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Spaces Not Tabs: Our Favorite Python Tutorials for May 2019
Read MorePython programmers love to help – the community publishes detailed tutorials for their fellow developers every day. Over the last month, we’ve been collecting some of those posts we found most helpful.
Each tutorial is easy enough for beginner-level programmers to follow. More experienced developers should be able to breeze through the code while building a useful project, or use them as convenient refreshers.
Whichever bucket you belong to, enjoy the posts!
Exercising, or Slacking? Build a Python Bot for Either
The term "bot" feels so 2017 in this community. However, they are still a great way to learn how to build Python applications.
- Create Your Own Personal Training Exercise Bot with Python, Zappa, AWS and Twilio SMS by Matthew Vielkind via Twilio
- Build a Slack Bot that Mimics Your Colleagues by Casey Kinsey via Lofty Labs
Use Bokeh to Visualize All the Data!
Bokeh, the wonderful Python visualization library ...
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How to Send Emails in Python with Sendgrid
Read MoreSo you're building a Django or Flask app and you need to programmatically send some emails. The Twilio SendGrid API for sending email is a great solution to this problem. If you have a SendGrid account and an API key set as an environment variable, here is all the code you need to send an email in Python:
import os from sendgrid import SendGridAPIClient from sendgrid.helpers.mail import Mail message = Mail( from_email='from_email@example.com', to_emails='to@example.com', subject='Sending with Twilio SendGrid is Fun', html_content='<strong>and easy to do anywhere, even with Python</strong>') sg = SendGridAPIClient(os.environ.get('SENDGRID_API_KEY')) response = sg.send(message) print(response.status_code, response.body, response.headers)
Let's walk through how to get this running step by step.
Development Environment Setup
Make sure we have the right software installed that we'll need to use for the rest of this post. Throughout this post ...
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Build Your Own Personal Training Exercise Bot with Python, Zappa, AWS and Twilio SMS
Read MoreHeading into the new year I wanted to set myself up to be successful living a healthier life. Saying you’re going to do something is easy, following through with action is the hard part. To ensure success being more physically active I needed help with a seemingly simple question, what should I do for a workout? With so many options available I wanted to spend less time thinking about what I’m going to do and more time doing the actual workout.
I needed a prescriptive solution to dictate a workout each day that would be balanced with enough daily variation to avoid becoming redundant. Most of the fitness apps available allow tracking of workouts, but lack the prescriptive component I was looking for.
Unsatisfied, I decided to roll-up my sleeves and build my own SMS-enabled personal trainer bot I call twilio-fit. Twilio-fit designs a workout on-demand that incorporates ...
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How to send WhatsApp Media Messages with Python
Read MoreWhatsApp is a messaging service used by people all over the world. With Twilio's Messaging API you can programmatically send WhatsApp messages. Let's walk through how to use Python to send a media message over WhatsApp.
Development Environment Setup
Make sure we have the right software installed and set up that we'll need to use for the rest of this post. Throughout this post, you will need:
- Python 2 or 3 installed (do this first if you haven't already)
- A free Twilio account with an activated WhatsApp Sandbox
- The Twilio Python library
Here is a good guide to follow in general if you are going to be doing more with Twilio and Python.
Sign up for Twilio and activate the Sandbox
Before you can send a WhatsApp message, you'll need to sign up for a Twilio account or sign into your existing account and activate the Twilio Sandbox for WhatsApp ...
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Detect Robocalls with Twilio Lookup and the Nomorobo Spam Score Add-on
Read MoreTwilio's CEO Jeff Lawson recently wrote about the history of robocalls and what we're doing to eliminate them. Until that happens, we can build a tool that will help us identify a robocall with a bit of Python, the Twilio Lookup API, and the Nomorobo Spam Score Add-on.
Set Up
In order to code along with this post you'll want to start with the following:
Head to the Twilio Console and install the Nomorobo add-on. Look for the yellow logo and click through to "Install".
Leave the name as
nomorobo_spamscoreand "Save" the Add-On.Create a new file called
nomorobo.pyand add the following code.# Download the helper library from https://www.twilio.com/docs/python/install from twilio.rest import Client # Your Account Sid and Auth Token from twilio.com/console # DANGER! This is insecure. See ...
