playwhe 0.7.1

A Python API and script for retrieving and storing Play Whe results.

What is this?

A Python API and script for the retrieval and storage of Play Whe results from the National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) website.

Why was this written?

Short answer:

Because it can be written.

Slightly longer answer:

Because I was looking for a small Python project to work on for practice.

Which version do I have?

Version 0.7.1.

After installing the package you can also check the version number by issuing the following command at a shell prompt.

$ playwhe.py --version

What has changed from version 0.6 to 0.7?

The NLCB website occasionally has incorrect results. More often than not the draw numbers are the culprit. However, if we order the data by date, then by period and then by draw number we can mitigate any ill effects this bad data causes. This version attempts to fix the problem by doing just that.

What has changed from version 0.5 to 0.6?

On July 6th, 2015 the NLCB started drawing Play Whe 4 times per day. The script was changed to correctly scrape the 4:00 PM draw.

Also, previously the “period” stored with the results was changed from a numeric format “(1, 2, 3)” to a string format “(‘EM’, ‘AM’, ‘AN’, ‘PM’)”.

What has changed from version 0.4 to 0.5?

Around February 21st, 2015 the NLCB took down their website to redesign and rebuild it. They changed the service URL along with the format of the HTML results. This required an update to the parser to ensure that the results could still be retrieved in the future.

What has changed from version 0.3 to 0.4?

On November 21st, 2011 the NLCB started drawing Play Whe 3 times per day. Due to this change the display format of the results retrieved via their website was changed. Since this program simply scrapes the HTML off their results page, I needed to update the script to work with the new format.

Hence, the logic for retrieving and storing the Play Whe results have changed. However, the interface to perform these operations have not.

How do I install it?

$ tar xvzf playwhe-0.7.1.tar.gz
$ cd playwhe-0.7.1
$ sudo python setup.py install

What are some of the things it can do?

You can get Play Whe results directly from NLCB using the playwhe module.

import playwhe
p = playwhe.PlayWhe()

# retrieve and display all the results for the month of April in the year 2011
print "\n\n".join(map(lambda r: r.prettyprint(), p.results_for_month(2011, 4)))

# retrieve and display the results for April 2nd, 2011
print "\n\n".join(map(lambda r: r.prettyprint(), p.results_for_day(2011, 4, 2)))

# retrieve and display the three most recent results
print "\n\n".join(map(lambda r: r.prettyprint(), p.results()))

You can get Play Whe results directly from NLCB using the playwhe.py script.

$ echo Retrieve and display the results for the month of April in the year 2011
$ playwhe.py --pretty-print --date=2011-04
$ playwhe.py -p -d 2011-04

$ echo Retrieve and display the results for April 2nd, 2011
$ playwhe.py --pretty-print --date=2011-04-02
$ playwhe.py -p -d 2011-04-02

$ echo Retrieve and display the three most recent results
$ playwhe.py --pretty-print
$ playwhe.py -p

You can keep a local copy of previous Play Whe results in an SQLite database.

$ echo Create and initialize a Play Whe database
$ playwhe.py --createdb="/home/<username>/playwhe.db"
$ playwhe.py -c "/home/<username>/playwhe.db"

$ echo Update the Play Whe database
$ playwhe.py --updatedb="/home/<username>/playwhe.db"
$ playwhe.py -u "/home/<username>/playwhe.db"

$ echo Update the Play Whe database and keep a log
$ playwhe.py -u "/home/<username>/playwhe.db" 2>> "/home/<username>/playwhe.log"

Where can I get the latest development version of this project?

This project is hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/dwayne/playwhe.

$ git clone git://github.com/dwayne/playwhe.git

What liscense does this project use?

This project is in the public domain. Do with it whatever you want.

Where can I get help?

> import playwhe
> help(playwhe)

$ playwhe.py --help

You can also get help, report bugs, make suggestions or ask thoughtful questions by contacting Dwayne R. Crooks via email at <me at dwaynecrooks dot com>.