Python calling methods with variables

Question

I don't know if the title is very accurate.
I have 5 methods that are webscraping different websites. Each function looks something like this:

def getWebsiteData1(last_article):
    ty = datetime.today()
    ty_str = ty.strftime('%d.%m.%Y')
    url = 'http://www.website.com/news'
    r = requests.get(url)
    html = r.text
    soup = BeautifulSoup(html, 'html.parser')
    articles = soup.findAll("div", {"class": "text"})[:15]
    data = list()
    for article in articles:
        article_data = dict()
        if article.find("a").get('href') == last_article:
            return data
        else:
            article_data["link"] = article.find("a").get('href')
            article_data["title"] = article.find("a").get_text()
            data.append(article_data)
    return data

So each function returns a list of dictionaries.
I have another function that calls this function:

def CreateArticle(website_number, slug):
    website = Website.objects.get(slug=slug)
    last_article = website.last_article
    data = getWebsiteData1(last_article) # here i want to do something like
    data = website_number(last_article) # but ofcourse this doesnt work 
    if len(data) == 0:
        return "No news"
else:
    for i in data:
        article = Article(service=service)
        article.title = i['title']
        article.url = i['link']
        article.code = i['link']
        article.save()
    service.last_article = data[0]['link']
    service.save(update_fields=['last_article'])
    return data[0]['link']

I want to be able to call CreateArticle(website_number) and tell this function which getWebsiteData function it should call, so I could have only one CreateArticle function and not for each webscraper function another CreateArticle function. I hope my question is clear :D

Paul Collingwood · Accepted Answer · 2017-10-08 09:13:23Z

2

In python functions are first class, and can be passed as arguments to other functions.

def a():
    print("x")

def b(some_function):
    some_function()

then

b(a)

will print "x" as a is called within b.

So you can determine what function you want to use, then pass it in to be used.

answered Oct 8, 2017 at 9:13

Paul Collingwood

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