3.8. Summary

The odbchelper.py program and its output should now make perfect sense.


def buildConnectionString(params):
    """Build a connection string from a dictionary of parameters.

    Returns string."""
    return ";".join(["%s=%s" % (k, v) for k, v in params.items()])

if __name__ == "__main__":
    myParams = {"server":"mpilgrim", \
                "database":"master", \
                "uid":"sa", \
                "pwd":"secret" \
                }
    print buildConnectionString(myParams)

Here is the output of odbchelper.py:

server=mpilgrim;uid=sa;database=master;pwd=secret

Before diving into the next chapter, make sure you're comfortable doing all of these things:

Using the Python IDE to test expressions interactively
Writing Python programs and running them from within your IDE, or from the command line
Importing modules and calling their functions
Declaring functions and using docstrings, local variables, and proper indentation
Defining dictionaries, tuples, and lists
Accessing attributes and methods of any object, including strings, lists, dictionaries, functions, and modules
Concatenating values through string formatting
Mapping lists into other lists using list comprehensions
Splitting strings into lists and joining lists into strings

Dive Into Python

3.8. Summary