#Python
117 posts
Python Automation #3: Web Scraping Part 1 — Static Pages with httpx and BeautifulSoup
Let code read the price, notice, and stock pages you check by hand every day. We fetch HTML with httpx, pick out just the data we need with BeautifulSoup CSS selectors, and save it to CSV — static page scraping from start to finish.
Python Automation #2: Excel Automation — Ending Repetitive Reports with openpyxl
Read Excel files with openpyxl, merge per-branch reports from a folder into a single sheet, and finish with header styling and number formats. We also cover the formula and data_only pitfalls, merged cells, and large-file performance.
Python Automation #1: Ending Repetitive Work — First Scripts and File Organizing
Learn the basic shape of an automation script by building a downloads-folder organizer in Python. We sort and move files with pathlib, add a dry-run safety net, and wire up argparse arguments — one full cycle from start to finish.
Python Testing #7: Running Tests in CI — People Forget, Machines Don't
Build a CI workflow that runs pytest automatically with GitHub Actions. Covers uv caching, a Python version matrix, coverage comments on PRs, pre-commit, and separating slow tests to wrap up the series.
Python Testing #6: Test Design — Good Tests and How to Read Coverage
Test design fundamentals from the AAA pattern and behavior-driven tests to test double terminology, dealing with flaky tests, and reading pytest-cov coverage numbers the right way.
Python Testing #5: Testing the Outside World — Files, HTTP, Databases, and Web Frameworks
A test that mocks everything guarantees nothing about real behavior. A strategy for testing the outside world: write real files with tmp_path, block only the network boundary with respx, and reset databases with transaction rollbacks.
Python Testing #4 mock and monkeypatch: Controlling What You Can't Control
How to pin down dependencies that change on every run — time, randomness, external APIs — with monkeypatch and unittest.mock, including the patch-path trap and where over-mocking begins.
Python Testing #3 parametrize and Markers: Multiply Cases, Run Selectively
How to collapse input-only test variations into one case table with @pytest.mark.parametrize, and run only the tests you want using skip, skipif, xfail, custom markers, and the -m and -k options.
Python Testing #2 Fixtures: Injecting Setup and Teardown
How to inject test setup code with @pytest.fixture — yield teardown, scope trade-offs, sharing via conftest.py, and built-in fixtures like tmp_path.
Python Testing #1 Getting Started with pytest: Why One assert Is All You Need
How to install pytest and write your first test with a single assert — plus how it differs from unittest, how to read failure output, and the test discovery rules.
Modern Python in Practice #6: Testing and Deployment — pytest, Docker, Railway/Fly
FastAPI integration tests with pytest + httpx, isolation via dependency overrides, multi-stage Docker builds, and cloud deployment to Railway/Fly.
Modern Python in Practice #5: Async and Background Tasks
Where async routes fit, post-response processing with BackgroundTasks, the boundary where external queues (Celery, ARQ) become necessary, and how to safely mix sync libraries.