Book Image

Mastering Python Scripting for System Administrators

By : Ganesh Sanjiv Naik
Book Image

Mastering Python Scripting for System Administrators

By: Ganesh Sanjiv Naik

Overview of this book

Python has evolved over time and extended its features in relation to every possible IT operation. Python is simple to learn, yet has powerful libraries that can be used to build powerful Python scripts for solving real-world problems and automating administrators' routine activities. The objective of this book is to walk through a series of projects that will teach readers Python scripting with each project. This book will initially cover Python installation and quickly revise basic to advanced programming fundamentals. The book will then focus on the development process as a whole, from setup to planning to building different tools. It will include IT administrators' routine activities (text processing, regular expressions, file archiving, and encryption), network administration (socket programming, email handling, the remote controlling of devices using telnet/ssh, and protocols such as SNMP/DHCP), building graphical user interface, working with websites (Apache log file processing, SOAP and REST APIs communication, and web scraping), and database administration (MySQL and similar database data administration, data analytics, and reporting). By the end of this book, you will be able to use the latest features of Python and be able to build powerful tools that will solve challenging, real-world tasks
Table of Contents (21 chapters)

Working with CSV files

The CSV format stands for Comma Separated Values. The commas are used to separate the fields in a record. These are commonly used for importing and exporting the format for spreadsheets and databases.

A CSV file is a plain text file that uses a specific type of structuring to arrange tabular data. Python has the built-in csv module that allows Python to parse these types of files. The csv module can be mostly used to work with data that is exported from spreadsheets, as well as databases in text file format, with fields and records.

The csv module has all of the required functions built-in, as follows:

  • csv.reader: This function is used to return a reader object, which iterates over lines of a CSV file
  • csv.writer: This function is used to return a writer object, which writes data into CSV file
  • csv.register_dialect: This function is used to register a CSV...