Please post general techniques/tips and not full scripts; use What are the best Python scripts you've ever written? for that.
Create self contained python executables.
Every one knows the special file "__init__.py". There is another special file "__main__.py". If this file exists in a directory, the python interpreter will try to execute it.
Here is an example:
#fred:$ find . . ./hello ./hello/__main__.py
In our example the content of the file is a simple loop that prints hello world.
#fred:$ cat ./hello/__main__.py # for count in range(3): print 'hello (cruel) world'
Just call python with the directory name and the python interpreter will execute the file __main__.py
#fred:$ python hello hello (cruel) world hello (cruel) world hello (cruel) world
Now the interesting part...
Python is capable of importing and executing whatever python code is in a zip file. Therefore we can do the following:
#fred:$ (cd hello; zip -r ../hello.zip .) adding: __main__.py (stored 0%) #fred:$ python hello.zip hello (cruel) world hello (cruel) world hello (cruel) world
On any Unix like system we can use a shebang (#!) line at the beginning of a file to pass the content of that file to the interpreter specified after the shebang.
#fred:$ echo '#!/usr/bin/env python' > greetings #fred:$ cat hello.zip >> greetings #fred:$ chmod a+x greetings
We can now execute that file.
#fred:$ ./greetings hello (cruel) world hello (cruel) world hello (cruel) world
Mix that with virtualenv and you will have a powerful way to simply distribute and execute your code.
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Works at Twitter
Studied at Paris 8 University
Lives in California
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