
| 01:49 | <@C_tiger> | This way if something does go buggers up later, you can put them back . |
| 01:49 | <@C_tiger> | Comment. |
| 01:49 | <@Vornicus> | Comment. |
| 01:49 | <@C_tiger> | At least that's my philosophy, I comment out all my debug lines. |
| 01:49 | | * ilovefire nods |
| 01:49 | <@ilovefire> | commented out. |
| 01:49 | <@Vornicus> | We will eventually return to these two functions; I see a few things that need doing. That said, we're pretty much done with them for now. |
| 01:50 | <@C_tiger> | Also, before you proceed, add a comment to the top of each of your functions that say what they do. |
| 01:50 | <@C_tiger> | This is just good practice. |
| 01:50 | <@C_tiger> | Always comment your code so someone else who wants to use it can quickly read the top of each of your functions and can quickly figure out what you're doing. |
| 01:51 | <@ToxicFrog> | And so that you can figure out what you were doing when you come back to it a year later. |
| 01:52 | <@Vornicus> | http://bash.org/?6824 |
| 01:52 | <@Vornicus> | I have done this. |
| 01:52 | <@Vornicus> | Many, many times. |
| 01:52 | <@C_tiger> | We all have. |
| 01:53 | <@ToxicFrog> | Oh yes. |
| 01:53 | | * ilovefire nods. |
| 01:53 | <@ilovefire> | Comment'd |
| 01:54 | <@Vornicus> | (specifically, later on we'll eventually talk about default arguments and exceptions, and I want to improve this code so you can use is_prime ad-hoc and so it yells at you if you try to give it a number that it can't figure out if it's prime or not.) |
| 01:54 | <@ilovefire> | Also, is it normal to feel great relief and a decrease of pressure when you finally get a bit of code right? |
| 01:54 | <@C_tiger> | It's very normal. |
| 01:54 | <@Vornicus> | ilf: very. |
| 01:55 | <@C_tiger> | It's normal to the point that there is a tradition at Stanford (at least among certain friends of mine) of CS majors working on the killer final project to run screaming (and sometimes butt-naked) through campus when they finish it. |
| 01:55 | <@ilovefire> | Yay. i can get used to this feeling. |
| 01:56 | <@ilovefire> | (But I'll still never like a runner's high.)_ |
| 01:56 | <@ilovefire> | (But that's neither here nor there, so.() |
| 01:57 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, I have no idea what vorn has in store for you next so. |
| 01:58 | <@Vornicus> | Strings! |
| 01:59 | <@Vornicus> | And probably a quick stab at dictionaries, because dictionaries are your tiny associative gods. |
| 01:59 | <@ilovefire> | is this going to give me another headache? |
| 01:59 | <@Vornicus> | less of one than other stuff we've dealt with. |
| 01:59 | <@C_tiger> | I think maybe we'll start with strings. |
| 02:00 | <@Vornicus> | Okay. |
| 02:00 | <@Vornicus> | Strings are... well, strings. They're text. |
| 02:00 | <@Vornicus> | A string literal looks like this: "this is a string" |
| 02:01 | <@Vornicus> | It can also look like this: 'this is also a string' |
| 02:01 | <@C_tiger> | Remember your hello world? |
| 02:02 | <@ilovefire> | Indeed. |
| 02:02 | <@ilovefire> | print "Hello, World!" |
| 02:03 | <@C_tiger> | Now you know what it means. |
| 02:04 | | * ilovefire nods |
| 02:05 | <@Vornicus> | You can use single or double quotes to delimit strings; the only difference is that with single quotes you have to escape single quotes in the string, and with double quotes you have to escape double quotes. |
| 02:05 | | * ilovefire nods |
| 02:06 | <@Vornicus> | To /escape/ a thing in a string is to make it mean something different - in the case of quotes, it makes it mean just the quote symbol, as opposed to the end of the string. |
| 02:06 | | * ilovefire nods... |
| 02:06 | <@Vornicus> | "I'm looking up \"strudel\" in the dictionary" and 'I\'m looking up "strudel" in the dictionary" are the same string. |
| 02:07 | <@C_tiger> | print "So I can say \"things like this\"" |
