Re: Threading and serial port access

[willie]

Diez wrote:

> Apart from that the approach you use is wasting resources - if you are
> concerned about that (or better style...) use e.g. twisted with the
> serial and parallel support and its so-called select reactor. The idea
> behind that concept is that the OS is responsible for scannig IO-Ports.
> It notifies an application about newly arrived data by the system
> function select - which means that your program sits and waits not
> cosuming any resources until actual data arrives. See the module select
> for an overview, and google for "python twisted serial".

Thanks for the help, the code you previously posted worked, but I can
see it could get very messy if the number of ports increased...

I'm going to look at twisted python.  Thanks again for the pointers,
much appreciated.

Regards

William MacLeod

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byte count unicode string

[willie]

# What's the correct way to get the
# byte count of a unicode (UTF-8) string?
# I couldn't find a builtin method
# and the following is memory inefficient.

ustr = "example\xC2\x9D".decode('UTF-8')

num_chars = len(ustr)# 8

buf = ustr.encode('UTF-8')

num_bytes = len(buf) # 9


# Thanks.

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byte count unicode string

[willie]

Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch:

 >In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, willie wrote:
 >> # What's the correct way to get the
 >> # byte count of a unicode (UTF-8) string?
 >> # I couldn't find a builtin method
 >> # and the following is memory inefficient.

 >> ustr = "example\xC2\x9D".decode('UTF-8')

 >> num_chars = len(ustr)# 8

 >> buf = ustr.encode('UTF-8')

 >> num_bytes = len(buf) # 9

 >That is the correct way.


# Apologies if I'm being dense, but it seems
# unusual that I'd have to make a copy of a
# unicode string, converting it into a byte
# string, before I can determine the size (in bytes)
# of the unicode string. Can someone provide the rational
# for that or correct my misunderstanding?

# Thanks.
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byte count unicode string

[willie]

 >willie wrote:
 >> Marc 'BlackJack' Rintsch:
 >>
 >>  >In <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, willie 
wrote:
 >>  >> # What's the correct way to get the
 >>  >> # byte count of a unicode (UTF-8) string?
 >>  >> # I couldn't find a builtin method
 >>  >> # and the following is memory inefficient.

 >>  >> ustr = "example\xC2\x9D".decode('UTF-8')

 >>  >> num_chars = len(ustr)# 8

 >>  >> buf = ustr.encode('UTF-8')

 >>  >> num_bytes = len(buf) # 9

 >>  >That is the correct way.

 >> # Apologies if I'm being dense, but it seems
 >> # unusual that I'd have to make a copy of a
 >> # unicode string, converting it into a byte
 >> # string, before I can determine the size (in bytes)
 >> # of the unicode string. Can someone provide the rational
 >> # for that or correct my misunderstanding?

 >You initially asked "What's the correct way to get the  byte countof a
 >unicode (UTF-8) string".
 >
 >It appears you meant "How can I find how many bytes there are in the
 >UTF-8 representation of a Unicode string without manifesting the UTF-8
 >representation?".
 >
 >The answer is, "You can't", and the rationale would have to be that
 >nobody thought of a use case for counting the length of the UTF-8  form
 >but not creating the UTF-8 form. What is your use case?

# Sorry for the confusion. My use case is a web app that
# only deals with UTF-8 strings. I want to prevent silent
# truncation of the data, so I want to validate the number
# of bytes that make up the unicode string before sending
# it to the database to be written.

# For instance, say I have a name column that is varchar(50).
# The 50 is in bytes not characters. So I can't use the length of
# the unicode string to check if it's over the maximum allowed bytes.

name = post.input('name') # utf-8 string

# preferable
if bytes(name) > 50:
send_http_headers()
display_page_begin()
display_error_msg('the name is too long')
display_form(name)
display_page_end()

# If I have a form with many input elements,
# I have to convert each to a byte string
# before i can see how many bytes make up the
# unicode string. That's very memory inefficient
# with large text fields - having to duplicate each
# one to get its size in bytes:

buf = name.encode('UTF-8')
num_bytes = len(buf)


# That said, I'm not losing any sleep over it,
# so feel free to disregard any of this if it's
# way off base.
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byte count unicode string

[willie]

John Machin:

 >You are confusing the hell out of yourself. You say that your web app
 >deals only with UTF-8 strings. Where do you get "the unicode string"
 >from??? If name is a utf-8 string, as your comment says, then len(name)
 >is all you need!!!


