[ale] Python help for sig generator

[Joe]

Trey Sizemore <treysizemore at bigfoot.com> writes:

> I saw a post where someone had given a sample Python script to randomly
> generate sigs pulled from a text file.  I copied the script and made it
> executable, but the actual pulling of lines from the text file doesn't
> seem to work (see below).  I am using Evolution for email.  Here is the
> script (in my /home/trey
> directory):
> 
> #!/usr/bin/python
> 
> # change this to point to your file of quotes
> aff_file = "/home/trey/quotes.txt"
> 
> import string, random
> 
> # hack this at will
> print "---<br>"
> print "Cheers,<br>"
> print "Trey<br>"
> print "---<br>"
> print "<br>"
> print "Today's Affirmation (selected automatically just for you):<br>"
> print "<br>"
> 
> # cryptic python stuff which pulls a line from a text file
> # at random
> affs = file(aff_file).readlines()
> aff = affs[int(random.random() * len(affs))].split("\n")[0]
> 
> # print the randomly selected line
> print aff

If you run the Python script from the command line (eg
"python theScript.py"), do you get a random quote? (You
should, the code looks fine, provided each quote is
just one line long.)

Therefore, the problem is likely in the way you've configured
your mail client to use the script. I have no clue about
Evolution, sorry :-( But it should be something obvious.
Either your client directly supports using an outside executable
to generate siggage, or it doesn't; if it doesn't, you'll
probably need to use a named pipe (or FIFO, First-In-First-Out).

I used to do this with "fortune". I created a named fifo using mkfifo,
and ran a script that waited for the fifo to become writeable. When
that happened, it piped the output of "fortune" into the fifo,
followed by a ^D.  I told my email client that the file containing my
sig was the fifo. The email client thought it was reading a regular
file for my .sig, but each time it read that file, it got a different
fortune.

HTH,

-- Joe Knapka
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