[SOLVED] [Q][python] writing functions

[sbjaved]

I am learning python and need guidance for writing some code. I've written a simple program (with pointers from people) that parses an tv show xml feed and prints their values in plain text after performing some string operations.

feed = urllib.urlopen(rssPage) #rssPage: address of xml feed
tree = etree.parse(feed)
x = tree.xpath("/rss/channel/item/title/text()") 
x = str(x[0])
for tag in tags: #tags is a list of items like hdtv, xvid, 720p etc
	x = re.sub(r'\b' + tag + r'\b', '', x)
	z = re.sub(r'[^\w\s]', '', x)
y = tree1.xpath("/rss/channel/item/pubDate/text()")
print "%s - %s" %(z.rstrip(), y[0][:16])

The code works fine (prints the name of the show and date). Now since I am parsing more than one feed, I thought the better way was to split the functionality into diff functions: one to get the values and the other to remove the tags. I'm still *very* new to python and came up with the following code.

def get_value(feed):
	try:
		url = urllib2.urlopen(feed)
		tree = etree.parse(url)
		x = tree.xpath("/rss/channel/item/title/text()") 
		y = tree.xpath("/rss/channel/item/pubDate/text()")
		x = str(x[0])
		y = str(y[0][:16])
		return x
		return y
	except SyntaxError:
		print 'Service Unavailable'
		pass

def del_tag(x):
	tags = ['HDTV', 'LOL', 'VTV', 'x264', 'DIMENSION', 'XviD', '720P', 'IMMERSE', '720p', 'X264']
	for tag in tags:
		x = re.sub(r'\b' + tag + r'\b', '', x)
		y = re.sub(r'[^\w\s]', '', x)
	
def main():
	a = get_value(rssPage) 
	b = del_tag(a)
	print b
			
if __name__ == '__main__':
	main()

My desired working is to supply the xml feed address to the get_value function which returns the title and date as strings assigned to x and y. Then I run the del_tag function on the title string (x) and remove tags and the main() function prints both x and y (Title, Date).

Running this code returns None.

Let the teaching begin

[marko]

You assigned "b" from del_tag(x) here:

b = del_tag(a)

but your del_tag function doesn't return anything. In that situation, Python will assign "b" with "None". You need to change your del_tag() function to return something


PS. also, this code in your first function makes no sense:

return x
return y

You can't have two returns like that, the return x will occur and leave the function and the 'return y' will never occur.
You could have it return a list of the two values:

return [x,y]

or something similar. Your del_tag() would then have to be changed to deal with "a" as a list of two members

[sbjaved]

Thank you. Changed print b to return b. There is no output.

If I change it to print a, the title of the show is printed. It seems the get_value() function is working fine but del_tag is not. hmmm.

---------- Post added at 07:40 AM ---------- Previous post was at 07:15 AM ----------

changed code to produce a single return:

return x + ' ' + y

also added:

def del_tag(x):
	tags = ['HDTV', 'LOL', 'VTV', 'x264', 'DIMENSION', 'XviD', '720P', 'IMMERSE', '720p', 'X264']
	for tag in tags:
		x = re.sub(r'\b' + tag + r'\b', '', x)
		y = re.sub(r'[^\w\s]', '', x)
                return y

Now print b prints out the title and date of the show...but no tags are being removed.

[marko]

that return in del_tag() is in the wrong indentation, it stops the loop from going beyond the first cycle which certainly isn't what you want or you'd not have put in a loop

I'd really suggest you use meaningful variable names and not "a", "b" and "x"

[sbjaved]

YES! Thankyou. Its working