Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, 3rd Edition

If you’ve ever spent hours renaming files or updating hundreds of spreadsheet cells, you know how tedious tasks like these can be. But what if you could have your computer do this work for you?

In this fully revised third edition of Automate the Boring Stuff with Python, you’ll learn how to use Python to write programs that do in minutes what would take you hours to do by hand—no prior programming experience required. Early chapters will teach you the fundamentals of Python through clear explanations and engaging examples. You’ll write your first Python program; work with strings, lists, dictionaries, and other data structures; then use regular expressions to find and manipulate text patterns.

Once you’ve mastered the basics, you’ll tackle projects that teach you to use Python to automate tasks like:

• Searching the web, downloading content, and filling out forms
• Finding, extracting, and manipulating text and data in files and spreadsheets
• Copying, moving, renaming, or compressing saved files on your computer
• Splitting, merging, and extracting text from PDFs and Word documents
• Interacting with applications through custom mouse and keyboard macros
• Managing your inbox, unsubscribing from lists, and sending email or text notifications

New to this edition: All code and examples have been thoroughly updated. You’ll also find four new chapters on database integration, speech recognition, and audio and video editing, as well as 16 new programming projects and expanded coverage of developer techniques like creating command line programs.

Don’t spend your time on work a well-trained monkey could do. Even if you’ve never written a line of code, you can pass off that grunt work to your computer. Learn how in Automate the Boring Stuff with Python.

Author Bio

Al Sweigart is a professional software developer who teaches programming to kids and adults. Sweigart has written several bestselling programming books for beginners, including Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python, Cracking Codes with Python, and Coding with Minecraft, as well as those for intermediate-level programmers, like Beyond the Basic Stuff with Python and The Recursive Book of Recursion (all from No Starch Press).

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction

Chapter 1: Python Basics
Chapter 2: if-else and Flow Control
Chapter 3: Loops
Chapter 4: Functions
Chapter 5: Debugging
Chapter 6: Lists
Chapter 7: Dictionaries and Structuring Data
Chapter 8: Strings and Text Editing
Chapter 9: Text Pattern Matching With Regular Expressions
Chapter 10: Reading and Writing Files
Chapter 11: Organising Files
Chapter 12: Designing and Deploying Command Line Programs
Chapter 13: Web Scraping
Chapter 14: Working with Excel Spreadsheets
Chapter 15: Working with Google Sheets
Chapter 16: SQLite Databases
Chapter 17: PDF and Word Documents
Chapter 18: CSV, JSON, and XML Files
Chapter 19: Keeping Time, Scheduling Tasks, and Launching Programs
Chapter 20: Sending Email, Texts, and Push Notifications
Chapter 21: Making Graphs and Manipulating Images
Chapter 22: Recognising Text in Images
Chapter 22: Controlling Keyboard and Mouse
Chapter 23: Text-To-Speech and Speech Recognition Engines

Resources

• View the latest errata
• Download the files used in this book
• View the Copyright page
• View the detailed Table of Contents
• View the Index
• EAN: 9781718502543
• Pages: 672