Simple Python program to help improve your Spanish vocabulary

Posted on February 4th, 2012 webmaster No comments          Print

I’ve been taking 4 hours of Spanish lessons in Antigua, Guatemala for the last 4 days now.  I’ve learned a lot in this last 4 days but I still have a ton to learn.  My Spanish vocabulary needs a lot of work, so I wrote this simple Python program to help me.

The program loads a list of words from a CSV file (I export my CSV files from Google Docs), shuffles them, iterates through the them, gives you the English word, and asks you to enter the Spanish word.  If you answer correctly, it will go to the next word.  If you answer incorrectly, you have the option to try again or tell the program to give you the answer.

The program keeps track of the words you were not able to answer and shows them to you once it finishes going through all the words for you to review.

import sys
import csv
import random

def get_wordlist(filepath):
    wordlist = {}
    try:
        with open(filepath, 'rb') as f:
            reader = csv.reader(f, delimiter=',')
            for row in reader:
                wordlist['%s' % row[0].strip().lower()] = \
                '%s' % row[1].strip().lower()
    except IOError:
        print "\nCould not open %s!\nExiting..." % filepath
        sys.exit(1)
    return wordlist

def get_answer(english_word, wordlist):
    print "\n[%s word(s) remaining]" % len(wordlist.items())
    print "\nEnglish: %s" % english_word
    return raw_input('Spanish: ').strip().lower()

def get_option():
    print "\n[1] Try again.\n[2] Show answer."
    return raw_input("\nEnter option number: ").strip().lower()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    wordfile = raw_input('\nPlease enter the path of the word list file: ')
    wordlist = get_wordlist(wordfile.strip().lower())

    # Shuffle the dictionary keys so the objects will be displayed
    # in random order to the user.
    keys = wordlist.keys()
    random.shuffle(keys)

    # Keep track of incorrect answers here.
    missed_words = {}

    # Pretty ugly for loop. Should refactor later (ok, I confess,
    # I probably won't get to it).
    for key in keys:
        def handle_correct_answer():
            print "\nCorrecto!"
            wordlist.pop(key)

        def handle_incorrect_answer():
            print "\nIncorrecto!"

        if get_answer(wordlist[key], wordlist) == key:
            handle_correct_answer()
        else:
            handle_incorrect_answer()
            while True:
                option = get_option()
                if option == '1':
                    if get_answer(wordlist[key], wordlist) == key:
                        handle_correct_answer()
                        break
                    handle_incorrect_answer()
                elif option == '2':
                    print "\nThe correct answer is '%s'" % key.upper()
                    missed_words[key] = wordlist[key]
                    wordlist.pop(key)
                    break
                else:
                    print "\nInvalid option, amigo! Put down the cerveza."

    # Display words that were missed and the answers.
    if missed_words:
        print "\nBelow are the word(s) that you missed.\n"
        for key, value in missed_words.items():
            print "%s - %s" % (key.upper(), value)

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Python script for auto-renaming your image files

Posted on January 19th, 2012 webmaster No comments          Print

I like to rename my pictures a certain way as soon as I import them to my computer.  I usually follow this format: description_datetaken_3digitnumbering.jpg

I was using Metamorphose to do this for a while.  But one time I wanted to rename my pictures while I was in New Zealand and realized I didn’t have the application installed on my netbook.  I didn’t want to pay the $5 for the Internet access so I decided to just hack together a simple Python script to do it.  I haven’t gone back to Metamorphose ever since.  I found my script easier to use as I had it customized for my needs.

I’ve tweaked it quite a bit to make it even more user friendly.  Here’s the script if you’re interested. Note that I’m not sure whether the EXIF tag attributes are the same for your camera, so you might need to modify it a little to work for you.

import os
import sys
import shutil
import datetime
from PIL import Image
from PIL.ExifTags import TAGS

# Check first if the given path exists before continuing to the next step.
while True:
    folderpath = raw_input('Folder path: ')
    print "\nChecking if folder path exists...\n"
    if os.path.exists(folderpath):
        print "Ok!\n"
        break;
    else:
        print "%s does not exist. Please enter a valid path.\n" % folderpath

filename_pattern = raw_input('Filename pattern: ')

def get_exif_data(filename):
    """Get embedded EXIF data from image file.

    Source: http://www.endlesslycurious.com/2011/05/11/extracting-image-
            exif-data-with-python/
    """
    ret = {}
    try:
        img = Image.open(filename)
        if hasattr( img, '_getexif' ):
            exifinfo = img._getexif()
            if exifinfo != None:
                for tag, value in exifinfo.items():
                    decoded = TAGS.get(tag, tag)
                    ret[decoded] = value
    except IOError:
        print 'IOERROR ' + filename
    return ret

def get_date_taken(filename):
    datestring = get_exif_data(current_file)['DateTimeOriginal']
    return datetime.datetime.strptime(datestring, '%Y:%m:%d %H:%M:%S')

def get_filenames():
    os.chdir(folderpath)
    return os.listdir(os.getcwd())

def get_numbering_format(digits, num):
    if digits == 1:
        numberfmt = '00%s' % num
    elif digits == 2:
        numberfmt = '0%s' % num
    else:
        numberfmt = '%s' % num
    return numberfmt

def date_to_string(dateobj, format):
    return datetime.datetime.strftime(dateobj, format)

def multi_replace(text, dictobj):
    """Replace characters in the text based on the given dictionary."""
    for k, v in dictobj.iteritems():
        text = text.replace(k, v)
    return text

if __name__ == '__main__':
    filenames = get_filenames()
    for i in xrange(len(filenames)):
        num = i + 1
        digits = len(str(num))
        current_file = filenames[i]

        # Only rename files, ignore directories.
        if not os.path.isdir(current_file):
            # Key, value pairs of what to replace.
            dictobj = {
                '<num>': get_numbering_format(digits, num),
                '<datetaken>': date_to_string(get_date_taken(current_file),
                                              '%Y%m%d')
            }
            new_filename = multi_replace(filename_pattern, dictobj)
            shutil.move(current_file, new_filename)

Sample Usage

Notes

• PIL (Python Imaging Library) is required to retrieve the EXIF data.
• I decided not to traverse subdirectories as that could be pretty dangerous if the wrong path is accidentally entered.
• It’s set to pad the numbering to 3 digits.
• It will rename any file that is not a directory (maybe add a check later for file type).

Errors when installing the Python ‘lxml’ library using pip on Ubuntu

Posted on August 28th, 2011 webmaster No comments          Print

I thought I’d post this here, this is the second time I ran into this issue on Ubuntu and forgot what I did the first time.

If you get errors about things missing when you do ‘sudo pip install lxml’ on Ubuntu, you’ll probably need to install the following development packages (source):

• sudo apt-get install python-dev
• sudo apt-get install libxml2-dev
• sudo apt-get install libxslt1-dev

You may also want to do ‘sudo pip install lxml –upgrade’ if pip tells you that it’s already installed but you know it wasn’t properly installed.