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Is there anyone around here who likes Python? I'm using it for school and I really like the language. It's OOP aproach is just awesome, but one of the things it was missing was a good way to take input from the command line and make objects out of them. The input() function is just bad, and raw_input() will only give you a string object which you have to deal with on your own. So I've written a package called cliutils, and I'm wondering if there are people who want to looks at it and provide feedback.

I'll post the code as soon as I get a shell account. Till then post if your interested or PM me.

Well, that sounds nice, although I have not had any problems with the functions/methods (however you want to call them) you mentioned.

I look forward to seeing the code and maybe get some ideas and new ways to do stuff.

trick wrote:I'll post the code as soon as I get a shell account. Till then post if your interested or PM me.

Just being curious, what does posting the code and getting a shell account have to do with each other?

trick wrote:one of the things it was missing was a good way to take input from the command line and make objects out of them. The input() function is just bad, and raw_input() will only give you a string object which you have to deal with on your own.

I don't get it. input() is made for numbers and raw_input() is made for strings. How is this a bad system?

not really. what raw_input() does is gets the input and puts it into a string. input() is the same as eval(raw_input()) which is ugly, and exhibits all sorts of weird behaviour if the user types in the wrong thing. raw_input isn't bad if all you want is strings, but that's often not good enough. Here's an example

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from cliutils import io

speed=io.input_object('What is the air speed of an unladen swallow?: ',float)

It will prompt the use with that question, and make sure they input something that python can convert to a float, and store the float in speed. If the user types in something like 'is that an African or European swallow?' then it will output a nice error message telling the user the input must be a number, and give them another chance.

Here's some other examples

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n=io.input_object('Integer to factor: ',int)

That will make n an integer.

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a=io.input_object('Are you sure you want to do that? ',io.casts.yes_no)

That uses a function that makes sure the user types in either 'y', 'yes', 'n', or 'no' and gives you True for the yes response and False for the no response.

As for the shell thing, I actually meant hosting. But aren't they the same here?

I do like Python.
wxPython is very cool and Python's syntax is easy readable

I love python and in fact have it on my mobile phone (that's how addicted I am). If anybody needs help with python, I am always here.

And yes, I do think that "Python" should have been an option in the programming language poll.

I love python too, its simple and clean

Well I've read something about python, once in it's site, they explain at as a very practical languge, that actually gets to the point, without having to read, or understand many things, that you must learn while learning others.

Python is very wide spread now, and it seems to be the "new" perl - can do some nice stuff with it in the web environment too check out http://www.djangoproject.com for a nice framework for website dev.