Beginner question: getting started with Python project

Hi all,

Nice to e-meet :slight_smile:

I am very new to Python and was hoping to get some help with some very basic topics. In short, I’m trying to run the code from this GitHub project: GitHub - govwiki/rating_history: Download and parse credit rating history files that US rating agencies generate each month in accordance with SEC Rule 17g-7

I have installed all necessary extensions / virtualenv and can run the .py files, however I don’t really understand the structure of these files and where to ‘start’. If I run some of the individual .py files, I don’t really get any of the output I was expecting. I also see a Docker file which perhaps is a place to start, but I don’t know how to run it.

The idea of the code is that it should scrape a few specific XML files from a few govt. websites and put that information in a database.

I’m doing this using Terminal on Mac OSX.

Very keen to get your thoughts / feedback on how I should approach this.

Many thanks!!
Thom

Hey Thom,

The project unfortunately offers no README or similar.

I would strongly suggest to create an issue at their issue tracker and ask for help over there.

When you have a look at the top level files, you can both see a bash script and a docker compose file.

The docker compose file reveals that the project is a web application, which will be started in the docker containers.

When you have a look at the bash file ( rating_history/build.sh at 060fab2c40e4c5c550c7ee7ce376c4cfd13ed7a4 · govwiki/rating_history · GitHub ), you’ll see that the author uses this file to start the containers - but attention! There is a hardcoded path which won’t be available at your pc.

So all in all - this project in its current state is not really targeted to be used by somebody else but the author theirselves.

As already mentioned, I would suggest to contact the author on their issue tracker and talk to them whether they would be open to create some starter guide and generalize their setup procedure.

P.S.: The project has not been updated in 5 years. This means there is a low chance that the author wants to put more work in it, and this also means the packages are outdated, and I would not recommend to run it anymore - there will be some security issues for sure.

Many thanks for your swift reply! I have reached out to the authors, but indeed it seems unlikely that they will put time in it given the amount of time that has passed since the project was first uploaded.