| 02:07 | <@C_tiger> | Dang, your example is way better than mine. |
| 02:07 | <@C_tiger> | :P |
| 02:07 | <@ilovefire> | okay |
| 02:08 | <@Vornicus> | You can also use escapes to get special characters: "This is one line\nAnd this is another" <--- \n means "new line" |
| 02:08 | | * ilovefire nods |
| 02:08 | <@Vornicus> | Another important one is \t, which is a tab. There's some others but I don't use most of them. |
| 02:09 | | * ilovefire nods. |
| 02:10 | <@Vornicus> | Strings can be talked about like you can talk about lists: "Hello"[1] gives "e"; for c in "Hello" gives "H" then "e" then "l" then "l" then "o" in turn. |
| 02:11 | <@Vornicus> | Strings are, however, unchangeable - "Hello"[1] = "u" doesn't work; you can't use append() or pop() on them either. |
| 02:12 | <@Vornicus> | You can glom strings together: "monkey" + "pants" produces "monkeypants" |
| 02:13 | | * ilovefire nods. |
| 02:15 | <@Vornicus> | There are all sorts of ways you can get different versions of strings: "Hello".upper() gives "HELLO" |
| 02:15 | | * ilovefire nods. |
| 02:16 | <@Vornicus> | there's also title, lower, and capitalize, that do similar things. |
| 02:16 | <@C_tiger> | capitalize = first letter, title = first letter of every word. |
| 02:16 | <@C_tiger> | and swapcase does exactly as you would assume. |
| 02:18 | <@Vornicus> | Then there are methods that check to see if all the characters in a string meet certain characteristics: my_string.islower() for instance tells you if all the characters in my_string with case information are lowercase (numbers, symbols, spaces, special characters do not have case information) |
| 02:18 | <@C_tiger> | http://docs.python.org/lib/string-methods.html |
| 02:18 | <@Vornicus> | I was about to link that. |
| 02:19 | <@C_tiger> | (Because reference materials are your friend) |
| 02:20 | <@ilovefire> | Indeed. |
| 02:20 | <@C_tiger> | You can also make lists of strings or lists containing numbers and strings. |
| 02:27 | <@Vornicus> | But the real amazingness of strings comes from your ability to process them: you've got find and replace, ljust center rjust, split and join, and some other toys. |
| 02:27 | <@C_tiger> | To be fair, if you really want to do some fun things with strings, learn perl instead of python. |
| 02:28 | <@C_tiger> | Then you have the power of regexp! |
| 02:28 | <@Vornicus> | Python has regex too, in the re library. |
| 02:28 | <@C_tiger> | Oooh. |
| 02:28 | <@Vornicus> | But that's a whole language in itself, I don't want to touch it. |
| 02:29 | <@C_tiger> | Still, a plug for perl. |
| 02:29 | <@Vornicus> | Don't learn perl. |
| 02:29 | <@C_tiger> | (but perl isn't as nice as python for learning programming, so on with your regularly scheduled coursework.) |
| 02:29 | <@ilovefire> | "To be honest, we hashed most of it together with perl" |
| 02:29 | | * Kyrre steals ILF's brain. |
| 02:35 | | * Vornicus tries to think of something cool to do with strings. |
| 02:36 | <@C_tiger> | Hmmm... given a string, generate all possible anagrams? |
| 02:37 | <@C_tiger> | how about all possible anagrams that are real words? |
| 02:37 | <@C_tiger> | (Where one of us supplies a "is_word()" function.) |
| 02:38 | <@Vornicus> | The first is hard; the second is hard and requires a dictionary, and I don't know where - or even if - WIndows provides a dictionary. |
| 02:38 | <@C_tiger> | windows doesn't. It's probably not importable :( |
| 02:39 | | * Vornicus has a permutation generator; it is /nasty/ and I don't actually know how it works. |
| 02:39 | <@C_tiger> | I can do it recursively :P But I've also had to make one with layered for-loops before. |
| 02:40 | <@C_tiger> | I have a 45K list of the most common english words (one-to-a-line) that can be used to generate a dictionary. |
| 02:41 | <@Vornicus> | I'm not teaching permutation algorithms. |
| 02:41 | <@Vornicus> | Period. |
| 02:41 | <@C_tiger> | Anyhow, a dictionary may be useful for whatever project you end up proposing. |
