Automation & scripting
CLI tools, scheduled jobs, filesystem tasks, and glue scripts that save time.
How to Build a Cryptocurrency Price Tracker in Python
A continuous Python script that fetches real-time cryptocurrency prices from the CoinGecko API and displays them on a loop.
import requests
import time
def get_crypto_prices(coin_ids=["bitcoin", "ethereum", "solana"]):
url = "https://api.coingecko.com/api/v3/simple/price"
params = {
"ids": ",".join(coin_ids),
"vs_currencies": "usd"
}
try:
response = requests.get(url, params=params, timeout=10)
…How to Build a Mock Route53 DNS API in Python
Create a mock DNS API server in Python that simulates Route53 record lookups and updates using the standard library.
import json
from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
from urllib.parse import urlparse, parse_qs
class DNSUpdateHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
records = {"example.com": "1.2.3.4"}
def do_GET(self):
domain = parse_qs(urlparse(self.path).query).get("domain", [""])[0]
if dom…How to Build a Python Tool That Finds Trending Open Source Projects Daily
A Python script that queries the GitHub Search API to fetch the top 5 trending repositories created in the last day, sorted by stars, with optional language filtering.
import requests
import json
import datetime
def fetch_trending_projects(language: str = "", since: str = "daily"):
url = "https://api.github.com/search/repositories"
date_limit = (datetime.date.today() - datetime.timedelta(days=1)).isoformat()
query = f"created:>{date_limit} language:{language}" if langua…How to Check SSL Certificate Expiry in Python
Connect to a host over TLS, extract the certificate's expiry date, and report days remaining using only the Python standard library.
import socket
import ssl
from datetime import datetime
def check_cert_expiry(hostname, port=443):
context = ssl.create_default_context()
with socket.create_connection((hostname, port), timeout=10) as sock:
with context.wrap_socket(sock, server_hostname=hostname) as tls_sock:
cert = tls_soc…How to Compare Two GitHub Repositories and Highlight Differences in Python
Fetch metadata from two GitHub repositories using the GitHub API and compare key attributes like stars, forks, license, and language, printing any differences.
import requests
import json
from pathlib import Path
def fetch_repo_data(owner, repo_name):
"""Fetch repository metadata from GitHub API."""
url = f"https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo_name}"
response = requests.get(url)
response.raise_for_status()
return response.json()
def compare_repos(…How to Create a Link Graph Visualization for Any Website in Python
A Python script that crawls a website's internal links, builds a directed graph of parent-child URL relationships, and prints the graph to the console.
import requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
from collections import defaultdict
from urllib.parse import urljoin, urlparse
import sys
def get_links(url, max_links=20):
try:
response = requests.get(url, timeout=5)
soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'html.parser')
base_url = f"{urlparse(u…How to Create a Mock Docker Registry Auth Token Server in Python
Build a mock Docker Registry token authentication server that issues signed JWT-like tokens for push and pull access using Python's standard library.
import base64
import hashlib
import hmac
import json
import time
from http.server import BaseHTTPRequestHandler, HTTPServer
class TokenAuthHandler(BaseHTTPRequestHandler):
"""Mock Docker Registry token authentication server."""
SECRET_KEY = b"mock-secret-key"
def generate_token(self, username: str, pas…How to Detect Applications Consuming Excessive Memory in Python
Use psutil to list the top memory-using processes by RSS and print their names, PIDs, and memory usage in MB.
import psutil
def find_top_memory_processes(limit=5):
"""Return top `limit` processes by memory usage (RSS)."""
processes = []
for proc in psutil.process_iter(['pid', 'name', 'memory_info']):
try:
info = proc.info
mem = info['memory_info'].rss if info['memory_info'] else 0…How to Detect Network Interface Changes in Python
Monitor active network interfaces and print a message when an interface is added or removed using psutil and socket.
import socket
import psutil
import time
def get_network_interfaces():
"""Return a set of currently active interface names."""
active_ifaces = set()
for iface, addrs in psutil.net_if_addrs().items():
for addr in addrs:
if addr.family == socket.AF_INET: # IPv4 address present
…How to Detect Recently Installed Software in Python
Uses subprocess to call pip and parse package metadata to list recently installed Python packages.
import subprocess
import sys
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
def detect_recently_installed(days=7):
"""Detect recently installed software packages."""
recent_packages = []
cutoff_date = datetime.now() - timedelta(days=days)
try:
# For pip-installed packages (Python packages)
…How to Detect Unused Images in a Project with Python
A Python script that scans a website project folder, identifies all image files, and checks HTML/CSS/JS files to find which images are never referenced.
import os
import re
from pathlib import Path
def find_unused_images(project_path):
image_exts = {'.png', '.jpg', '.jpeg', '.gif', '.svg', '.webp'}
used_images = set()
all_images = set()
# Find all image files
for root, _, files in os.walk(project_path):
for file in files:
…How to Download All Assets from GitHub Releases in Python
Downloads every asset attached to the latest GitHub release of a repository, saving them locally using the GitHub API and Python's requests and pathlib libraries.
import requests
import os
import zipfile
from pathlib import Path
def download_github_release_assets(owner: str, repo: str, output_dir: str = "release_assets") -> None:
"""Downloads all assets from the latest release of a GitHub repository."""
releases_url = f"https://api.github.com/repos/{owner}/{repo}/relea…How to Download a GitHub Repository as a ZIP File in Python
Download any public GitHub repository as a ZIP file using the GitHub API and Python's requests and zipfile modules.
import requests
import zipfile
import io
import os
def download_github_repo_as_zip(repo_url, output_path='.'):
"""
Download a GitHub repository as a ZIP file.