# I'll go ahead and concede defeat since you appear to be on the
# verge of a heart attack :)
# I can see that I lack clarity so I don't blame you.

# By UTF-8 string, I mean a unicode object with UTF-8 encoding:

type(ustr)

 >>> repr(ustr)
"u'\\u2708'"

# The database API expects unicode objects:
# A template query, then a variable number of values.
# Perhaps I'm a victim of arbitrary design decisions :)
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byte count unicode string

[willie]

John Machin:

 >Good luck!


Thank you for your patience and for educating me.
(Though I still have a long way to go before enlightenment)
I thought Python might have a small weakness in
lacking an efficient way to get the number of bytes
in a "UTF-8 encoded Python string object" (proper?),
but I've been disabused of that notion.
It's always a nice feeling when my language of choice
withstands my nitpicking.
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byte count unicode string

[willie]

Martin v. Löwis:

 >willie schrieb:
 >
 >> Thank you for your patience and for educating me.
 >> (Though I still have a long way to go before enlightenment)
 >> I thought Python might have a small weakness in
 >> lacking an efficient way to get the number of bytes
 >> in a "UTF-8 encoded Python string object" (proper?),
 >> but I've been disabused of that notion.
 >
 >Well, to get to the enlightenment, you have to understand
 >that Unicode and UTF-8 are *not* synonyms.
 >
 >A Python Unicode string is an abstract sequence of
 >characters. It does have an in-memory representation,
 >but that is irrelevant and depends on what microprocessor
 >you use. A byte string is a sequence of quantities with
 >8 bits each (called bytes).
 >
 >For each of them, the notion of "length" exists: For
 >a Unicode string, it's the number of characters; for
 >a byte string, the number of bytes.
 >
 >UTF-8 is a character encoding; it is only meaningful
 >to say that byte strings have an encoding (where
 >"UTF-8", "cp1252", "iso-2022-jp" are really very
 >similar). For a character encoding, "what is the
 >number of bytes?" is a meaningful question. For
 >a Unicode string, this question is not meaningful:
 >you have to specify the encoding first.
 >
 >Now, there is no len(unicode_string, encoding) function:
 >len takes a single argument. To specify both the string
 >and the encoding, you have to write
 >len(unicode_string.encode(encoding)). This, as a
 >side effect, actually computes the encoding.
 >
 >While it would be possible to answer the question
 >"how many bytes has Unicode string S in encoding E?"
 >without actually encoding the string, doing so would
 >require codecs to implement their algorithm twice:
 >once to count the number of bytes, and once to
 >actually perform the encoding. Since this operation
 >is not that frequent, it was chosen not to put the
 >burden of implementing the algorithm twice (actually,
 >doing so was never even considered).


Thanks for the thorough explanation. One last question
about terminology then I'll go away :)
What is the proper way to describe "ustr" below?

 >>> ustr = buf.decode('UTF-8')
 >>> type(ustr)



Is it a "unicode object that contains a UTF-8 encoded
string object?"

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byte count unicode string

[willie]

 >willie wrote:
 >>
 >> Thanks for the thorough explanation. One last question
 >> about terminology then I'll go away :)
 >> What is the proper way to describe "ustr" below?

 >>  >>> ustr = buf.decode('UTF-8')
 >>  >>> type(ustr)
 >> 

 >> Is it a "unicode object that contains a UTF-8 encoded
 >> string object?"


