Python golf: leave a message

Tue, 16 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

I stumbled upon this (python) code-golf question:

Can I code a simple Flask app that gets messages from a web page and stores them in a database?

With Python/Flask it’s actually easier done than said!

The code

from flask import Flask, render_template, request
import sqlite3

app = Flask(__name__)
app.config['SQLALCHEMY_DATABASE_URI'] = 'sqlite:///notes.db'

@app.route('/', methods=['GET', 'POST'])
def index():
 title = "Send a message"
 db = sqlite3.connect('notes.db')
 cursor = db.cursor()

 if request.method == 'POST':
 message = request.form['content']
 cursor.execute('INSERT INTO notes (message) VALUES (?)', (message,))
 db.commit()
 db.close()
 return render_template("message-sent.html.j2", title=title)

 cursor.execute('SELECT COUNT(*) FROM notes')
 count = cursor.fetchone()[0]
 db.close()

 return render_template("index.html.j2", count=count, title=title)

if __name__ == "__main__":
 app.run(debug=True)

Just 775 characters in twenty-seven lines of code. Now let’s try to explain what it does:

The explanation

This code sets up a Flask web application with an SQLite database called notes.db. The application has only one route, the index route ‘/’. When a GET request is made to the ‘/’ page, it connects to the notes.db database and fetches the total number of messages in the database. It then displays the fetched message count using a Jinja2 template called index.html.j2.

When a POST request is made to the ‘/’ route, it connects to the notes.db database, inserts the submitted message into the ’notes’ table, and redirects the user to a success message page using the message-sent.html.j2 Jinja2 template.

604 characters! This Python code is actually almost as concise as the plain English description of what it does.

Code golf | DCMST

Python golf: leave a message

The code

The explanation