Specialized Python Libraries π¶
Mentor's Note: Python's true power isn't the language itselfβit's the millions of "Toolkits" (Libraries) created by other people. You can build a map or an image scanner in just 10 lines of code! π‘
π The Scenarios: The Internet Spy π΅οΈ & The Digital Explorer πΊοΈ¶
- Web Scraping (The Internet Spy): Imagine you want to check the price of a laptop on 10 different sites every morning. Instead of visiting them manually, you send a Bot to "Read" the price and report back to you. π¦
- Maps (The Digital Explorer): Imagine you want to build your own version of Google Maps for Surat. You use a library to drop a Pin π on your exact location. π¦
- The Result: You automate research and visualize data like a pro. β
π Library Overviews¶
1. Web Scraping (BeautifulSoup + Requests)¶
Used to "Scrape" (Download and Parse) information from websites.
- Ethics: Always check a site's robots.txt before scraping! π«
2. Maps & Location (Folium + Geopy)¶
- Geopy: Converts addresses (Surat) to coordinates (21.17, 72.83).
- Folium: Creates interactive
.htmlmaps.
3. Computer Vision (OpenCV)¶
The industry standard for image processing. It treats images as Arrays of Numbers. π’
π¨ Visual Logic: The Scraper Workflow¶
graph LR
A[Requests π] -- get(URL) --> B[HTML Content π]
B -- BeautifulSoup π΅οΈ --> C[Filtered Data ποΈ]
C --> D[Excel / CSV π]
π» Implementation: The Project Lab¶
π Sample Dry Run (Image Processing)¶
Goal: Turn an image to Black & White
| Step | Component | Logic | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | cv2.imread() |
Load pixels into memory π₯ | 3D Array (RGB) |
| 2 | cv2.cvtColor() |
Average the R, G, and B βοΈ | 2D Array (Gray) |
| 3 | cv2.imwrite() |
Save back to disk π€ | image_bw.jpg |
π Technical Analysis¶
- Installation: These libraries are NOT built-in. You must install them using
pip install beautifulsoup4 folium geopy opencv-python. - Performance: OpenCV is written in C++ and is incredibly fast even for real-time video. ποΈ
π― Practice Lab π§ͺ¶
Task: The Price Bot
Task: Choose a simple blog site. Write a script to print the text of all <h1> tags on the page.
Hint: soup.find_all('h1'). π‘
π‘ Interview Tip π¶
"Interviewers often ask how to handle 'Dynamic' sites where data only appears after clicking. Answer: BeautifulSoup can't do that alone; you would need a tool like Selenium or Playwright!"
π‘ Pro Tip: "The best way to learn a new library is to read its official 'Quick Start' guide. Don't try to memorize every functionβjust know what is possible!" - Anonymous
β Back: Regex & Multiprocessing | Next: Database Integration β