Setup of our TODO project
Let’s first create a proper environment to work in. I’ll be using Visual Studio Code for this project, and I suggest you do the same. If you want to use something else, that’s fine too. I won’t use anything that specifically requires VSCode, it’s just to make life easier.
Step 1: Create a directory
Let’s first create a directory to work in. If you followed Python Fundamental I, you might still have the project on your computer. Feel free to reuse that.
I called my working directory todo-app
. Put it anywhere you like to put your projects. I usually use a short path like C:\dev\todo-app
, because I hate constantly entering and looking at giant path names in my terminal and such. I do the same on Mac or Linux, and I usually have a folder called dev
in my home directory. The path would then be ~/dev/todo-app
. Nice and short!
Step 2: Fire up VSCode
Now it’s time to start VSCode. As you may know by now, I like the command line and usually open a shell and start VSCode with the code
command inside the project directory. But you can just as well open VS Code, go File -> Open folder and select the folder.
Step 3: Create the todo.py script
Now you might still have this file from the previous course, in which case you can skip this step. Otherwise, create a file called todo.py and paste the TODO app code into it:
exit = False
todo_items = []
def get_argument(command):
command_name, argument = command.split(" ", maxsplit=1)
return argument
def handle_add_command(command):
task = get_argument(command)
print(f"Adding task: {task}")
todo_items.append(task)
def handle_delete_command(command):
item_number = get_argument(command)
print(f"Deleting task: {item_number}")
todo_items.pop(int(item_number) - 1)
def handle_list_command():
index = 0
for todo_item in todo_items:
index += 1
print(f"{index}. {todo_item}")
def handle_open_command(command):
# Read a list of todo items from a file, one per line
filename = get_argument(command)
filename += ".todo.txt"
with open(filename, "r") as file:
for line in file:
todo_items.append(line.strip())
def handle_save_command(command):
# Save the list to a file, one item per line
filename = get_argument(command)
filename += ".todo.txt"
with open(filename, "w") as file:
for todo_item in todo_items:
file.write(f"{todo_item}\n")
def process_command(command):
exit = False
if command.startswith("exit"):
exit = True
elif command.startswith("add"):
handle_add_command(command)
elif command.startswith("delete"):
handle_delete_command(command)
elif command.startswith("list"):
handle_list_command()
elif command.startswith("open"):
handle_open_command(command)
elif command.startswith("save"):
handle_save_command(command)
else:
print("Command not recognized")
return exit
while not exit:
command = input("Enter command: ")
exit = process_command(command)
Code language: Python (python)
Make sure to test if the script works as-is by starting it with python todo.py
. You should get an input prompt asking for a command to be entered.