TL; DR- A quick list of the best Python scripts I use daily, plus some possible modifications that could be made for other functionalities.

Introduction

Python is a powerful programming language that can be used to automate a variety of tasks. Whether you’re developing a small project or a large enterprise app, Python can help save time and streamline your workflow.

Python is a great language because of its incredibly simple syntax. What a decent programmer can code in 10 lines of Python would take them 20 lines in a language like Javascript or C++. Here’s an example with a simple web request →

import requests 
r = requests.get(“https://www.python.org") 
print(r.status_code)
print(r.text)

In comparison, here’s the Javascript code that does the exact same thing →

fetch(“https://www.python.org")
.then(res => {
  if(res.ok) {
    return res.text();
  } else {
    throw new Error(“HTTP error, status = “ + res.status);
  }
})
.then(text => {
  console.log(text);
})
.catch(error => {
  console.log(error);
});

As you can see, Python code is far easier to digest than the Javascript code, and this makes it ideal for automating repetitive tasks for things like web scraping, data collection, or translation. Here are five of my favorite repetitive tasks that I automate with Python →

A URL Shortener →

import pyshorteners

s = pyshorteners.Shortener(api_key="YOUR_KEY")long_url = input("Enter the URL to shorten: ")short_url = s.bitly.short(long_url)print("The shortened URL is: " + short_url)

The Pyshorteners library is one of my favorites when it comes to URL shortening, which can be used for all sorts of projects. You’ll need an API key for most link shorteners, but they’re usually free unless you anticipate hundreds of thousands of requests. I’ve found that APIs like Bit.ly, Adf.ly, and Tinyurl are great for things like SaaS apps and Telegram bots.

Creating Fake Information →

import pandas as pd
from faker import Faker

# Create object
fake = Faker()# Generate data
fake.name()
fake.text()
fake.address()
fake.email()
fake.date()
fake.country()
fake.phone_number()
fake.random_number(digits=5)# Dataframe creation
fakeDataframe = pd.DataFrame({‘date’:[fake.date() for i in range(5)],
 ‘name’:[fake.name() for i in range(5)],
 ‘email’:[fake.email() for i in range(5)],
 ‘text’:[fake.text() for i in range(5)]})
print(fakeDataframe)

If you ever need to create a fake person, this faker library provides you with a Faker class that automatically generates an entire person. This script creates a couple of different people and stores them in a Data Frame, which is a slightly more complicated concept. I use these fake people if I ever have to give out information to sketchy sites or if I don’t want anything traced back to me.

Youtube Video Downloader →

from pytube import YouTube

link = input("Enter a youtube video's URL") # i.e. https://youtu.be/dQw4w9WgXcQyt = Youtube(link)
yt.streams.first().download()print("downloaded", link)

Pretty simple. It uses the pytube library to convert any link you provide it into a file and then downloads it. With five lines of code and no API rate-limiting, you could combine this with another script to transcribe the videos and use sentiment analysis to determine what kind of content the video contains.

NATO Phonetic Alphabet Encryptor

def encrypt_message(message):
   nato_alphabet = {
   ‘A’: ‘Alfa’, ‘B’: ‘Bravo’, ‘C’: ‘Charlie’, ‘D’: ‘Delta’,
   ‘E’: ‘Echo’, ‘F’: ‘Foxtrot’, ‘G’: ‘Golf’, ‘H’: ‘Hotel’,
   ‘I’: ‘India’, ‘J’: ‘Juliet’, ‘K’: ‘Kilo’, ‘L’: ‘Lima’,
   ‘M’: ‘Mike’, ’N’: ‘November’, ‘O’: ‘Oscar’, ‘P’: ‘Papa’,
   ‘Q’: ‘Quebec’, ‘R’: ‘Romeo’, ‘S’: ‘Sierra’, ‘T’: ‘Tango’,
   ‘U’: ‘Uniform’, ‘V’: ‘Victor’, ‘W’: ‘Whiskey’, ‘X’: ‘Xray’,
   ‘Y’: ‘Yankee’, ‘Z’: ‘Zulu’
   }

   encrypted_message = “”

# Iterate through each letter in the message
   for letter in message:

  # If the letter is in the dictionary, add the corresponding codeword to the encrypted message
     if letter.upper() in nato_alphabet:
     encrypted_message += nato_alphabet[letter.upper()] + “ “

  # If the letter is not in the dictionary, add the original letter to the encrypted message
     else:
     encrypted_message += letter  return encrypted_message
message = "Hello World"
encrypted_message = encrypt_message(message)
print("Encrypted message: ", encrypted_message)

This function encodes any message passed into its input parameter and outputs the corresponding NATO word sequence. This works correctly because it checks if each character is in the nato_alphabet dictionary, and if it is, it will be appended to the encrypted message. If the character is not found within the dictionary (if it’s a space, colon, or anything that isn’t a-z), it will be appended without any special encoding. Thus, “Hello World” becomes “Hotel Echo Lima Lima Oscar” “Whiskey Oscar Romeo Lima Delta”.

Social Media Login Automation

from selenium import webdriver

driver = webdriver.Firefox()
driver.get(“https://www.facebook.com/")# Find the email or phone field and enter the email or phone number
email_field = driver.find_element_by_id(“email”)
email_field.send_keys(“your_email_or_phone”)# Find the password field and enter the password
password_field = driver.find_element_by_id(“pass”)
password_field.send_keys(“your_password”)# Find the login button and click it
login_button = driver.find_element_by_id(“loginbutton”)
login_button.click()

This code utilizes Selenium, a popular library for web automation. It opens a web browser and navigates based on a variety of commands given in the code. In this particular code block, the browser will go to Facebook and find specific elements to modify on the web page. Here, we’re entering certain keystrokes into the email and password field and clicking the ‘login’ button. This will automatically log in to a user if valid credentials are supplied.

Thanks for reading about automation in Python! If you’d like to see more posts on computer science, Python and cybersecurity, follow me on my social media handles.

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