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Using command line options

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Satvik Saha edited this page Mar 7, 2022 · 7 revisions

After you've installed welearn_bot, say using pip install welearn-bot-iiserkol, you can run welearn_bot -h in the command line to get the following help message. This gives a summary of the commands and options which you can use.

usage: welearn_bot [-h] [--version] [-v] [-d] [-c] [-i [IGNORETYPES ...]] [-f]
                   [-m] [-p PATHPREFIX]
                   action [courses ...]

A command line client for interacting with WeLearn.

positional arguments:
  action                choose from
                            files       - downloads files/resources
                            assignments - lists assignments, downloads attachments
                            urls        - lists urls
                            courses     - lists enrolled courses
                            whoami      - shows the user's name and exits
                            Abbreviations such as any one of 'f', 'a', 'u', 'c', 'w' are supported.
  courses               IDs of the courses to download files from. The word ALL selects everything 
                        from the [courses] section in .welearnrc or welearn.ini

options:
  -h, --help            show this help message and exit
  --version             show program's version number and exit
  -v, --verbose         show verbose warnings/errors
  -d, --dueassignments  show only due assignments with the 'assignments' action
  -c, --gcalendar       add due assignments to Google Calendar with the 'assignments' action
  -i [IGNORETYPES ...], --ignoretypes [IGNORETYPES ...]
                        ignores the specified extensions when downloading, overrides .welearnrc
  -f, --forcedownload   force download files even if already downloaded/ignored
  -m, --missingdownload
                        re-download those files which were downloaded earlier but deleted/moved from their location
  -p PATHPREFIX, --pathprefix PATHPREFIX
                        save the downloads to a custom path, overrides .welearnrc

Here, we will go through each "action" and their possible variations one by one.

whoami

Even if you have a completely fresh install of welearn_bot without having written a configuration file, you can run

welearn_bot whoami

in the command line. You will be prompted for your username and password, and if everything is set up correctly, the script will display your full name and exit. This is mostly intended for testing your setup and configuration file, so that you know everything works before looking into other commands.

Every action can be abbreviated to any extent, so the following are all equivalent.

welearn_bot whoami
welearn_bot who
welearn_bot w

courses

This action will list all the courses you are enrolled in, marking your starred courses with an asterisk (*).

welearn_bot courses

Note that this is different from the [courses] section in your config file. The latter is a list of courses which you have chosen to act as shorthand for ALL. This is so that when performing other actions such as files or assignments, you do not have to type out a complete list of all your courses.

files

This action will download all available resources for a list of specified courses. For example,

welearn_bot files MA1101 PH2202 CH3303

will download all files from the three listed courses and put them into separate directories of the same name. Note that the script is smart enough to detect whether a file has been downloaded before, or whether the file has been updated on WeLearn.

You may also run

welearn_bot files ALL

to pull files from ALL courses - again, look into the wiki on the courses section in your config file.

pathprefix

By default, your course folders are created in the same directory you run the script in. If you want to specify a particular directory in which to organize all your files, you can use the pathprefix option by either

  • setting the pathprefix key in the [files] section in your config file.
  • passing the --pathprefix option in the command line, which overrides your config file. For example, if you want your course directories to appear in the ~/Documents/WeLearn directory, you may run
welearn_bot --pathprefix ~/Documents/WeLearn files ALL

Note that this can be shortened to

welearn_bot -p ~/Documents/WeLearn f ALL

ignore

You may choose to ignore files of certain extensions while downloading, say mp4 or mkv files. Like before, you can do this using the ignore option by

  • setting the ignore key in the [files] section in your config file.
  • passing the --ignore option in the command line, which overrides your config file. For example, if you want to ignore mp4 and mkv files, you can run either one of the following.
welearn_bot --ignore mp4 mkv -- files ALL
welearn_bot files ALL --ignore mp4 mkv
welearn_bot f ALL -i mp4 mkv

forcedownload

The --forcedownload command line flag will force all downloads, regardless of whether the resource has already been downloaded, or whether the particular filetype is set to be ignored.

missingdownload

The --missingdownload command line flag will re-download files which were already downloaded by welearn_bot at some point, but are no longer present (perhaps subsequently deleted/moved). Without this flag, such missing files are ignored, and not downloaded.

verbose

When downloading files, welearn_bot will let you know how many files are missing or have been ignored. You can rerun the same command with the --verbose flag to list these files.

assignments

This action will list all the assignments, both past and present, in the specified courses. It will also download any "attachments" - resources which are attached to the assignment page. For example,

welearn_bot assignments MA1101 PH2202

will list and download all assignments in the MA1101 and PH2202 courses.

Since this action downloads files to their course directories, the pathprefix, ignore, and force options apply, just as before. In addition, you have the following options

dueassignments

The --dueassignments command line flag will only list and download attachments from "due" assignments. Here, the phrase "due assignments" is used loosely, in the sense "assignments whose due dates are in the future". Note that even if you have made submissions to a particular assignment, it may still be listed as due. This shouldn't cause confusion, however, since the script also lists all the files you have submitted (if any) for each assignment, along with the time of their upload.

The following are equivalent.

welearn --dueassignments assignments ALL
welearn -d a ALL

gcalendar

The --gcalendar command line flag invokes the Google Calendar API and adds your due assignments to your Google Calendar. Each assignment is given an event with the title of your course and the assignment name, along with your assignment details in the body. The start time of the event is set to one hour before the deadline, and the end time is the deadline itself. See the Google Calendar integration article on how to get started. Note that you must have a proper configuration before using this flag.

The following are equiavelent.

welearn_bot --dueassignments --gcalendar assignments ALL
welearn_bot -dc a ALL

urls

The urls action will list all urls given in the course pages specified. These are typically things like links to recorded videos, lecture material, or external resources. For example,

welearn_bot urls MA1101 PH2202

will list all urls in the MA1101 and PH2202 courses.

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