Args:
repo_url (str): Full GitHub repository URL (e.g., 'https://github.com/username/repo')
output_path (str): Directory to sa…How to Generate Project Statistics Including Lines of Code and Complexity in Python
Walk through a Python script that scans a project directory for Python files, counts lines of code excluding blanks and comments, and estimates cyclomatic complexity by counting decision keywords.
import os
from pathlib import Path
def count_lines_of_code(filepath):
"""Counts lines of code in a Python file, excluding blank lines and comments."""
try:
with open(filepath, 'r') as f:
lines = f.readlines()
code_lines = [line for line in lines if line.strip() and not line.strip()…How to Generate a Dependency Graph for Python Projects
This script walks through a Python project directory, parses each .py file's imports, and prints a dependency graph showing which modules depend on which other modules.
import os
import ast
from pathlib import Path
from collections import defaultdict
def get_imports(filepath):
with open(filepath) as f:
try:
tree = ast.parse(f.read())
except SyntaxError:
return []
imports = []
for node in ast.walk(tree):
if isinstance(node, …How to Implement a Weighted DNS Resolver with Failover in Python
Simulates a weighted DNS load balancer that distributes traffic across IPs by weight and automatically fails over when a server is marked unhealthy.
import random
import time
class WeightedDNSResolver:
def __init__(self, records):
self.records = records # list of (ip, weight)
self.total_weight = sum(weight for _, weight in records)
self.failed_ips = set()
def resolve(self):
available = [(ip, weight) for ip, weight in self…How to Monitor Laptop Battery Health Over Time in Python
Log battery percentage, power status, and remaining time every N seconds to a JSON file using psutil for ongoing health monitoring.
import time
import json
from pathlib import Path
from datetime import datetime
try:
import psutil
except ImportError:
print("psutil required: pip install psutil")
exit(1)
LOG_FILE = Path("battery_health_log.json")
def monitor_battery(log_interval=60, duration=300):
"""Log battery percentage and rema…How to Monitor USB Device Connections in Python
A Python utility that monitors USB device connections and disconnections by comparing output of the lsusb command at regular intervals.
import time
import subprocess
import os
def get_usb_devices():
"""Return list of currently connected USB devices (Linux)."""
try:
result = subprocess.run(['lsusb'], capture_output=True, text=True, check=True)
return result.stdout.strip().split('\n')
except (subprocess.CalledProcessError, F…How to Monitor Website Content Changes in Python
This script fetches a webpage's content, computes its SHA-256 hash, and compares it with the last stored hash to detect and alert on changes.
import time
import hashlib
import requests
from pathlib import Path
def fetch_content_hash(url: str) -> str:
response = requests.get(url, timeout=10)
response.raise_for_status()
return hashlib.sha256(response.text.encode()).hexdigest()
def monitor_website(url: str, check_interval: int = 60):
hash_fil…How to Ping Multiple Hosts in Parallel with Python ThreadPoolExecutor
A parallel host-pinging script using ThreadPoolExecutor and subprocess to check connectivity across multiple addresses concurrently.
import subprocess
from concurrent.futures import ThreadPoolExecutor
from pathlib import Path
HOSTS = [
"google.com",
"github.com",
"stackoverflow.com",
"nonexistent.invalid",
"localhost",
]
def ping_host(host: str) -> str:
"""Ping a single host and return a status string."""
result = subp…How to Run Tesseract OCR from Python with subprocess
This script uses Python's subprocess module to invoke the Tesseract OCR engine from the command line and return the extracted text.
import subprocess
def ocr_image(image_path):
command = ["tesseract", image_path, "stdout"]
result = subprocess.run(command, capture_output=True, text=True)
return result.stdout.strip()
if __name__ == "__main__":
# Stub: call the actual tesseract (must be installed)
text = ocr_image("sample.png")
…How to Scan Configuration Files for Security Issues in Python
Automatically scan configuration files for common security mistakes using regex rules in Python.
import re
import os
from pathlib import Path
SECURITY_RULES = [
(r'^#\s*INSECURE_', 'Insecure comment starts with # INSECURE_'),
(r'password\s*=\s*("|\\\')?[^"\\\'"\s]+("|\\\')?$', 'Hardcoded password'),
(r'debug\s*=\s*True', 'Debug mode enabled'),
(r'[Pp]ermit[Rr]ootLogin\s+yes', 'PermitRootLogin ena…How to Scan Open Ports on a Host with Python
A Python function that uses socket.connect_ex to check for open TCP ports on a given host within a range and returns a list of open ports.
import socket
def scan_ports(host, start_port, end_port):
open_ports = []
for port in range(start_port, end_port + 1):
sock = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_STREAM)
sock.settimeout(0.5)
result = sock.connect_ex((host, port))
if result == 0:
open_ports.app…How to Send an Email with smtplib and a Mock Server in Python
Send an email using smtplib and verify it with a local aiosmtpd mock SMTP server — perfect for testing without a real mail server.
import smtplib
from email.message import EmailMessage
import aiosmtpd.controller as controller
import threading
def handle_message(server, session, envelope):
print(f"Mock server received message:")
print(f"From: {envelope.mail_from}")
print(f"To: {envelope.rcpt_tos}")
print(f"Subject: {envelope.cont…Browse by section
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Automation & scripting — Python code examples
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