Re: Python! Is! Truly! Amazing!

[Nelson Minar]

"Erik  Bethke" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I have NEVER experienced this kind of programming joy.

Yep, I feel the same way since learning Python. It's really a
productive and pleasant language.

Congratulations on all your game successes!
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XPath and XQuery in Python?

[Nelson Minar]

Could someone help me get started using XPath or XQuery in Python? I'm
overwhelmed by all the various options and am lacking guidance on what
the simplest way to go is. What library do I need to enable three line
Python programs to extract data with XPath expressions?

I have this problem a lot with Python and XML. Even with Uche's
excellent yearly roundups I have a hard time finding how to do fancy
things with XML in Python. I think it's a bit like web server
frameworks in Python - too many choices.
  http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2004/10/13/py-xml.html
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Re: XPath and XQuery in Python?

[Nelson Minar]

Nelson Minar <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Could someone help me get started using XPath or XQuery in Python?

I figured this out. Thanks for the help, John! Examples below.

I used this exercise as an opportunity to get something off my chest
about XML and Python - it's kind of a mess! More here:
  http://www.nelson.monkey.org/~nelson/weblog/tech/python/xpath.html

Here are my samples, in three libraries:

# PyXML

from xml.dom.ext.reader import Sax2
from xml import xpath
doc = Sax2.FromXmlFile('foo.opml').documentElement
for url in xpath.Evaluate('//@xmlUrl', doc):
  print url.value

# libxml2

import libxml2
doc = libxml2.parseFile('foo.opml')
for url in doc.xpathEval('//@xmlUrl'):
  print url.content

# ElementTree

from elementtree import ElementTree
tree = ElementTree.parse("foo.opml")
for outline in tree.findall("//outline"):
  print outline.get('xmlUrl')

Please see my blog entry for more commentary
  http://www.nelson.monkey.org/~nelson/weblog/tech/python/xpath.html
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Re: Python and SOAP

[Nelson Minar]

Peter Schaefer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Is SOAPy still the way to go, or are there better methods?

SOAPy hasn't been maintained in awhile. The two contemporary options
are ZSI or SOAPpy, both at
  http://pywebsvcs.sourceforge.net/
ZSI seems to have more serious development now, but neither is perfect.

You should consider doing a document/literal service instead of
rpc/encoded, the old way. Unfortunately in my experience doc/lit
doesn't work as well with Python, but it's a better way of doing
things. The ZSI guys are working at it.
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Re: What is print? A function?

[Nelson Minar]

Frans Englich <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> The reason I thinks about this is I need to implement a debug print for my 
> program; very simple, a function/print statement that conditionally prints 
> its message whether a bool is true. Not overly complex.

As several folks have said, print is a statement, and Python doesn't
really let you add statements to the language.

You said you wanted to build a simple debugging function, so maybe
this doesn't fit the bill, but for bigger pieces of code Python has a
nice logging library. It's something like log4j or java.util.logging.
  http://www.python.org/doc/2.4/lib/module-logging.html
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Re: Where are list methods documented?

[Nelson Minar]

You're not the only one with a hard time finding the list
documentation. It's even crazier for string docs.

If you want to see how to strip strings in Python you have to go to
the library docs, then click "sequence types" (betcha don't think of
strings as sequences), then scroll to the bottom, then click "String
Methods", then scroll to find "strip()". This makes perfect sense if
you understand that strings are "mutable sequences". But if you're
coming from (say) Perl and are looking for the quick way to work with
strings, it's pretty deeply buried.

A simple internal link or two would help a lot. Say, something in
"built-in functions" which says "see also..."

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Re: time.clock() or time.time()

[Nelson Minar]

"[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> I'm trying to benchmark some function calls for Zope project

Other folks have explained time() vs. clock(), so I'll leave that.

But rather than roll your own timer functions, consider using timeit.

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