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Selling 5,000+ Boxes of Girl Scout Cookies with a bit of Twilio Magic
Read MoreSelling Girl Scout cookies can be challenging, especially if the goal is to sell 5,000 boxes in 50 days! Why would one want to do such a thing? Well, first of all, selling Girl Scout cookies teaches girls life skills such as goal setting, decision making, money management, people skills, business ethics, and so much more. Secondly, the Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio council offers some amazing incentives. In addition to the many prizes like a robot, 3D printer, iPad, and a one week trip to Canada at 4,000 boxes sold (and much more). The prize for selling 5,000 boxes in 2019 is a two week trip to China and Japan, including an entire day at Shanghai Disney! Going to Japan has been a bucket list item for my ambitious daughter, Audrey, to travel to since preschool. So, game on!
Out of 12,386 registered Girl Scouts ...
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How To Send a WhatsApp Message in 30 Seconds with Python
Read MoreWhatsApp is an over-the-top (OTT) messaging service widely used throughout the world. In this tutorial, we will learn how to quickly send WhatsApp messages through the Twilio Messaging API with reusable code that can be added to any Python application.
Development Environment Setup
We need the following dependencies installed on our local development environment to send WhatsApp messages.
- Python version 2 or 3
- A free Twilio account with an activated WhatsApp Sandbox
- The Twilio Python Helper Library
If you do not have Python already installed on your machine, go to the Python downloads page and install the latest version now.
Next, log into your existing Twilio account or sign up for a new free Twilio account.
After you log into the Twilio Console, take note of your Account SID and Auth Token. The Account SID is a unique identifier for your account while the Auth Token is a secret key ...
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Identifying a Phone Number's Line Type with Twilio Lookup and Python
Read MoreWhile the Twilio Messaging API won't charge you for attempting to send an SMS to a landline number, identifying the line type of a phone number can be useful for other reasons. A lot of businesses won't let users sign up with VoIP numbers, for example.
This post will show you how to identify a phone number's line type with Twilio Lookup and Python.
Set Up
In order to code along with this post you'll want to start with the following:
Create a new file called
lookup.pyand add the following code.# Download the helper library from https://www.twilio.com/docs/python/install from twilio.rest import Client # Your Account Sid and Auth Token from twilio.com/console account_sid = 'your_account_sid' auth_token = 'your_auth_token' client = Client(account_sid, auth_token) phone_number = client.lookups.phone_numbers('+15108675310').fetch(type='carrier') print(phone_number ...
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How to Build a Galentine's Day Compliment Generator with Python, Flask, and Twilio
Read MoreHappy Galentine's Day, you opalescent tree shark! The holiday dedicated to waffles and your best gal-pals only happens once a year, so I built an SMS-based bot that can generate compliments Leslie Knope would be proud of anytime. Send a text to (765) 234-3009 for a preview of what we're going to build in this short tutorial.
Getting started
Before we dig into some code, make sure that your Python and Flask development environment is setup. If you haven't done so already:
- Create a Twilio account
- Buy a phone number
- Install Python 3
- Install Ngrok to make your Flask app visible from the internet so Twilio can send requests to it
- Set up your Python development environment
If you're new to Python and Flask check out this handy guide for more information on getting started.
We also need to install Flask to respond to incoming web requests.
pip3 install Flask ... -
PSD2 Compliant Authorization: Verifying Sensitive Actions with Python, Flask and Authy
Read MoreAdding two-factor authentication (2FA) to your login process increases the security of your user's data. We can extend that to validate sensitive actions like sending money from your account, changing your shipping address, or confirming a medical appointment. Even though the user should be already logged in with a username and password, we want to make sure that they authorize every payment. This blog post will show you how to secure payment actions using Python, Flask, a bit of Javascript, and the Authy API.
PSD2 & SCA
The European Payment Services Directive (PSD2) regulation requires Strong Customer Authentication (SCA) for all transactions over €30 by September 2019. This post will show you how to implement a compliant solution for your application. For more detail on PSD2, SCA, and dynamic linking, check out this post.
The solution in this post is useful regardless of regulatory requirements. For example, Gemini uses push ...
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