John Machin:

 >No. It is a Python unicode object, period.
 >
 >1. If it did contain another object you would be (quite justifiably)
 >screaming your peripherals off about the waste of memory :-)
 >2. You don't need to concern yourself with the internals of a unicode
 >object; however rest assured that it is *not* stored as UTF-8 -- so if
 >you are hoping for a quick "number of utf 8 bytes without actually
 >producing a str object" method, you are out of luck.
 >
 >Consider this example: you have a str object which contains some
 >Russian text, encoded in cp1251.
 >
 >str1 = russian_text
 >unicode1 = str1.decode('cp1251')
 >str2 = unicode1.encode('utf-8')
 >unicode2 = str2.decode('utf-8')
 >Then unicode2 == unicode1, repr(unicode2) == repr(unicode1), there is
 >no way (without the above history) of determining how it was created --
 >and you don't need to care how it was created.


Gabriel Genellina:

 >ustr is an unicode object. Period. An unicode object contains
 >characters (not bytes).
 >buf, apparently, is a string - a string of bytes. Those bytes
 >apparently represent some unicode characters encoded using the UTF-8
 >encoding. So, you can decode them -using the decode() method- to get
 >the unicode object.
 >
 >Very roughly, the difference is like that of an integer and its
 >representations:
 >w = 1
 >x = 0x0001
 >y = 001
 >z = struct.unpack('>h','\x00\x01')
 >All three objects are the *same* integer, 1.
 >There is no way of knowing *how* the integer was spelled, i.e., from
 >which representation it comes from - like the unicode object, it has
 >no "encoding" by itself.
 >You can go back and forth between an integer number and its decimal
 >representation - like astring.decode() and ustring.encode()

I finally understand, much appreciated.

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unicode, bytes redux

[willie]

(beating a dead horse)

Is it too ridiculous to suggest that it'd be nice
if the unicode object were to remember the
encoding of the string it was decoded from?
So that it's feasible to calculate the number
of bytes that make up the unicode code points.

# U+270C
# 11100010 10011100 10001100
buf = "\xE2\x9C\x8C"

u = buf.decode('UTF-8')

# ... later ...

u.bytes() -> 3

(goes through each code point and calculates
the number of bytes that make up the character
according to the encoding)
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Threading and serial port access

[willie]

Hi,

I'm writing a program which requires the use of three serial ports and
one parallel port.  My application has a scanning devices on each port,
which I can access fine with pyserial.  However, I'm unsure of how
exactly I should be designing the program, I thought I could use
threading to start class:

class scanner(Thread):
def __init__(self,port):
Thread.__init__(self)
self.port = port
def scan(self):
ser = serial.Serial(port)
print ser.portstr
id = ser.read(12)
ser.close

But this doesn't work as I thought when I call it like:

for port in range(0,totalserialports):  # loop through all serial ports
print "starting thread for port %d" %(port)
NewThread = scanner(port)
NewThread.scan()
NewThread.start()

I get:

starting thread for port 0
/dev/ttyS0

Now, I know that I haven't specified any port timeouts, but I don't
want it to timeout, I want to open each port and keep it open
indefinately.  Threading seems to block waiting for the read from the
serial port.  How can I open every serial port at the same time, read
from it, do an action and then go back to it?  Anyone got any good
documentation sources for threading that explain things clearly and
gives examples? (I'm running python 2.3.4)

What's the most python like way of achieving my end goal?

Thanks

Regards

William MacLeod

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Using lambda with a Pmw.ComboBox

[Willie]

Hi,

I have an array of 2 ComboBoxes. I would like to use lambda to report
on which widget is being accessed. When I use arrays of other widgets I
just use lambda to return which item I am using as an argument. This
does not seem to work with ComboBox, the only thing returned is the
value changed.

Can someone refer me to some code which shows this in action? I have
searched the web for a solution, without any luck.

Thanks,

Willie

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Re: Using lambda with a Pmw.ComboBox

[Willie]

I will post a sample tomorrow AM.

James Stroud wrote:
> Can you show us your code? Your question is ambiguous to me. Comboboxes
> do not hold widgets but display text.

