My work machine is on all the time, and I figured it might work well for simple tasks like text file processing:
– Take input file
– Do something with it (add information, transform text, add columns, etc)
– Save file (either overwrite old one, or create a new output file)
I used Dropboxâ??s shared folder functionality to let multiple people submit their files for processing. Your Mac will see those shared folders as local, and if you set up a cron job, you are pretty much done.
Here are some steps that can help:
- Write your script
- Create a folder on Dropbox. Share it with people who will need access
- Edit your crontab. Hereâ??s a great detailed blog post on how to do this
- Confirm itâ??s working
- Sit back and relax, as your work is done :)
Note: remember to use absolute paths for your scripts and if youâ??re passing file/folder paths as parameters, make sure those paths are also absolute.
Hereâ??s my example:
0,30 8,19 * * 1-5 python /Users/[name]/Dropbox/script.py
/Users/[name]/[folder]/*.csv
This runs the script every half hour, between the hours of 8am and 7pm, Monday-Friday and processes all .csv files in the designated Dropbox folder.
And here’s a simplified Python script, maybe some will find it helpful.
import csv
import sys
import os.path
for filename in sys.argv[1:]:
# don't need to process my example file
# or anything with the _out in the file name,
# since my script creates them
if (filename.find('example.csv') == -1) and (filename.find('_out')== -1):
# also check if script already ran
# and you have _out.csv file saved in your folder
if os.path.isfile(filename.replace('.csv', '_out.csv')) == False:
with open(filename) as f:
input = csv.reader(open(filename, 'rU'), delimiter=',', quotechar='"')
output = csv.writer(open(filename.replace('.csv','_out.csv'), 'ab'),
delimiter=',',quotechar='"', quoting=csv.QUOTE_MINIMAL)
rowcount = 0
for row in input:
if rowcount == 0: # skips the first header row
output.writerow(row)
rowcount += 1
else:
# do your file processing here
output.writerow(row)
rowcount += 1
Tanya Nam 