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

Accessing web APIs

Rich interfaces can be created through the web, allowing powerful interactions through HTTP. The most common interface is through RESTful APIs using JSON. These text-based interfaces are easy to understand and to program, and use common technologies that are language agnostic, meaning they can be accessed in any programming language that has an HTTP client module, including, of course, Python.

Formats other than JSON are used, such as XML. But JSON is a very simple and readable format that translates very well into Python dictionaries (and other language equivalents). JSON is, by far, the most common format in RESTful APIs at the moment. Learn more about JSON here: https://www.json.org/.

The strict definition of RESTful requires some specific characteristics, but an informal definition of RESTful is a system that describes resources through HTTP URLs. This means each URL represents a particular resource, such as an article in a newspaper...