Python Automation

Web scraping, task automation, and scripting patterns.

Overview

Automate tasks with Python.

Web Scraping

import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup

# Fetch webpage
url = "https://example.com"
response = requests.get(url)
soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'html.parser')

# Extract data
title = soup.find('h1').text
print(title)

# Find all links
links = soup.find_all('a')
for link in links:
    print(link.get('href'))

File Operations

import os
import shutil
from pathlib import Path

# Create directories
Path('output').mkdir(exist_ok=True)

# Copy files
shutil.copy('source.txt', 'destination.txt')

# Find files
for file in Path('.').glob('*.py'):
    print(file.name)

# Process CSV
import csv

with open('data.csv') as f:
    reader = csv.DictReader(f)
    for row in reader:
        print(row['name'], row['email'])

Scheduling Tasks

import schedule
import time

def job():
    print("Running scheduled job...")

# Schedule jobs
schedule.every(10).minutes.do(job)
schedule.every().day.at("09:00").do(job)
schedule.every().monday.do(job)

while True:
    schedule.run_pending()
    time.sleep(1)

Practice

Build a web scraper that collects and processes data.