| 02:43 | <@C_tiger> | Hmm... so a scrabble playing program is probably out of the question. |
| 02:44 | <@Vornicus> | Very much so. |
| 02:44 | <@C_tiger> | Ok, how about a scrabble scoring program? |
| 02:45 | <@C_tiger> | (I know it's best done with a dict but it's doable with a list as well) |
| 02:45 | <@Vornicus> | Hrm. |
| 02:45 | <@ilovefire> | but what about double/triple letter/word scores, though? |
| 02:45 | <@C_tiger> | (Or do we want to save that idea, use it when we teach dict?) |
| 02:46 | <@Vornicus> | I think we should save that idea. |
| 02:46 | | * Vornicus ponders. |
| 02:46 | <@C_tiger> | ok. |
| 02:46 | <@C_tiger> | Ooooh. |
| 02:46 | <@C_tiger> | How about a random text generator. |
| 02:46 | <@C_tiger> | Those are always fun. |
| 02:46 | | Vornicus is now known as Finerty |
| 02:47 | <@C_tiger> | We'd have to import the random module but that's easy enough. |
| 02:47 | | * Finerty ponders. |
| 02:47 | <@McMartin> | Pull useful information out of an exported Excel spreadsheet? |
| 02:47 | <@Finerty> | ...ooh. |
| 02:48 | <@C_tiger> | Much less fun. |
| 02:49 | <@McMartin> | Turn an exported Excel spreadsheet into a web page. |
| 02:49 | <@Finerty> | ...OOOH. |
| 02:49 | <@McMartin> | Well, really, CSV data. |
| 02:49 | <@C_tiger> | Right. |
| 02:49 | <@C_tiger> | Parsing. |
| 02:49 | <@ilovefire> | ... wouldn't this mean I'd need to make a spreadsheet? |
| 02:49 | <@Finerty> | No, I have some hanging around. |
| 02:49 | <@C_tiger> | Nope, we can provide them. |
| 02:49 | <@Finerty> | ...though really CSV is handled by, well... csv. |
| 02:50 | <@McMartin> | Well, yes |
| 02:50 | <@McMartin> | So you pretend for the moment that it doesn't exist |
| 02:50 | <@McMartin> | And that commas don't occur inside values. |
| 02:50 | <@C_tiger> | I'm sure someone also has a primes modules :P |
| 02:50 | <@C_tiger> | well, excel these days handles that. |
| 02:50 | <@Finerty> | Yeah. I'm hunting through my archives. |
| 02:50 | <@McMartin> | C: Well, I mean, it complicates the parser. |
| 02:51 | <@C_tiger> | Ah. |
| 02:51 | <@McMartin> | (Excel, in fact, handles it one of several different ways, which are not compatible. Go team.) |
| 02:51 | <@C_tiger> | Right. |
| 02:51 | <@C_tiger> | I just liked my idea though. For the record. |
| 02:52 | <@McMartin> | Dissociated Press really needs dictionaries to work right. |
| 02:53 | | * Finerty examines this one. |
| 02:53 | <@McMartin> | (Random should show up at some point, mind, since Qixstart needs it) |
| 02:53 | <@C_tiger> | I was thinking more along the lines of [random first name] [random second name], the [fun adj] [fun adj] [fun adj] [noun] |
| 02:53 | <@Finerty> | ...okay, that one really needs dictifying. |
| 02:54 | <@Finerty> | Though, it works fine for HTMLizing. |
| 02:54 | <@ToxicFrog> | "He's a adjective-list noun! She's a adjective-list noun! They fight crime!" |
| 02:54 | <@C_tiger> | Right, or that. |
| 02:55 | <@C_tiger> | or something cooler than what I came up with. |
| 02:55 | | * ilovefire blankfaces |
| 02:55 | <@C_tiger> | But essentially, something like that, with sentences that require capitalization as appropriate. |
| 02:55 | <@McMartin> | "Awakened from a 1000-year sleep, a DJ with Tourette's invents a shocking new use for spray cheese." |
| 02:55 | <@Finerty> | Heh. Unitarian Jihad! |
| 02:56 | <@Finerty> | Brother morningstar of reasoned debate! |
| 02:56 | <@C_tiger> | Pfft. |
| 02:56 | | * McMartin looted the strings from The Plot Machine this morning. |
| 02:56 | <@C_tiger> | Anyhow, while we bicker, we're losing our student. |
| 02:56 | <@Finerty> | Heh. |
| 02:56 | <@Finerty> | Okay, let's do this. |
| 02:56 | <@C_tiger> | Vorn's in charge. Parser? Generator? Both? |
| 02:57 | <@Finerty> | ILF, do you know what an HTML table looks like? |
| 02:57 | <@Finerty> | in code, that is? |
| 02:57 | <@C_tiger> | Parser it is. |
