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1.12 web.util -- Useful utility functions that don't fit elsewhere

This module provides a number of functions which come in handy when programming web applications but that don't fit in elsewhere. It is a catch all module for useful leftovers.

wrap(

text, width)

A word-wrap function that preserves existing line breaks and most spaces in the text. Expects that existing line breaks are posix newlines. (ie backslash n)

text

The text to wrap

width

The maximum number of characters in a line

strip(

html, [validTags=[]])

Strip illegal HTML tags from string

html

The HTML which needs some tags stripping

validTags

A list or tuple of tags to leave in place

runWebServer(

[root='../', cgi='/cgi-bin', ])

Run a simple webserver on port 8080 on localhost. The root of the website corresponds to the directory root. cgi is URL of the the cgi-bin where files can be executed. Once this command is run code execution stops as the webserver listens for requests so there is no point in writing code after this command as it will not be run.

Warning: NOT SUITABLE FOR COMMERCIAL USE.

dir

The only directory where scripts are allowed to run. Directory names should be the full URL path from the root of the webserver and therefore should begin with /

table(

values, [width=80])

Pretty print a table of data

values

The data to be displayed in the format:

(
    (column1Heading, (column1value1, column1value2, column1value3)),
    (column2Heading, (column2value1, column2value2, column2value3)),
    (column3Heading, (column3value1, column3value2, column3value3)),
)

The values and column headings can be any object which can be converted to a string using str().

width

The wrap width of the string produced. The default is 80 which means the table will we wrapped to the width of a standard terminla or command line prompt. If width is set to 0 no wrapping is produced.

For example:

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys; sys.path.append('../../../') # show python where the web modules are

import web.util
table = (
    ('column1Heading', ('column1value1', 'column1value2', 'column1value3')),
    ('column2Heading', ('column2value1', 'column2value2', 'column2value3')),
    ('column3Heading', ('column3value1', 'column3value2', 'column3value3')),
    ('column4Heading', ('column4value1', 'column4value2', 'column4value3')),

)
print "Printing the table with wrap width=0...\n"
print web.util.table(table, width=0)
print "Printing the table with wrap width=60...\n"
print web.util.table(table, width=60)

Download as text (original file name: command-web-util-table.py).

The output produced is:

Printing the table with wrap width=0...

+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
| column4Heading | column3Heading | column2Heading | column1Heading |
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+
| column4value1  | column3value1  | column2value1  | column1value1  |
| column4value2  | column3value2  | column2value2  | column1value2  |
| column4value3  | column3value3  | column2value3  | column1value3  |
+----------------+----------------+----------------+----------------+


Printing the table with wrap width=60...

+----------------+----------------+----------------+--------
| column4Heading | column3Heading | column2Heading | column1
+----------------+----------------+----------------+--------
| column4value1  | column3value1  | column2value1  | column1
| column4value2  | column3value2  | column2value2  | column1
| column4value3  | column3value3  | column2value3  | column1
+----------------+----------------+----------------+--------

--------+
Heading |
--------+
value1  |
value2  |
value3  |
--------+

Warning: If you don't set the wrap width and your table is wider than the terminal then the terminal will wrap the table output itself. If this happens it will wrap each induvidual line of text rather than the whole table producing output that looks more like this:

+----------------+----------------+--------------
--+----------------+
| column4Heading | column3Heading | column2Headin
g | column1Heading |
+----------------+----------------+--------------
--+----------------+
| column4value1  | column3value1  | column2value1
| column1value1  |
| column4value2  | column3value2  | column2value2
| column1value2  |
| column4value3  | column3value3  | column2value3
| column1value3  |
+----------------+----------------+--------------
--+----------------+

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Module Reference

Previous: 1.11.3 Dreamweaver MX Up: 1. Web Modules Next: 1.13 web.xml

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Documentation released on November 18, 2004 .