9.11.1. Creating a project folder and run a first program#
9.11.1.1. Create a project folder#
Keeping track of more difficult programs is inconvenient when only using the itom terminal (command line). That’s why you will learn how to use script files in this chapter. Basically, script files are just regular text files that happen to have the extension .py.
We will store all our script files in a project folder within the itom installation directory called python_tutorial. This folder can be created within itom by right-clicking on the itom folder in the file system toolbox and choosing create new folder. If you’ve used the default installation directory, you should end up with a folder like this: C:\Program Files\itom\python_tutorial.
9.11.1.2. Creating a .py file and running it#
Now create a new python file in C:\Program Files\itom\python_tutorial and rename the default file name (New Script.py) to Hello World.py. When double-clicking the file name, the script editor will pop up, which we will use for all upcoming examples. For a start, type the following line of code into the script editor and save the file.
1print("Hello World")
To run the code you’ve just inserted, press F5 or click on the run button.
As a result, you will see the output ‘Hello World’ in the itom terminal. As you’ve probably figured out, the command print() is used to output certain characters and, hence, can be used to give the user some sort of feedback. Please note that the print command changed from earlier 2.X versions of Python.
9.11.1.3. Encoding of files#
If your script file contains non ASCII characters (like German special characters), you will probably get an encoding error when trying to run or debug this script. This is due to the fact, that Python interprets you script as default utf8 text file. If you used another encoding for your file you need to tell this to Python, e.g. by putting
# -- coding: iso-8859-15 --
at the first line of your script file (iso-8859-15 represents the Western Europe charset). For more information see <https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0263/>.