Hi Steven, Thanks for your commentary, made me laugh, I wish switching distributors were that easy.
I could give them reasons why .exe files won't work for me but they don't really care if I take the data files on their site or not. So I guess to answer your question, we need them more. That said, I think my plan is to use requests to pull the .exe file down and and then try to write a python script to extract the .zip without running the .exe. (maybe with pandas?) I'm a beginner with python so we'll see how it goes! Thanks for your help -Ian On Tue, May 2, 2017 at 9:44 AM, Steven D'Aprano <st...@pearwood.info> wrote: > On Mon, May 01, 2017 at 10:20:42AM -0700, Ian Monat wrote: > [...] > > Then you have you run the .exe which produces a zipped file, and inside > the > > zipped file, is the .txt, which what I really want. There's no way the > > distributor will change anything about how they store files on their > > website for me. I've written a script using the requests module but I > > think a web scraper like Scrapy, Beautiful Soup or Selinium may be > > required. > > > > What would you do? > > Find another distributor. > > (Its this sort of business to business incompetence that makes me laugh > when people say that private industry is always more efficient than the > alternatives. Did I say laugh? I meant cry.) > > Seriously, can't you tell them that your anti-virus blocks the .exe > files, and if they want you to use their system, they'll have to provide > text files as text files? > > Or tell them that you're using Apple Macs and the .exe files don't run > under Mac. > > I guess it depends on whether you need them more than they need you. > > In any case, this isn't a problem that can be solved by a web scraper. > The distributor's website provides .exe files. There's nothing you can > do about that except complain or leave. The website gives you a .exe > file, so that's what you receive. > > However, once you have the .exe file in your possession, you *may* be > able to hack open the file and extract the .zip file without running it. > That will require detailed knowledge of how the .exe file does its job, > but it is conceivable that it will work. A good low-level hacker could > probably determine whether the zip file is embedded in the .exe or if it > is generated on the fly. That's beyond my skills though. > > If it is generated on the fly, you're screwed. You have no choice but to > run the .exe, until you do the zip doesn't even exist. But if it is > embedded, it can be extracted, and once the zip file is extracted, > Python can easily unzip it. > > > > -- > Steve > _______________________________________________ > Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org > To unsubscribe or change subscription options: > https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor > _______________________________________________ Tutor maillist - Tutor@python.org To unsubscribe or change subscription options: https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor