Python

Installation

Use Anaconda.

Basic Usage

How to use Python 3.

Ternary Operator

Reference

is_nice = True
state = "nice" if is_nice else "not nice"

Strings

String Interpolation

Reference
Python has 3 syntax variations for string interpolation.

name = 'World'
program = 'Python'
print(f'Hello {name}! This is {program}')

print("%s %s" %('Hello','World',))

name = 'world'
program ='python'
print('Hello {name}!This is{program}.'.format(name=name,program=program))

Lambda Function

lambda x: x * 2

Filesystem Read and Write

List all files in a folder

Reference

gazeDir = "Gaze_txt_files"
# List of folders in root folder
gazeFolders = [path.join(gazeDir, x) for x in os.listdir(gazeDir)]
# List of files 2 folders down
gazeFiles = [path.join(x, y) for x in gazeFolders for y in os.listdir(x)]

Read/Write entire text file into a list

Reading
[1]

with open('C:/path/numbers.txt') as f:
    lines = f.read().splitlines()

Writing
[2]

with open('your_file.txt', 'w') as f:
    f.write("\n".join(my_list))

Create Directory if it doesn't exist

Reference

def ensure_dir_exists(filename):
    if not os.path.exists(os.path.dirname(filename)):
        try:
            os.makedirs(os.path.dirname(filename))
        except OSError as exc: # Guard against race condition
            if exc.errno != errno.EEXIST:
                raise

Copying or moving a file or folder

Copying
Shutil docs

import shutil

# Copy a file
shutil.copy2('original.txt', 'duplicate.txt')

# Move a file
shutil.move('original.txt', 'my_folder/original.txt')

Regular Expressions (Regex)

Reference

import re
myReg = re.compile(r'height:(\d+)cm')
myMatch = re.match(myReg, "height:33cm");
print(myMatch[1])
# 33

Spawning Processes

Use subprocess to spawn other programs.

import subprocess
subprocess.run(["ls", "-l"], cwd="/")

Misc

If you are writing a script with functions you want to be included in other scripts, use __name__ to detect if your script is being run or being imported. What does if __name__ == "__main__" do?

if __name__ == "__main__":

Libraries

Matplotlib

Matplotlib is the main library used for making graphs.
Alternatively, there are also Python bindings for ggplot2
Examples
Gallery