University of Limpopo Student Numbers

Description

ulsid helps in analysing, creating and accessing University of Limpopo student numbers using python. Its flexible, customisable and gives control on what can be considered valid student number. That allows it to support even more student numbers than University of Limpopo already supports.

Its more than just analysing student numbers but it can generate student numbers and regular expression pattern for matching them. Student numbers can be incremented to get the next student numbers.

Student numbers can be acccessed from text and files with help of regular expressions and navaly. Using navaly, it becomes possible to extract student numbers from html, pdf, docx, etc. Navaly is not installed with ulsid, you will need to manually install it with pip install navaly.

Student numbers of 20th centuary are supported in which year is represented by 2 digits as caused by Year 2000 problem. That can be disabled by passing strict=False as argument to respective functions.

Install

In the command-line enter:

pip install ulsid

Usage

Importing ulsid

>>> import ulsid

Validate student number

>>> ulsid.student_number_valid(202001736)
True
>>> ulsid.student_number_valid(9401736)
True
>>> ulsid.student_number_valid(203001736)
False
>>> ulsid.student_number_valid(203001736, strict=False)
True
>>> ulsid.student_number_valid(202001736, year_capacity=1000)
False
>>> ulsid.student_number_valid(2020985, year_capacity=1000)
True
>>>
>>> ulsid.student_number_supported(202001736, start_year=2022)
False
>>> ulsid.student_number_supported(202001736, start_year=1990)
True

Extract year and position

>>> ulsid.extract_year(202001736)
2020
>>> ulsid.extract_year(8423642)
1984
>>> ulsid.extract_position(202001736)
1736
>>> ulsid.extract_position(8423642)
23642
>>> ulsid.split_student_number(202001736)
('2020', '01736')
>>> ulsid.split_student_number(8423642)
('84', '23642')
>>> ulsid.split_student_number(202001736, year_capacity=100)
('2020017', '36')

Generate Student numbers

>>> ulsid.guess_student_number()
77539464
>>> ulsid.guess_student_number()
200380352
>>> ulsid.create_student_number(year=2014, position=1607)
201401607
>>> ulsid.create_student_number(year=2014, position=1607, year_capacity=1000000)
2014001607
>>> list(ulsid.create_student_numbers(start_year=2020))[:2]
[202000000, 202000001]
>>> list(ulsid.create_student_numbers(start_year=1959))[:2]
[5900000, 5900001]
>>> list(ulsid.create_student_numbers(start_year=2020, year_capacity=1000))[:2]
[2020000, 2020001]
>>> list(ulsid.create_student_numbers(start_year=2020, start_pos=1000))[:2]
[202001000, 202001001]

Getting next and previous student number

>>> ulsid.next_student_number(202001736)
202001738
>>> ulsid.next_student_number(202099999)
202100000
>>> ulsid.next_student_number(202099999, same_year=True)
None
>>> ulsid.next_student_number(202399999, end_year=2023)
None
>>> ulsid.next_student_number(202399999, end_year=2023, strict=False)
202400000

Generate student numbers regex pattern

>>> ulsid.create_regex_pattern()
'[1-9]\d{1,3}0{0,4}\d{1,5}'
>>> ulsid.create_regex_pattern(start_year=2015)
'20[1-2]\d{1}0{0,4}\d{1,5}'
>>> ulsid.create_regex_pattern(start_year=2015, end_year=2019)
'201[5-9]0{0,4}\d{1,5}'
>>> ulsid.create_regex_pattern(start_year=2020, end_year=2023, start_pos=10000, end_pos=25000)
'202[0-3][1-2]\d{4}'

Filter student numbers

>>> student_numbers = [23, 2005, 202224745, 200803056, 9400781]
>>> list(ulsid.filter_student_numbers(student_numbers))
[202224745, 200803056, 9400781]
>>> list(ulsid.filter_student_numbers(student_numbers, start_year=2000))
[202224745, 200803056]
>>> list(ulsid.filter_student_numbers(student_numbers, end_year=2000))
[9400781]

Extract student numbers from text

>>> text = '''
First student - 202073646
second student - 8494637
Third student - 201473647
Invalid student number - 2012763'''
>>> ulsid.extract_student_numbers(text)
[202073646, 8494637, 201473647]
>>> ulsid.extract_student_numbers(text, start_year=2000)
[202073646, 201473647]
>>> ulsid.extract_student_numbers(text, end_year=2000)
[8494637]

Extract student numbers from file

>>> ulsid.extract_student_numbers_file("file.txt")
# Output ignored
>>> ulsid.extract_student_numbers_file("file.pdf") # requires navaly
# Output ignored
>>> ulsid.extract_student_numbers_file("file.docx") # requires navaly
# Output ignored

Default arguments values

# Defines what is regarded as valid student number
# Ul student numbers can accomodate 100000 students in a year.
# First student number of year is likely year00000 or year00001.
# That makes first position for year likely 0 or 1(0 was chosen).
year_capacity = 100000
year_first_position = 0

# Defines ranges for years to use.
# 1959 is the year University of Limpopo was founded.
# It may have been called by another name before 2005(before merge)
start_year = 1959
end_year = current_year + 1

# Defines range for student numbers positions to use.
# This has impact on how end part of student number is viewed.
# Which would also influence year part of student numbers.
start_pos = year_first_position
end_pos = start_pos + year_capacity - 1

# Requires year of student numbers to be between 1959 and current_year + 1.
# Also makes and requires year part of student number be 2 characters
# if year is less than year 2000(Year 2000 bug).
# Being True allows support for 20th centuary student numbers as caused
# by 'Year 2000 bug' or 'Year 2000 problem'.
# Being True allows student numbers to be UL compliant.
# Set it to False to break those rules.
strict = True

Not all functions accept all of above arguments.

Notice

• ulsid is not any way associated with University of Limpopo.
• ulsid is just a library to help with analysing, generating and accessing its student numbers.
• ulsid was not created based on any written standard but based on small samples of student numbers and opinions of its author.