New to Python? We recommend checking out Automate the Boring Stuff with Python to get up to speed.

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Local development

To run the code for your challenge locally, you’ll need python3 installed. Our test runners use version 3.12 (as of April 2024). The script for your challenge (like ./spawn_redis_server.sh) will run your code using this version of the Python interpreter. It looks something like this: 
#!/bin/sh

exec python3 -m app.main "$@"

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File structure

  • The files for your solution are placed in the app/ directory.
  • app/main.py contains the main function, which is what the test runner executes.

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Adding more files

You can add more files and directories to app/. The test runner will include them when compiling your code. For example, if you added a file at app/foo.py, you could use it like so: 

from app.foo import foo

def main():
    foo() // Uses the foo function from foo.py

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Adding dependencies

Not all challenges support managing dependencies via Pipenv at the moment. This will be fixed with the next Python version update.
We use Pipenv for managing dependencies. First install Pipenv using pip 
pip install pipenv
Now you can add dependencies to your project using pipenv For example, to add the requests library, you can run the following command: 
pipenv install requests
This will create a virtual environment (if it doesn’t exist) and add the following line to your Pipfile: 
[packages]
requests = "*"
It’ll also make changes to your Pipfile.lock.