| 02:57 | <@ilovefire> | vorn: vaguely... |
| 02:58 | <@Finerty> | Well, a table as a whole is wrapped in <table></table> tags; a row is wrapped in <tr></tr> tags, and each cell is wrapped in <td></td> tags. |
| 02:59 | <@C_tiger> | Example! |
| 02:59 | <@Finerty> | So you have a <table> tag, then a bunch of <tr></tr> tag pairs, and inside the tr tag pairs, you have td tag pairs, and inside the td tag pairs you have actual text. |
| 02:59 | <@McMartin> | "In a world where cats are currency, a hot-headed public defender hijacks a bus full of Tae Bo instructors." |
| 03:00 | <@Finerty> | <table><tr><td>top left</td><td>top right</td></tr><tr><td>bottom left</td><td>bottom right</td></tr></table> |
| 03:00 | <@ilovefire> | Ah, yes. HTML tables, my worst enemy. |
| 03:00 | | * ilovefire used to do HTML a bit in his spare time. Tables allways left a bad flavor. |
| 03:00 | <@Finerty> | Usually you put the table tags themselves on their own lines; usually you put whole rows on individual rows. |
| 03:00 | <@McMartin> | All the more reason to have machines make them for you. |
| 03:01 | <@Finerty> | You don't actually have to, though. |
| 03:01 | | * Finerty hunts the appropriate items, and puts the csv he found in his sites folder. |
| 03:02 | <@Finerty> | Okay. One of the big things about strings is that they're what you read from files. |
| 03:02 | <@ilovefire> | okay... |
| 03:04 | <@C_tiger> | http://cheng.starforge.co.uk/its-a-python/exampletable.html is what you get from http://rafb.net/p/sSi7Vu48.html |
| 03:05 | | * ilovefire nods... |
| 03:06 | <@Finerty> | What I'm going to show you how to do right now is how to download a CSV /from my website/ and use the data in it as a string, entirely within Python. |
| 03:06 | <@Finerty> | import urllib2 |
| 03:07 | <@Finerty> | vorn_csv_data = urllib2.urlopen("http://vorn.dyndns.org/~vorn/kb_remake/monsters.csv").read() |
| 03:09 | <@Finerty> | after running that line of code, vorn_csv_data is a string containingthe data from that url. |
| 03:09 | | * ilovefire nods... |
| 03:09 | <@C_tiger> | Which you should look at just so you know what beast you're dealing with. |
| 03:09 | | * ilovefire nods... |
| 03:11 | <@Finerty> | Okay. Now, you'll want to look at some string methods: splitlines and split in particular will be useful here. |
| 03:13 | <@ilovefire> | Umm... Hey, umm. Can I, err... would it be rude to ask if we can do this tommarrow? I don't thing my brain's entirely up to it tonight. Though I suppose I can try. I guess. Yeah, I'll try, I suppose... |
| 03:14 | <@C_tiger> | How about you read over what splitlines and split do, and then try to think of how you'd solve this problem tonight and over the day tomorrow. |
| 03:14 | <@Finerty> | Probably a good idea. |
| 03:15 | | * ilovefire nods |
| 03:15 | <@ilovefire> | Okay. |
| 03:38 | | * Finerty fiddles, gets his down to one line, not counting loadingthe data in the first place. It is made of ;_; though, and a lot of it is advanced tricks you don't know yet. |
| 03:39 | <@Finerty> | And in a production environment I wouldn't do it this way, it's just too messy. |
| 03:56 | <@C_tiger> | Yes, replace. |
| 03:56 | <@C_tiger> | ooops, wrong window. |
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| 09:27 | <@Vornicus> | ...man, I should actually get around to writing a Voronoi thingy. |
| 09:27 | <@AnnoDomini> | Voronoi? |
| 09:28 | <@AnnoDomini> | Is that like Hanoi, only with Vorns? |
| 09:28 | <@Vornicus> | A voronoi diagram is a map of a space divided up into sections according to the nearest special point. |
| 09:29 | <@Vornicus> | http://mathworld.wolfram.com/VoronoiDiagram.html |
| 09:30 | <@AnnoDomini> | I see. |
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| 09:51 | <@McMartin> | Yum, one-line feature additions. |
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| --- Log closed Sun Dec 16 00:00:00 2007 |