Eric4 Python IDE tutorial
This is a short tutorial on how to use the eric4 IDE to create a small application that helps with parsing W3SVC log files.
The source files will be version controlled with Subversion.
The sources of the project can be downloaded from here.
I'm spanish and my english is far from being perfect. But I hope you'll be able to understand the tutorial. And, come to that, I'll accept any positive criticisms that would improve my english, of course.
You can send any comment or question to my mail address (jaimsDOTseumaATgmailDOTcom).
Motivation
Microsoft IIS (Internet Information Server, sort of http server for short) does keep log files (much like apache.log) that store information of the incoming http requests.
A few days ago, at the job, I had to deal with these log files in order to find what wasn't going well with a new feature for a web application I had made several years ago.
For some users of the web app, the new feature was working as expected, while for some others it wasn't.
After having double-checked the code involved with the new feature, I thought that I better took a look on what was happening behind the scenes, by looking into the log files.
But the log files can keep loads of information stored as plain text, they may have thousands of lines, wich makes difficult to keep track of the individual requests.
I needed thus to implement a tool that would make my life easier with these log files. And, when it comes to deal with text files, python is a powerful tool.
I used eric4 to develop a pretty small app that would do the trick, and when I had finished I thought that I could make a tutorial out of it.
The purpose of the tutorial is to help unexperienced people to start using eric4.
It shows how to create a project that uses a Subversion repository as VCS.
It explains how to create a .ui resource file, how to use QtDesigner to add some widgets to it, and how to compile it from within eric4.
It explains how to add new source files to the project and the repository, and how to use other stuff svn related inside eric4 (like updating or commiting changes).
I've made the project and the tutorial on windows xp with eric4-4.2-snapshot-20080719.
Eric4, python and qt are cross-platform, therefore this tutorial also is. The operating system you are using doesn't matter here.
If you are following along this tutorial, and you are on linux or mac, you'll have to set different paths for project files and scripts, but that would be the only big difference.