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

Downloading web pages

The basic ability to download a web page involves making an HTTP GET request against a URL. This is the basic operation of any web browser.

Let's quickly recap the different parts of this operation, as it has three distinct elements:

  1. Using the HTTP protocol. This deals with the way the request is structured.
  2. Using the GET method, which is the most common HTTP method. We'll see more in the Accessing web APIs recipe.
  3. A full URL describing the address of the page, including the server (for example: mypage.com) and the path (for example: /page).

That request will be routed toward the server by the internet and processed by the server, then a response will be sent back. This response will contain a status code, typically 200 if everything went fine, and a body with the result, which will normally be text with an HTML page.

Most of this is handled automatically by the HTTP client used to perform the request. We...