Notes of Maks Nemisj

Experiments with JavaScript

Javascript to Python API reference guide

Do you also keep searching for JS terms to find out what Python API to use? I use this article as a reference guide of the javascript to python API.

Prologue

After constantly working with javascript for more than seven years I’ve decided to explore another programming language. Python became my language of choice.

Since I’m not doing python coding fulltime, I keep diving into the same docs of python again and again, in order to recall how to do simple and basic stuff. For example: looping through the different data types or searching in a string for a pattern.

My long-running relationship with JavaScript only makes the process of learning even more difficult. Every time I’m trying to do something in python i’m searching for the equivalent of javascript API in python. However it can take a long time before the answer is found. For example, how would you do charCodeAt in python? I have to say it took me a while to find an answer to this question, but then, time passes by and I forget it again.

For this reason I wrote this short reference guide. Though it only contains stuff which differs from the javascript perspective. This means I haven’t done a mapping for methods which are the same in both languages.

One piece of advice. In the python REPL you can execute the help function and pass any object to it. The help function will show you documentation regarding the passed object e.g.,

    help([])

will return documentation about arrays.

Global stuff

escape

Syntax: escape(x)

import urllib; 
urllib.quote(x)

unescape

Syntax: unescape(x)

import urllib
urllib.unquote(x)

parseFloat

Syntax: parseFloat(x)

float(x)

parseInt

Syntax: parseInt(x)

int(x)

Note: Be carefull with this one, since it might other thing than you expect. Often parseInt is used to parse any string ( with int or float in it) to an integer. In case you try to parse a float or non-valid number it will throw an error. This means that, stuff like:

int("123.456")

will break in python, but is still valid in javascript.

String

charAt

Syntax: “string”.charAt(index)

"string"[index]

charCadeAt

Syntax: “string”.charCodeAt(index)

ord("string"[index])

indexOf

Syntax: “string”.indexOf(“searchValue”,[fromIndex])

"string".find("searchValue", [fromIndex])

fromCharCode

Syntax: String.fromCharCode(charCode)

chr(charCode)

lastIndexOf

Syntax: “string”.lastIndexOf(“searchValue”,[fromIndex])

"string".rfind("searchValue", [fromIndex])

match

Placed inside RegExp object

replace

Placed inside RegExp object

slice

Syntax: “string”.slice(startIndex)

"string"[startIndex:]

Syntax: “string”.slice(startIndex, endIndex)

"string"[startIndex:endIndex]

split

Syntax: “string”.split(delimiter)

"str".split(delimiter)

substr

Syntax: “string”.substr(start)

"string"[start:]

Syntax: “string”.substr(start, [length])

"string"[start:start+length]

Note: In javascript substring expects length and in Python an endIndex. The comparable function in javascript is slice

substring

Syntax: “string”.substring(start, end)

"string"[start:end]

toLowerCase

Syntax: “string”.toLowerCase()

"string".lower()

toUpperCase

Syntax: “string”.toUpperCase()

"string".upper()

RegExp

RegExp support in python is pretty BIG and is much more extended than in javascript ( IMHO: mostly like anything in Python ). That’s why I have dedicated a separate article to this subject. So if you are going to use regexps intensively I recommend you read that article as well.

Also match and replace are part of the String object, I specify it here in order to emphasize that searching and replacing in Python is not the same as it is in JavaScript.

test

Syntax: var r = /regexp/.test(“string”)

import re
r = (re.search(r"regexp", "someString") != None)

Note: search doesn’t return boolean value, but None if no match is found.

replace

Syntax: “string”.replace(/regexp/, “newSubStr”)

import re
re.sub(r"regepx", "originalString", "newSubStr")

*Syntax: “string”.replace(/regexp/, function(str, p1…p2, offset, s){})

import re

match

Syntax: “string”.match(/regexp/g)

import re
re.findall(r"regexp", "import”)

Note: Please note that only match with the GLOBAL flag is presented here. The reason for that is explained in “Introduction into Python Regexp” as a follow up article.

Date

One of the difference between Python and JavaScript is that Python works with seconds while JavaScript with milliseconds.

Getting Date object of now

Syntax: var now = new Date()

import datetime
now = datetime.datetime.now()

Creating date object based on year, month, etc

Syntax: var d = new Date(year, month, date)

import datetime
datetime.datetime(year, month+1, date)

Note: The month in python is from 1<=12 and not from 0 like in javascript

Creating date object based on epoch

Syntax: var d = new Date(epoch)

import datetime
datetime.fromtimestamp(epoch)

getDate

Syntax: dateObject.getDate( )

dateObject.day

getDay

Syntax: d.getDay()

d.weekday()

getFullYear

Syntax: d.getFullYear()

d.year

getMonth

Syntax: d.getMonth()

(d.month - 1)

Note: That month in python is from 1<=12 and not from 0 like in JavaScript

getHours

Syntax: d.getHours()

d.hour

getMilliseconds

Syntax: d.getMilliseconds()

(d.microsecond * 0.001)

getMinutes

Syntax: d.getMinutes()

d.minute

getSeconds

Syntax: d.getSeconds()

d.second

getTime

Syntax: d.getTime()

import time
time.mktime(d.timetuple())

Math

random

Syntax: Math.random()

import random
random.random()

round

Syntax: Math.round(number)

int(round(number))

Note: round in Python always returns a floating number, while in JavaScript an integer and keep that in mind.

abs, ceil, floor

# All the other methods of math are mostly equiualent to Math in javascript  
import math 
math.abs()
math.fabs(x)
math.ceil(x)
math.floor(x)

Array

push

Syntax: arr.push(item)

arr.append(item)

Note: Python has a different return value, so if you need the length of the array wrap it in a len function

len(arr.append(item))

shift

Syntax: arr.shift(item)

arr.insert(0, item)

unshift

Syntax: arr.unshift()

arr.pop(0) # different return

length

Syntax: arr.length

len(one)

slice

Syntax: arr.slice(begin)

arr[begin:]

*Syntax: arr.slice(begin, end)

arr[begin:end]

concat

Syntax: arr.concat(secondArray)

arr + secondArray

Note: concat is making a shallow copy of an array

When doing a new copy of an array in javascript you do this:

[].concat(x)

But in python you can use this syntax:

x[:]

join

Syntax: arr.join(delimiter)

delimiter.join(arr)

Note: As you can see, the method for joining an array is sitting inside the string class and not in the array class as in javascript

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