The Perfect Python Script

Based on this reddit post

This is a python script template, and it's a demonstrator and reminder for the most usefull python libraries and best practices

Context

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python and Python patterns

This script template aim is to enforce best-pratices use.

Please contribute if you feel it should be better written. Pull Request welcome !!!

This template make use of

Generalities

• logging
• Makefile
• requirement.txt / virtualenv
• Json configuration / Borg
• argument parsing: click
• python 2.7 / 3.4 compatibility

Quality

• py.test
• travis ci
• pep8 compliance check

Pretty

• colorlog
• click progress bar

Usefull libraries

• collections: specifically namedtuples
• tempfile: always use this to create temporary files
• pillow: image juggling
• decimal: you will need it, try this if you dare: print((0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 - 0.3) == 0)

data

• csv: always use this to read/write CSV files, don't try and roll your own methods, it'll end in tears
• sqllite

---

Todo

• pandas -- csv loading and quick graphing
• datetime
• math -- try and use these functions rather than the global ones, as they're faster when you import them into the global namespace
• re -- regular expressions
• requests -- if you need to do any http requests at all, use this
• string -- I rarely see this used, but it's very handy
• rename git repo to perfect python script
• sphinx
• matplotlib
• unittest
• lxml -- always use this for working with XML data
• BeautifulSoup -- for webscraping and/or parsing potentially malformed HTML
• os / shutils
• setuptools
• redis

## Don't know if it's usefull

• buildout -- I'd recommend this over virtualenv any day
• PyYAML -- for working with YAML docs.
• ujson -- faster than both simplejson and the built-in json modules, handy if you work with lots of/big JSON blobs

See also

• https://github.com/audreyr/cookiecutter-pypackage.git
• https://github.com/jacebrowning/template-python
• https://github.com/seanfisk/python-project-template