Exploring Python Libraries for Desktop and Web Automation Tasks
Python, a versatile and powerful programming language, has tools known as automation libraries that have simplified the process of data extraction, user interface, and web scraping.
Key Concept's
What is Automation?
Automation is the process of machines doing human work that is considered routine or mundane. These tasks are performed with greater efficiency as there are no manual errors, they are done faster as the Python bots can work non-stop, and they tend to be accurate as there are no manual interpretations of the data extracted.
Desktop Automation Tasks
They refer to applications a user finds on the desktop computer, like Graphic User Interfaces (GUI), charts and graphs, and audio and video applications.
Web Automation tasks
Web tasks include Web Scraping, GUI interactions, network security, network monitoring, and data interaction. These tasks are GUI Automation, Full-Stack Automation, and Test Automation.
Some Python libraries used for Desktop automation
PyAutoGUI
It is a Python library that performs one of the most important functions of interaction of the Mouse and Keyboard with other applications. PyAutoGUI controls its functions, allowing us to move around the desktop and shift from desktop to other features/applications. It runs on Windows, macOS, Python 2& 3, and Linux.
Other features
1. Sends keystrokes to other window applications.
2. Take screenshots
Use Case
Automating navigation through a GUI-based application to generate reports.
Pywinauto
It is a popular Python program module for Microsoft Windows Graphic User Interface(GUI) automation for the Mouse and Keyboard for Windows Dialogs and controls and for complex actions like procuring Text Data.
Use Case
It is for testing to check if UI elements function correctly after updates.Here are some popular web automation tools with their unique features and uses.
Popular web automation tools
Selenium
It is a Python testing tool. Selenium is familiar with languages like Ruby, Java, PHP, Perl, Python, JavaScript, and C# used in scripts. It automates the testing process of these scripts/web applications across browsers and platforms.
Use Case
Test a web application to ensure user interactions work correctly across different browsers.
Beautiful Soup
Beautiful Soup is a Python tool for data extraction from HTML and XML documents. It is a handy tool used extensively by programmers, as it enables them to save hours and even days of work. You can navigate, search, and modify the Parse Tree, a program that breaks down the inputs given into smaller parts. This process makes it easier for software to understand the inputs.
Use Case
Extract data from a website to compile a database of product prices
Requests
It is a Python tool for making HTML requests with simple interfaces. You can receive and send data using Requests. The main feature of the tool is its ability to provide a uniform interface that makes the interaction process seamless. Requests provide uniformity for both GET, PUT, DELETE, and Post methods.
Use Case
Automating the process of sending HTTP requests to interact with a RESTful API.
Scrapy
It is an application framework from Python that allows seamless and easy crawling of websites and extracting structured data. Scrapy has proven to be an effective tool for data science experts for web scraping. It uses features like extended CSS selectors and XPath expressions, with helper methods to extract using regular expressions.
Use Case
Crawl multiple websites to collect data on job postings.
Conclusion
Python automation libraries have been the virtual backbone for developers and data scientists for extracting and processing information. These tools have evolved over the years through the contributions made by the community of Python experts, who have kept it as an open-source technology.
These Python tools are in an evolutionary phase of development. The data scientists and web developers will use more developed languages and tools for data extraction in the future.
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