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time function problem

[willie]

My code:

from time import time
def leibniz(terms):


acc = 0.0
num = 4.0 # numerator value remains constant in the series
den = 1
count = 0
start_time = 0.0
for aterm in range(terms):
nextterm = num/den  * (-1)**aterm # (-1) allows fractions to
alternate
#between a + and a - value
acc = acc + nextterm

den = den + 2   #denominator increments by 2
count = count + 1
#print(count,acc)


print("Time elapsed: %f"%( time()- start_time))
return acc

The result I get is --  Time elapsed: 1227812482.39 but I want to
know the real time this code needed to  run. Using a term value of
1000 I can see from the begining to end the actual time lapse is a
little over 6 seconds. How do I get that value (6 + secs approx) as my
time lapse.

Thanks
Bill
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Forcing a stack trace from the command line?

[Willie Walker]

Hi:

I'm working on Orca, a screen reader for the GNOME platform,
and it's being done in Python.  Python is working really for
us right now and I'm quite happy with many aspects of it.

Is there a function like CTRL-Backspace in Python?  There is
a hang in my code somewhere and I'm unable to find it.  When
the hang occurs, all "print" commands seem to stop and I can
only recover by killing the app via Ctrl-Z and kill.  In these
cases, Ctrl-C doesn't work even though I've registered signal
handlers:

   signal.signal(signal.SIGINT, shutdownAndExit)
   signal.signal(signal.SIGQUIT, shutdownAndExit)

What I'd really like to be able to do is to use something like
Java's CTRL-Backspace to dump a stack trace in these instances
just to give me a clue about where my code is during the hang.

I've tried using sys.settrace() to track things, but it seems
to introduce something into the system that prevents me from
being able to reproduce the hang.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

Will

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Way off Question - VATSIM - query

[Willie Whelan]

Hi,

I know this is a way off question, but does anyone have any info on
querying a vatsim server. www.vatsim.net. I would just like to query a
server to see what clients are connected.

Thanks

Willie
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Re: Python-list Digest, Vol 88, Issue 69

[willie...@gmail.com]

Sent from my LG phone

python-list-requ...@python.org wrote:

>Send Python-list mailing list submissions to
>   python-list@python.org
>
>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>   http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>   python-list-requ...@python.org
>
>You can reach the person managing the list at
>   python-list-ow...@python.org
>
>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>than "Re: Contents of Python-list digest..."
>
>Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: Python use growing fast (Alice Bevan?McGregor)
>   2. Re: order of importing modules (Chris Rebert)
>   3. Re: How to Buffer Serialized Objects to Disk (MRAB)
>   4. Re: How to Buffer Serialized Objects to Disk (Chris Rebert)
>   5. Re: How to Buffer Serialized Objects to Disk (Peter Otten)
>   6. Re: Best way to automatically copy out attachments from an
>  email (Chris Rebert)
>   7. Re: Parsing string for " " (Aahz)
>   8. Re: Nested structures question (Tim Harig)
>   9. Re: How to Buffer Serialized Objects to Disk (Scott McCarty)
>
>On 2011-01-10 19:49:47 -0800, Roy Smith said:
>
>> One of the surprising (to me, anyway) uses of JavaScript is as the 
>> scripting language for MongoDB (http://www.mongodb.org/).
>
>I just wish they'd drop spidermonkey and go with V8 or another, faster 
>and more modern engine.  :(
>
>   - Alice.
>
>
>
>
>> Dan Stromberg wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Catherine Moroney
>>>  wrote:

 In what order does python import modules on a Linux system?  I have a
 package that is both installed in /usr/lib64/python2.5/site-packages,
 and a newer version of the same module in a working directory.

 I want to import the version from the working directory, but when I
 print module.__file__ in the interpreter after importing the module,
 I get the version that's in site-packages.

 I've played with the PYTHONPATH environmental variable by setting it
 to just the path of the working directory, but when I import the module
 I still pick up the version in site-packages.

 /usr/lib64 is in my PATH variable, but doesn't appear anywhere else.  I
 don't want to remove /usr/lib64 from my PATH because that will break
 a lot of stuff.

