Get 10-day forecast script

Question

I coded a script to print a 10-day forecast for any location to my terminal.

As I am just learning Python (coming from the PHP world - yes, I know...) and have no buddies coding in Python, I would really appreciate it if anyone could review my code and provide comments and suggestions for improving it.

For starters, I know I am missing docstrings but I left that part for later as I am still reading about it.

Not sure if I need to mention it, but lookup_by_location() and _call() are overriding methods from Weather ancestor class.

Code is also available in a git repo.

#! /usr/bin/env python
import argparse
import requests
from weather import Weather
from weather import models

class WeatherReport(Weather):
    def __init__(self, location):
        Weather.__init__(self)
        self.get_report(location)   

    def get_report(self, location): 
        self.show_location(location)
        [self.show_weather(day) for day in self.get_days(self.lookup_by_location(location))]

    def lookup_by_location(self, location):
        url = "%s?q=select* from weather.forecast " \
              "where woeid in (select woeid from geo.places(1) where text='%s') and u='c' &format=json" % (self.URL, location)
        results = self._call(url)
        return results

    def get_days(self, place):
        days = []
        [self.get_day(days, item['date'], item['low'], item['high'], item['text']) for item in place.forecast()]
        return days

    def get_day(self, days, date, low, high, text):
        days.append([date, int(low), int(high), text])

    def show_weather(self, day):
        from_to = "%d-%d" % (day[1], day[2])
        print " "*2 + "%s:" % (day[0]), from_to.rjust(5) + u'\u00b0' + "C -", "%s" % (day[3])

    def show_location(self, location):
        print "-" * 50
        feedback = "10-day forecast for " + location.capitalize()
        print feedback.center(50)
        print "-" * 50

    def _call(self, url):
        results = requests.get(url).json()
        if int(results['query']['count']) > 0:
            wo = models.weather_obj.WeatherObject(results['query']['results']['channel'])
            return wo
        else:
            print 'No results found.'
            quit()


if __name__ == "__main__":
    parser = argparse.ArgumentParser('tdwreport')
    parser.add_argument('-l', '--location', default="sarajevo", help='get forecast for this location')
    parser.add_argument('-v', '--version', action='version', version='%(prog)s 0.2')
    args = parser.parse_args()
    report = WeatherReport(args.location)

MarianD · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-03 23:51:11Z

3

One tip: Instead of gluing constant and variable parts into string with + as e. g. in your statement

print " "*2 + "%s:" % (day[0]), from_to.rjust(5) + u'\u00b0' + "C -", "%s" % (day[3])

use the format() method with placeholders {} in formatted string:

print "  {} {:>5}{}C - {}"     .format(day[0], from_to, u'\u00b0', day[3])

(I visually separated the resulting string with placeholders from the format() method),
or - more descriptively - use names in {} placeholders

print "  {day0} {from_to:>5}{degree_sign}C - {day3}" \
    .format(day0=day[0], from_to=from_to, degree_sign=u'\u00b0', day3=day[3])

Format specifier >5 after : does the same thing as .rjust(5) in your code.

Edit:

For Unicode symbols (as u'\u00b0' in your code) use their hexadecimal value (0x00b0) and type c in the placeholder:

print "  {} {:>5}{:c}C - {}"     .format(day[0], from_to, 0x00b0, day[3])

See Format Specification Mini-Language

edited Jul 3, 2017 at 23:51

answered Jul 3, 2017 at 22:41

MarianD

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\$\begingroup\$ Thnx for your reply. I was getting UnicodeEncodeError so I had to modify your code a bit: print " {} {:>5}{}C - {}".format(day[0], from_to, u'\u00b0'.encode('UTF-8'), day[3]) \$\endgroup\$

ArminMeth
– ArminMeth

2017-07-03 22:52:34 +00:00
Commented Jul 3, 2017 at 22:52
\$\begingroup\$ Sorry for your inconvenience - I added a more nice approach to the end of my answer. \$\endgroup\$

MarianD
– MarianD

2017-07-03 23:47:34 +00:00
Commented Jul 3, 2017 at 23:47
\$\begingroup\$ To display 0x00b0 in Linux terminal would require some additional changes in environment variables and I would rather avoid that. u'\u00b0'.encode('UTF-8') avoids it. \$\endgroup\$

ArminMeth
– ArminMeth

2017-07-04 00:02:11 +00:00
Commented Jul 4, 2017 at 0:02

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MarianD · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-03 23:25:58Z

2

Another tip: Your "2-lines returns", e. g.

    results = self._call(url)
    return results

have no advantage over the 1-line ones:

    return self._call(url)

answered Jul 3, 2017 at 23:25

MarianD

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\$\begingroup\$ I just copied and pasted this one from ancestor class and modified it to return temperatures in Celsius, but did no refactoring at all. Still a valid point. On the same note, I also stored reference to WeatherReport(args.location) in the report variable in the last line instead of just calling it with WeatherReport(parser.parse_args().location). Thnx again. \$\endgroup\$

ArminMeth
– ArminMeth

2017-07-04 00:23:36 +00:00
Commented Jul 4, 2017 at 0:23

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MarianD · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-04 00:00:13Z

2

If you swap first 2 lines in your function definition and use longer "---" strings you will reach more impressing visual aspect.

Compare

def show_location(self, location):
    print "-" * 50
    feedback = "10-day forecast for " + location.capitalize()
    print feedback.center(50)
    print "-" * 50

with

def show_location(self, location):
    feedback = "10-day forecast for " + location.capitalize()
    print "-------------------------" * 2
    print feedback.center(50)
    print "-------------------------" * 2

answered Jul 4, 2017 at 0:00

MarianD

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\$\begingroup\$ I think this one is a matter of personal preference. But, you gave me an idea: print "-"*50 + "\n", feedback.center(50) + "\n", "-"*50. Is there a way to get this using format()? I am not sure how to repeat string with it. \$\endgroup\$

ArminMeth
– ArminMeth

2017-07-04 00:50:02 +00:00
Commented Jul 4, 2017 at 0:50
\$\begingroup\$ Good question - I posted it as a new answer. \$\endgroup\$

MarianD
– MarianD

2017-07-05 17:09:38 +00:00
Commented Jul 5, 2017 at 17:09

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MarianD · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-07 20:59:04Z

1

The printing part of

def show_location(self, location):
    print "-" * 50
    feedback = "10-day forecast for " + location.capitalize()
    print feedback.center(50)
    print "-" * 50

may be one line

    print "{0}\n{1:^50}\n{0}".format("-"*50, feedback)

or

    print "{line}\n{fb:^50}\n{line}".format(line="-"*50, fb=feedback)

(It would be a little nicer if you first assign "-"*50 to a variable, say line, and then use it.)

In both cases I used identifications of a placeholder (numbers in the 1^st case, names in the 2^nd one) to avoid the repetition of "-"*50 - the DRY principle (Don't Repeat Yourself).

edited Jul 7, 2017 at 20:59

answered Jul 5, 2017 at 17:08

MarianD

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2

\$\begingroup\$ Please keep your response together in one answer by editing :) \$\endgroup\$

Daniel
– Daniel

2017-07-05 20:08:49 +00:00
Commented Jul 5, 2017 at 20:08

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