🌐 Mailman 3 September 2001 - Python-list - python.org

Lift Tkinter window on Win32
by a_slusarczyk＠hotmail.com Oct. 9, 2001

Oct. 9, 2001

Hi, everybody! I have encountered a peculiar problem while trying to do as simple thing as getting a Tkinter window to be the foreground window. I'm running Python 1.5.2 on Windows 98 with Tcl/Tk 8.0.5 I started with an obvious wnd.lift() (or tkraise), which does not work (!). It only raises the wnd over the other Tkinter windows, not other application windows. Any ideas why? Frustrated, I decided to play dirty and call win32gui.SetForegroundWindow( atoi(wnd.frame()) ) which didnt work either. Probing further, I wrote a piece of C code, which did SetForegroundWindow on the Tkinter window in question - IT WORKS! However, if I compile the very same piece of C code into Python extension module and call it from within Python code - IT DOESN'T WORK! Can anyone please shed some light on this. TIA, Alex

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Re: Off-topic: hiding your email address - don't bother...
by Paul Rubin Oct. 8, 2001

Oct. 8, 2001

Skip Montanaro <skip(a)pobox.com> writes: > * If I reply-to-all to a message of yours I will get an address like > skipNO(a)SPAMmojam.com in the To: or CC: headers. If I notice it and > remove "NO" and "SPAM", I've just screwed you, because your email > address is now going to show up in mailing list archives or Usenet > headers. If I don't notice, I get a bounce. No great loss perhaps, > though I'm a bit frustrated because my response to perhaps your > request won't reach you, and you might miss the response to your > message when skimming c.l.py (or have it expire when you're out of > town on a business trip). What are the chances that I will realize I > should move your email address to the BCC field? Slim, at best. If I > remember to do all the right things, what about Alex or Guido, one of > the Tims or one of the bots? If I post a question to c.l.py, I make a point of checking the newsgroup for answers. I really would prefer NOT to get emailed replies, especially if the answer is also in the newsgroup. I do post from a valid email address, though it expires after a while (i.e. the current one expires at the end of this year--no prize for guessing next year's address :)).

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sameness/identity
by weeks＠vitus.scs.agilent.com Oct. 5, 2001

Oct. 5, 2001

I said in an earlier note that I didn't want to get into the whole issue of "sameness" and how Python "got it wrong". Well, I changed my mind. I'll first admit that "got it wrong" is a poor choice of words. Allow me to explain what I meant. Consider: x = 6.02 y = 6.02 Are x and y identical? They are identical as *numbers* (which I'll call conceptual identity) but not as Python *implentations* of numbers (since id(x) != id(y)). Good programming style requires us to think of numbers primarily as numbers and not as their implementations. So we are more interested in conceptual identity than in implementation identity. Now consider a simple Bank_account class: class Bank_account: def __init__(me, initial_balance): me.balance = initial_balance def deposit(me, amount): me.balance += amount def withdraw(me, amount): me.balance -= amount def get_balance(me): return me.balance my_bank_account = Bank_account(100) your_bank_account = Bank_account(100) Are the two bank accounts the same bank account? No. (How would you feel, for example, if I withdrew money from your bank account?) x and y are conceptually the same, but my_bank_account and your_bank_account are not. Why is (conceptual) identity of numbers different from (conceptual) identity of bank accounts? Because bank accounts are mutable. A bank account can have different states at different times. A number can't. So, we've encountered three kinds of identity in this discussion: A. conceptual identity B. implementation identity C. state identity In Python, B corresponds to "is". And to many Python programmers, C corresponds to "==". But that leaves A without an operator. I'm unable to swallow that. So, I use "==" for A; I never use "is"; and if I need C -- which hasn't happened yet -- I write a method for it. This works pretty well. It works for all the immutable types. It also works for bank accounts *as defined above*. That's why you won't find me adding __cmp__ and __hash__ methods to bank accounts. Note, by the way, that the above bank accounts are suitable hash table keys (and I have found that useful on occasion). Unfortunately, "==" does not represent conceptual identity for lists and dictionaries. (Lists and dictionaries are like bank accounts. They are not conceptually identical even if they happen to have the same state.) That's what I mean when I say Python "got it wrong". I can't *prove* that it is wrong. I *prefer* an operator for conceptual identity. And I have a *hunch* that programs are better with an operator for conceptual identity. But -- as all of you know -- 95% of my hunch is really just my preference. Greg

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VIDEO - VIDEO
by ercole81＠supereva.it Oct. 5, 2001

Oct. 5, 2001

I am a beginner. I would like a Script working to show the video. I have never planned to objects. Sorry for my English i'm italian. Thanks for everything.

