Reconstruct the itinerary in order

Given an bunch of airline tickets with [from, to], for example [MUC, LHR], [CDG, MUC], [SFO, SJC], [LHR, SFO]
please reconstruct the itinerary in order, 
[ CDG, MUC, LHR, SFO, SJC ]. 
Note: tickets can be represented as nodes

#!/usr/bin/env python

import sys

# Reads the given file which contains airline tickets
# and returns 2 hash,
#  * (1) with all the ticket info
#  * (2) wth the starting and ending points
def getTicketsFromFile(filename):
    lines = []

    # Read the file
    with open(filename, "r") as fp:
        lines = lines = fp.readlines()

    lines = map(lambda s: s.strip(), lines)

    tickets = {}
    points = {}
    for line in lines:
        if line !="":
            point = map(lambda s: s.strip(), line[1:-1].split(","))
            tickets[point[0]] = point[1]

            # create 2 nodes for each ticket (start, end) and
            # do this for all the tickets
            for p in point:
                try:
                    # Delete the key from the points if it exists to find the start and end
                    # points for the entire trip.
                    del points[p]
                except:
                    points[p] = ""

    # Find the starting point
    for k in points.keys():
        if k in tickets.keys():
            startPoint = k
            break
        
    return (tickets, startPoint)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    (tickets, startPoint) = getTicketsFromFile(sys.argv[1])

    # print the order
    point = startPoint
    while True:
        print point,
        
        try:
            point = tickets[point]
        except:
            break

Python - Converting character string to HEXA string

ord(c): Given a string of length one, return an integer representing the Unicode code point of the character when the argument is a unicode object, or the value of the byte when the argument is an 8-bit string.

>>> ord("a")
97
>>> ord("\t")
9

hex(n): Convert an integer number to a hexadecimal string

>>> hex (97)
'0x61'
>>> hex (9)
'0x9'

We do not need first to characters in the hex output.

>>> hex (97)[2:]
'61'
>>> hex (9)[2:]
'9'

zfill(witdh): Return the numeric string left filled with zeros in a string of length width.

>>> hex (97)[2:].zfill (3)
'061'
>>> hex (9)[2:].zfill (2)
'09'

Put of together,

>>> s="\x08\t\x07khr\x00"
>>> "".join ([hex (ord(c))[2:].zfill(2) for c in s])
'0809076b687200'

Reference:
href=http://docs.python.org/library/functions.html

Create daemon process in Python

#!/usr/bin/env python
# Filename: daemon.py

# Make the process to run in the background.

__author__ = "Karthikeyan Periasamy"
__version__ = "0.1"
__all__ = ["daemonize"]

# Standard modules
import os               # OS interface functions.
import sys              # System specific functions.
from syslog import *    # Logging functions.

# Daemon parameters
UMASK = 0       # File mode creation mask for the calling process 
WORKDIR = "/"   # The Working directory

# Find the null device /dev/null
if (hasattr(os, "devnull")):
    NULL_DEVICE = os.devnull
else:
    NULL_DEVICE = "/dev/null"
    
# Function
def daemonize (procname):
    openlog (procname, LOG_PID)
    
    try:
        # Fork the child
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Daemizing")
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Creating the first child")
        pid = os.fork ()
        
        # Exit from the parent
        if 0 != pid:
            syslog (LOG_INFO, "Parent exiting")
            os._exit (0)

        # Make the child as the leader of the process
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Child created")
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Creating a new session")
        os.setsid ()

        # Fork a child again to make sure that no terminal device is connected to it.
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Creating the second child")
        pid = os.fork ()

        # Exit from the first child
        if 0 != pid:
            syslog (LOG_INFO, "First child exiting")
            os._exit (0)

        # Set the calling process's file mode creation mask
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Set the calling process's file mode creation mask")
        os.umask (UMASK)

        # Changing working directory to '/' to make sure that
        # the process does not depend on any mounted partition
        # execpt the root of the filesystem
        logmsg = 'Changing working directory to "' + WORKDIR + '" to avoid dependencies'
        syslog (LOG_INFO, logmsg)
        os.chdir (WORKDIR)

        # Close standard input, output and error file descriptors
        syslog (LOG_INFO, "Closing I/O file descriptors")
        os.close (0)
        os.close (1)
        os.close (2)

        # Redirect standard output and errror to /dev/null
        os.open(NULL_DEVICE, os.O_RDWR)
        os.dup2(0, 1)
        os.dup2(0, 2)

    except:
        logmsg = "Unexpected error:" + repr (sys.exc_info()[1])
        syslog (LOG_ERR, logmsg)
        os._exit (1)


# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Main program (for testing)
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

if __name__ == '__main__':

    daemonize("daemon_test")
    syslog(LOG_INFO, 'Daemon is sleeping for 10 seconds')

    import time
    for i in range (10):
        syslog(LOG_INFO, 'Sleeping...')
        time.sleep(1)

    syslog(LOG_INFO, 'Daemon exiting')
    sys.exit(0)

Reference: http://code.activestate.com/recipes/278731-creating-a-daemon-the-python-way/

Reading and Writing to Excel Spreadsheets in Python

I find it useful.
excel-spreadsheets-and-python