 Can I force python to import from my PYTHONPATH first, before looking
 in the system directory?

>>> Please import sys and inspect sys.path; this defines the search path
>>> for imports.
>>>
>>> By looking at sys.path, you can see where in the search order your
>>> $PYTHONPATH is going.
>>>
>On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Catherine Moroney
> wrote:
>> I've looked at my sys.path variable and I see that it has
>> a whole bunch of site-package directories, followed by the
>> contents of my $PYTHONPATH variable, followed by a list of
>> misc site-package variables (see below).
>
>> But, I'm curious as to where the first bunch of 'site-package'
>> entries come from.  The
>> /usr/lib64/python2.5/site-packages/pyhdfeos-1.0_r57_58-py2.5-linux-x86_64.egg
>> is not present in any of my environmental variables yet it shows up
>> as one of the first entries in sys.path.
>
>You probably have a .pth file somewhere that adds it (since it's an
>egg, probably site-packages/easy-install.pth).
>See http://docs.python.org/install/index.html#modifying-python-s-search-path
>
>Cheers,
>Chris
>--
>http://blog.rebertia.com
>
>
>On 12/01/2011 21:05, Scott McCarty wrote:
>> Sorry to ask this question. I have search the list archives and googled,
>> but I don't even know what words to find what I am looking for, I am
>> just looking for a little kick in the right direction.
>>
>> I have a Python based log analysis program called petit
>> (http://crunchtools.com/petit). I am trying to modify it to manage the
>> main object types to and from disk.
>>
>> Essentially, I have one object which is a list of a bunch of "Entry"
>> objects. The Entry objects have date, time, date, etc fields which I use
>> for analysis techniques. At the very beginning I build up the list of
>> objects then would like to start pickling it while building to save
>> memory. I want to be able to process more entries than I have memory.
>> With a strait list it looks like I could build from xreadlines(), but
>> once you turn it into a more complex object, I don't quick know where to go.
>>
>> I understand how to pickle the entire data structure, but I need
>> something that will manage the memory/disk allocation?  Any thoughts?
>>
>To me it sounds like you need to use a database.
>
>
>On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 1:05 PM, Scott McCarty  wrote:
>> Sorry to ask this question. I have search the list archives and googled, but
>> I don't even know what words to find what I am looking for, I am just
>> looking for a little kick in the right direction.
>> I have a Python based log analysis program called petit
>> (http://crunchtools.com/petit). I 

Re: Python-list Digest, Vol 88, Issue 69

[willie...@gmail.com]

Sent from my LG phone

python-list-requ...@python.org wrote:

>Send Python-list mailing list submissions to
>   python-list@python.org
>
>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>   http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>   python-list-requ...@python.org
>
>You can reach the person managing the list at
>   python-list-ow...@python.org
>
>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>than "Re: Contents of Python-list digest..."
>
>Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: Python use growing fast (Alice Bevan?McGregor)
>   2. Re: order of importing modules (Chris Rebert)
>   3. Re: How to Buffer Serialized Objects to Disk (MRAB)
>   4. Re: How to Buffer Serialized Objects to Disk (Chris Rebert)
>   5. Re: How to Buffer Serialized Objects to Disk (Peter Otten)
>   6. Re: Best way to automatically copy out attachments from an
>  email (Chris Rebert)
>   7. Re: Parsing string for " " (Aahz)
>   8. Re: Nested structures question (Tim Harig)
>   9. Re: How to Buffer Serialized Objects to Disk (Scott McCarty)
>
>On 2011-01-10 19:49:47 -0800, Roy Smith said:
>
>> One of the surprising (to me, anyway) uses of JavaScript is as the 
>> scripting language for MongoDB (http://www.mongodb.org/).
>
>I just wish they'd drop spidermonkey and go with V8 or another, faster 
>and more modern engine.  :(
>
>   - Alice.
>
>
>
>
>> Dan Stromberg wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 4:30 PM, Catherine Moroney
>>>  wrote:

 In what order does python import modules on a Linux system?  I have a
 package that is both installed in /usr/lib64/python2.5/site-packages,
 and a newer version of the same module in a working directory.