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Reading from the serial port?
by Luis Rojas Oct. 4, 2001

Oct. 4, 2001

Hi All! I know this is probably a stupid question but how do i read the serial port or send information to it... i am new at this python stuff and i havent been able to find anything about serial port programing. My inquire comes because a few days ago i was checking a router via the console interface and i thought to write some dumb python aplication to send the commands and read the answer. In order to do that i need to be able to open the serial port and cant find any info around. Please Help Luis R. Rojas

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scanf style parsing
by Bruce Dawson Oct. 3, 2001

Oct. 3, 2001

I love programming in Python, but there are some things I have not found the easy way to do. I understand that Python is supposed to be good at text parsing, but I am having trouble with this simple task. Given this text (the output from VisualC++) I want to find out how many errors and warnings there were: smtpmail.exe - 0 error(s), 0 warning(s) In C/C++ that would be something like: sscanf(buffer, "smtpmail.exe - %d error(s), %d warning(s)", &errors, &warnings); It's not that I think the sscanf syntax is particularly elegant, but it sure is compact! I saw the discussion about adding scanf to Python http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-dev/2001-April/014027.html but I need to know what people do right now when faced with this task. Let me know. E-mail answer as well would be nice, since this newsgroup is rather high-traffic.

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Re: Does there exist a Python-to-Perl translator ?
by Weet Vanniks Oct. 2, 2001

Oct. 2, 2001

You don't get my point. Managers do want to see Perl code. What I want is benefit from the productivity of Python, get something working and then satisfy my manageer with a Perl solution. Weet Richard Jones wrote: > On Thursday 27 September 2001 17:15, Weet Vanniks wrote: > > This would help me produce Perl code after developing it in Python. > > OK, I'll bite - WHY? > > As far as I know, no such beast exists. > > Richard

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Read Matlab files with Python and Numeric?
by gb＠cs.unc.edu Oct. 2, 2001

Oct. 2, 2001

Does anyone have an extension for Python+Numeric to read Matlab format .mat files? I'm trying to get off Matlab after years of use and have lots of data files that I would like to read. Thanks gb

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Best book on Python?
by Ian Bolton Oct. 2, 2001

Oct. 2, 2001

Hi, (I looked at the FAQ and the answer to this was very old, so I am asking directly.) I am based in the UK and have read about a quarter of a borrowed copy of Programming Python 1st edition. Now that I am back at uni and no longer have access to the other book, I am gonna have to buy one. I've looked at Programming Python 2nd edition and it looks good, but is it the best one out for an beginner-intermediate programmer? (My Python experience is limited to about 10 weeks worth of programming.) Also, where's the cheapest place to get hold of PP2, or whatever you recommend? Cheers, Ian

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ANN: gracePlot.py
by Nathaniel Gray Oct. 2, 2001

Oct. 2, 2001

__________________________________________________________________ Announcing: gracePlot.py v0.5 An interactive, user-friendly python interface to the Grace plotting package. __________________________________________________________________ * WHAT IS IT? gracePlot.py is a high-level interface to the Grace plotting package available at: http://plasma-gate.weizmann.ac.il/Grace/ The goal of gracePlot is to offer the user an interactive plotting capability similar to that found in commercial packages such as Matlab and Mathematica, including GUI support for modifying plots and a user-friendly, pythonic interactive command-line interface. * WHAT FEATURES DOES IT OFFER? Since this package is in the early stages of development it does not yet provide high-level command-line access to all of Grace's plotting functionality. It does, however, offer: * Line Plots (with or without errorbars) * Histograms (with or without errorbars) * Multiple graphs (sets of axes) per plot * Multiple simultaneous plots (grace sessions) * Overlaid graphs, using a 'hold' command similar to Matlab's * Legends, titles, axis labels, and axis limits * Integration with Numerical Python and Scientific Python's Histogram object Note that all advanced features and customizations are available through the Grace UI, so you can compose rough plots in Python and then polish them up in Grace. * HOW DO I USE IT? Here is an example session that creates a plot with two sets of axes, putting a line plot in one and a histogram in the other: Python 2.1.1 (#2, Jul 31 2001, 14:10:42) [GCC 2.96 20000731 (Linux-Mandrake 8.0 2.96-0.48mdk)] on linux2 Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information. >>> from gracePlot import gracePlot >>> p = gracePlot() # A grace session opens >>> p.plot( [1,2,3,4,5], [10, 4, 2, 4, 10], [1, 0.7, 0.5, 1, 2], ... symbols=1 ) # A plot with errorbars & symbols >>> p.title('Funding: Ministry of Silly Walks') >>> p.ylabel('Funding (Pounds\S10\N)') >>> p.multi(2,1) # Multiple plots: 2 rows, 1 column >>> p.xlimit(0, 6) # Set limits of x-axis >>> p.focus(1,0) # Set current graph to row 1, column 0 >>> p.histoPlot( [7, 15, 18, 20, 21], x_min=1, ... dy=[2, 3.5, 4.6, 7.2, 8.8]) # A histogram w/errorbars >>> p.xlabel('Silliness Index') >>> p.ylabel('Applications/yr') >>> p.xlimit(0, 6) # Set limits of x-axis The result of this session can be found at: http://www.idyll.org/~n8gray/code/index.html * WHERE DO I GET IT? gracePlot is available here: http://www.idyll.org/~n8gray/code/index.html ___________________________________________________________ Cheers, -n8 -- Nathaniel Gray California Institute of Technology Computation and Neural Systems --

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