13 Useful Advanced Python Scripts for Everyday Tasks

Every day developers encounter challenges that require more than basic Python syntax. This article shares thirteen advanced Python scripts that can serve as handy tools for a variety of projects.

1. Python Speed Test – Use the

# pip install pyspeedtest
# pip install speedtest
# pip install speedtest-cli
import speedtest
speedTest = speedtest.Speedtest()
print(speedTest.get_best_server())
print(speedTest.download())
print(speedTest.upload())
# Method 2
import pyspeedtest
st = pyspeedtest.SpeedTest()
st.ping()
st.download()
st.upload()

script to measure download and upload speeds.

2. Google Search – Retrieve redirect URLs from Google using the

# pip install google
from googlesearch import search
query = "Medium.com"
for url in search(query):
    print(url)

script.

3. Web Robot – Automate website interactions with Selenium using the

# pip install selenium
import time
from selenium import webdriver
from selenium.webdriver.common.keys import Keys
bot = webdriver.Chrome("chromedriver.exe")
bot.get('http://www.google.com')
search = bot.find_element_by_name('q')
search.send_keys("@codedev101")
search.send_keys(Keys.RETURN)
time.sleep(5)
bot.quit()

script.

4. Fetch Song Lyrics – Obtain lyrics via the LyricsGenius API with the

# pip install lyricsgenius
import lyricsgenius
api_key = "xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
genius = lyricsgenius.Genius(api_key)
artist = genius.search_artist("Pop Smoke", max_songs=5, sort="title")
song = artist.song("100k On a Coupe")
print(song.lyrics)

script.

5. Photo Exif Data – Extract EXIF metadata using Pillow or ExifRead. Example with Pillow:

# pip install pillow
import PIL.Image
import PIL.ExifTags
img = PIL.Image.open("Img.jpg")
exif_data = {PIL.ExifTags.TAGS[i]: j for i, j in img._getexif().items() if i in PIL.ExifTags.TAGS}
print(exif_data)

and with ExifRead:

# pip install ExifRead
import exifread
filename = open(path_name, 'rb')
tags = exifread.process_file(filename)
print(tags)

.

6. OCR Text Extraction – Convert scanned images to text using pytesseract (requires tesseract.exe).

# pip install pytesseract
import pytesseract
from PIL import Image
pytesseract.pytesseract.tesseract_cmd = r'C:\Program Files\Tesseract-OCR\tesseract.exe'
t = Image.open("img.png")
text = pytesseract.image_to_string(t, config='')
print(text)

7. Image Cartonize – Transform photos into a cartoon style with OpenCV.

# pip install opencv-python
import cv2
img = cv2.imread('img.jpg')
grayimg = cv2.cvtColor(img, cv2.COLOR_BGR2GRAY)
grayimg = cv2.medianBlur(grayimg, 5)
edges = cv2.Laplacian(grayimg, cv2.CV_8U, ksize=5)
r, mask = cv2.threshold(edges, 100, 255, cv2.THRESH_BINARY_INV)
img2 = cv2.bitwise_and(img, img, mask=mask)
img2 = cv2.medianBlur(img2, 5)
cv2.imwrite("cartooned.jpg", mask)

8. Empty Recycle Bin – Clear the Windows recycle bin using winshell.

# pip install winshell
import winshell
try:
    winshell.recycle_bin().empty(confirm=False, show_progress=False, sound=True)
    print("Recycle bin is emptied Now")
except:
    print("Recycle bin already empty")

9. Image Enhancement – Improve photos with Pillow's enhancement filters.

# pip install pillow
from PIL import Image, ImageFilter, ImageEnhance
im = Image.open('img.jpg')
en = ImageEnhance.Color(im)
en = ImageEnhance.Contrast(im)
en = ImageEnhance.Brightness(im)
en = ImageEnhance.Sharpness(im)
en.enhance(1.5).show("enhanced")

10. Get Windows Version – Retrieve the full Windows OS version using WMI.

# Window Version
import wmi
data = wmi.WMI()
for os_name in data.Win32_OperatingSystem():
    print(os_name.Caption)

11. PDF to Images – Convert each page of a PDF to PNG images with PyMuPDF.

# PDF to Images
import fitz
pdf = 'sample_pdf.pdf'
doc = fitz.open(pdf)
for page in doc:
    pix = page.getPixmap(alpha=False)
    pix.writePNG('page-%i.png' % page.number)

12. Hex to RGB Conversion – Simple function to convert hexadecimal color codes to RGB tuples.

# Conversion: Hex to RGB
def Hex_to_Rgb(hex):
    h = hex.lstrip('#')
    return tuple(int(h[i:i+2], 16) for i in (0, 2, 4))
print(Hex_to_Rgb('#c96d9d'))  # (201, 109, 157)
print(Hex_to_Rgb('#fa0515'))  # (250, 5, 21)

13. Website Status Check – Verify if a website is up by checking its HTTP status code.

# pip install requests
# method 1
import urllib.request
from urllib.request import Request, urlopen
req = Request('https://medium.com/@pythonians', headers={'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0'})
webpage = urlopen(req).getcode()
print(webpage)  # 200
# method 2
import requests
r = requests.get("https://medium.com/@pythonians")
print(r.status_code)  # 200