Expanding Python as a macro language

qwweeeit at yahoo.it qwweeeit at yahoo.it
Sat Oct 29 09:35:39 EDT 2005


Thank you for your replays (both for WMI and AutoIt beta-release)
but I would be satisfied if I had in Linux something similar to
the standard version of AutoIt!
Concerning WMI, a part the fact that it works only under Windows,
from the examples I have seen, IMHO it is much less powerful than
AutoIt.
In Linux you can easily obtain almost the same results by using shell
programming or by emulation of the shell by means of os.system("shell
command string") in Python.
But the problem is that in Linux you can't even send a keystroke to
a running GUI application!
I want to find a solution in Linux, with the help of experts
(if they don't use only Windows...)  for two reasons:
- the reduced availability in Windows of "free" or "open" applications
- the more severe security problems in Windows.
Concerning the second point, you can correctly argue that this is,
at least partly, due to the wider market share of Windows but IMHO
Linux is more robust in this field, and ...at the present times the
situation is like that!
As I want to use automation mainly in Internet, I am worried of
security and I don't want to spend time and money in anti-virus
and firewalls...
I want to give you an idea of possible applications of automation.
Imagine you want to access a big database from a html server which
only allows you to access such data in chunks pressing a "next"
button on an ASP file. It will take several hours to click the button
and then save the new data supplied by the server!
That is a typical task of AutoIt, very easily programmable,
a part that, during the script execution, you are under virus or
other security treat!
Another example of application is to emulate a spider program to make
searches or downloads in Internet. By emulating a user you can bypass
the restrictions imposed by search engines or html servers on
automatic operations (like wget or urlib).
A last example is for protecting the privacy using several
"anonymizers". That can only be possible with a macro language for
automatic connection to the web anonymizers. Also the subsequent
web operations must be carried out (IMHO!) in an automatic manner.
There are of course plenty of possible application of a macro language
and above all it can save me from be obliged to learn C++ (for Qt).
For example, to make a graph you are not obliged to make a program in
C++ or PyQt to draw and possibly print the graph of your data, but you
need only to program the data preparation then send the data to a
drawing application...
Bye.




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