Book Image

Python Automation Cookbook - Second Edition

By : Jaime Buelta
Book Image

Python Automation Cookbook - Second Edition

By: Jaime Buelta

Overview of this book

In this updated and extended version of Python Automation Cookbook, each chapter now comprises the newest recipes and is revised to align with Python 3.8 and higher. The book includes three new chapters that focus on using Python for test automation, machine learning projects, and for working with messy data. This edition will enable you to develop a sharp understanding of the fundamentals required to automate business processes through real-world tasks, such as developing your first web scraping application, analyzing information to generate spreadsheet reports with graphs, and communicating with automatically generated emails. Once you grasp the basics, you will acquire the practical knowledge to create stunning graphs and charts using Matplotlib, generate rich graphics with relevant information, automate marketing campaigns, build machine learning projects, and execute debugging techniques. By the end of this book, you will be proficient in identifying monotonous tasks and resolving process inefficiencies to produce superior and reliable systems.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
14
Other Books You May Enjoy
15
Index

Preparing a task

It all starts with defining precisely the work that needs to be executed, and designing it in a way that doesn't require human intervention to run.

Some ideal characteristic points are as follows:

  1. Single, clear entry point: No confusion on how to start the task.
  2. Clear parameters: If there are any parameters, they should be as explicit as possible.
  3. No interactivity: Stopping the execution to request information from the user is not possible.
  4. The result should be stored: In order to be checked at a different time than when it runs.
  5. Clear result: When we oversee the execution of a program ourselves, we can accept more verbose results, such as unlabeled data or extra debugging information. However, for an automated task, the final result should be as concise and to the point as possible.
  6. Errors should be logged: To analyze what went wrong.

A command-line program has a lot of those characteristics already...