 I want to import the version from the working directory, but when I
 print module.__file__ in the interpreter after importing the module,
 I get the version that's in site-packages.

 I've played with the PYTHONPATH environmental variable by setting it
 to just the path of the working directory, but when I import the module
 I still pick up the version in site-packages.

 /usr/lib64 is in my PATH variable, but doesn't appear anywhere else.  I
 don't want to remove /usr/lib64 from my PATH because that will break
 a lot of stuff.

 Can I force python to import from my PYTHONPATH first, before looking
 in the system directory?

>>> Please import sys and inspect sys.path; this defines the search path
>>> for imports.
>>>
>>> By looking at sys.path, you can see where in the search order your
>>> $PYTHONPATH is going.
>>>
>On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 11:07 AM, Catherine Moroney
> wrote:
>> I've looked at my sys.path variable and I see that it has
>> a whole bunch of site-package directories, followed by the
>> contents of my $PYTHONPATH variable, followed by a list of
>> misc site-package variables (see below).
>
>> But, I'm curious as to where the first bunch of 'site-package'
>> entries come from.  The
>> /usr/lib64/python2.5/site-packages/pyhdfeos-1.0_r57_58-py2.5-linux-x86_64.egg
>> is not present in any of my environmental variables yet it shows up
>> as one of the first entries in sys.path.
>
>You probably have a .pth file somewhere that adds it (since it's an
>egg, probably site-packages/easy-install.pth).
>See http://docs.python.org/install/index.html#modifying-python-s-search-path
>
>Cheers,
>Chris
>--
>http://blog.rebertia.com
>
>
>On 12/01/2011 21:05, Scott McCarty wrote:
>> Sorry to ask this question. I have search the list archives and googled,
>> but I don't even know what words to find what I am looking for, I am
>> just looking for a little kick in the right direction.
>>
>> I have a Python based log analysis program called petit
>> (http://crunchtools.com/petit). I am trying to modify it to manage the
>> main object types to and from disk.
>>
>> Essentially, I have one object which is a list of a bunch of "Entry"
>> objects. The Entry objects have date, time, date, etc fields which I use
>> for analysis techniques. At the very beginning I build up the list of
>> objects then would like to start pickling it while building to save
>> memory. I want to be able to process more entries than I have memory.
>> With a strait list it looks like I could build from xreadlines(), but
>> once you turn it into a more complex object, I don't quick know where to go.
>>
>> I understand how to pickle the entire data structure, but I need
>> something that will manage the memory/disk allocation?  Any thoughts?
>>
>To me it sounds like you need to use a database.
>
>
>On Wed, Jan 12, 2011 at 1:05 PM, Scott McCarty  wrote:
>> Sorry to ask this question. I have search the list archives and googled, but
>> I don't even know what words to find what I am looking for, I am just
>> looking for a little kick in the right direction.
>> I have a Python based log analysis program called petit
>> (http://crunchtools.com/petit). I 

Re: Python-list Digest, Vol 88, Issue 67

[willie...@gmail.com]

Sent from my LG phone

python-list-requ...@python.org wrote:

>Send Python-list mailing list submissions to
>   python-list@python.org
>
>To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>   http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
>or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>   python-list-requ...@python.org
>
>You can reach the person managing the list at
>   python-list-ow...@python.org
>
>When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>than "Re: Contents of Python-list digest..."
>
>Today's Topics:
>
>   1. Re: Python use growing fast (Colin J. Williams)
>   2. Career path - where next? (Alan Harris-Reid)
>   3. Re: Career path - where next? (Terry Reedy)
>   4. Re: Python use growing fast (Terry Reedy)
>   5. Re: Ideas for a module to process command line arguments
>  (Alice Bevan?McGregor)
>   6. Re: Python use growing fast (Krzysztof Bieniasz)
>   7. Re: Career path - where next? (Jon Clements)
>   8. Re: Career path - where next? (Philip Semanchuk)
>   9. Best way to automatically copy out attachments from an email
>  (Matty Sarro)
>  10. How to populate all possible hierarchical clusterings from a
>  set of   elements? (justin)
>
>On 10-Jan-11 16:02 PM, MRAB wrote:
>> On 10/01/2011 20:29, Dan Stromberg wrote:
>>> I invite folks to check out Tiobe's Language Popularity Rankings:
>>>
>>> http://www.tiobe.com/index.php/content/paperinfo/tpci/index.html
>>>
>>> The gist is: Python grew faster than any other programming language
>>> over the last year, according to this (slightly arbitrary, but better
>>> than no indicator) ranking.
>>>
>>> ...despite our wikipedia page whose first paragraph almost seems like
>>> it was written with the intention of scaring off new converts, with
>>> its "unusual" comment:
>>>
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_%28programming_language%29
>>>
>>> (Like it or not, people do frequently confuse the descriptive for the
>>> normative)
>>
>> It shows an example of Python code, which happens to have 2 syntax
>> errors!
>
>Why not correct the Wikipedia entry?
>
>Colin W.
>
>
>
>Hi there, I wonder if any Python folk out there can help me.
>
>For many years I was a contractor developing desktop and web 
>applications using Visual Foxpro as my main language, with Foxpro, 
>SQL-server and Oracle as back-end databases.  Unfortunately Foxpro was 
>killed-off by Microsoft, hence my work dried-up and my last 'big' 
>contract ended about a year ago.  Since then I have taken time off 
>programming doing house-renovation, and in the last 6 months I have been 
>updating my programming skills by learning Python (3) with SQLite, 
>JavaScript, HTML and CSS to a level where I can create and deploy 
>data-based web-sites.
>
>My situation now is that I am reasonably comfortable with the above 
>languages and am now in a position where I wish to return to employment 
>using my new and/or existing skills (contract/permanent, full/part-time 
>or teleworking).   However, I have yet to find any UK vacancy which will 
>accept a relative 'beginner' - they all require at least 2-3 years 
>Python in a commercial environment.  It's a catch-22 situation - it's 
>hard to get a job without experience, but you need a job to get 
>experience in the 1st place!
>
>I would even consider doing small projects for nothing so that I can 
>'get my foot in the door' (although I hope to be wise-enough to know 
>when I am being taken advantage of!).  I am also mailing CVs to agencies 
>I think may be interested.
>
>If anyone out has ideas as to how to proceed towards achieving my goal, 
>I would be grateful for any advice.
>
>Regards,
>Alan Harris-Reid
>
>
>
>On 1/12/2011 11:37 AM, Alan Harris-Reid wrote:
>
>...
>> updating my programming skills by learning Python (3) with SQLite,
>> JavaScript, HTML and CSS to a level where I can create and deploy
>> data-based web-sites.
>...
>> I would even consider doing small projects for nothing so that I can
>> 'get my foot in the door' (although I hope to be wise-enough to know
>
>I believe both Roundup/Python tracker and PyPI (Python package index) 
>are based on sqlite and have small projects available/needed. I cannot 
>help you otherwise. Good luck.
>
>-- 
>Terry Jan Reedy
>
>
>
>On 1/12/2011 9:51 AM, Colin J. Williams wrote:
>
>>> It shows an example of Python code, which happens to have 2 syntax
>>> errors!
>>
>> Why not correct the Wikipedia entry?
>
>As I reported early, the errors, if any, are in .png and .svg images of 
>text, which would have to be replaced, not corrected. Would be good 
>since the imaged snippet is a haphazard except from a much larger file 
>and inane out of context.
>
>-- 
>Terry Jan Reedy
>
>
>
>On 2011-01-11 21:41:24 -0800, Michele Simionato said:
>
>> Originally plac too was able to recognize flags automatically by 
>> looking at the default value (if the default value is a boolean then 
>> the option is a flag); however I removed that functionality becau