Evolution of a script

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Notice: Comments are correct the scripts need to be updated.
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 Do not have time to do it now , but it isin the queue......


Someone had written a script to grab the weather from the web. A script is like a todo list for the computer. Even if you are not a programmer, you will see the added lines give the script more potential or power. Everything becomes less and less cryptic to use. How you interact with it is sometimes considered what is called the user interface.

lynx -dump "http://mobile.weather.gov/port_mp_ns.php?select=3&CityName=Woonsocwa

That yielded:

National Weather Service
     __________________________________________________________________

                               Woonsocket, RI
                        Current Local Conditions at:
                                 Smithfield
                  Lat: 41.91 N   Lon: 71.4 W   Elev: 440 ft
                     Last Update: 10/31/11, 11:35 PM EDT
                                Weather: Fair
                          Temperature: 36°F (2°C)
                               Humidity: 93 %
                             Wind Speed: E 5 MPH
                             Barometer: 30.36 in
                           Dewpoint: 34°F (1°C)
                          Wind Chill: 32°F (0°C)
                            Visibility: 10.00 mi.
     __________________________________________________________________

            [BUTTON Input] (not implemented)_____________________

That is great if you live in Woonsocket, RI. What if you live somewhere else. I had no idea What a warning zone was... Had to check it out.  Found where I could get the zones in county form but not city form.  But that meant a lot of lookups and manual work.

There had to be a better way. After a lot of research, trial, and error I came up with this script. Stripped out the remarks for sake of space.

$ ./gwp7.sh Polk FL

National Weather Service
__________________________________________________ ________________

Polk , FL
Current Local Conditions at:
Gilbert Field
Lat: 28.05 N Lon: 81.75 W Elev: 144 ft
Last Update: 11/01/11, 08:53 AM EDT
Weather: Fair
Temperature: 63°F (17°C)
Humidity: 87 %
Wind Speed: N 9 MPH
Barometer: 30.14 in. (1020.5 mb)
Dewpoint: 59°F (15°C)
Visibility: 10.00 mi.
__________________________________________________ ________________


Code:

if [ $# -lt 2 ] ;  then 
 echo "You wrote: $0 $*"
 echo "Please use the format: $0 County ST"
 exit
fi
state=$2
county=$1
county="$county "
statecode="$stateZ"
echo
lynx -dump  http://alerts.weather.gov/cap/$state.php?x=2 | grep "$county" > x  
grep -e "$statecode"  x > y  
grep -e $county y > z 
thecode=$(tail -1 z | sed 's/^.*\(......\)$/\1/')
lynx -dump "http://mobile.weather.gov/port_mp_ns.php?select=3&CityName=$county&site=BOX&State=$state&warnzone=$thecode"
# # Voice playback
# lynx -dump "http://mobile.weather.gov/port_mp_ns.php?select=3&CityName=$county&site=BOX&State=$state&warnzone=$thecode" | festival --tts

Now you could at least type in the county and state to get the weather without looking it up. But what about a new user? They may not be familiar with that trick. So I did a minimal amount of window dressing to make it just a bit easier.


              Weather printout

Enter the State: LA
          County: Cameron
-------------------------------------------------

                          National Weather Service
     __________________________________________________________________

                                Cameron , LA
                        Current Local Conditions at:
                        Lake Charles Regional Airport
                  Lat: 30.12 N   Lon: 93.22 W   Elev: 15 ft
                     Last Update: 11/01/11, 09:53 AM CDT
                                Weather: Fair
                         Temperature: 62°F (17°C)
                               Humidity: 58 %
                             Wind Speed: E 5 MPH
                      Barometer: 30.22 in. (1024.1 mb)
                           Dewpoint: 47°F (8°C)
                            Visibility: 10.00 mi.
     __________________________________________________________________


Code

clear
echo
echo "              Weather printout"
echo 
read  -p "Enter the State: " state
read  -p "          County: " county
echo "-------------------------------------------------"
echo
# state=TX
# county=Galveston
county="$county "
statecode="$stateZ"
lynx -dump  http://alerts.weather.gov/cap/$state.php?x=2 | grep "$county" > x  
grep -e "$statecode"  x > y  
grep -e $county y > z 
thecode=$(tail -1 z | sed 's/^.*\(......\)$/\1/')
lynx -dump "http://mobile.weather.gov/port_mp_ns.php?select=3&CityName=$county&site=BOX&State=$state&warnzone=$thecode"
# lynx -dump "http://mobile.weather.gov/port_mp_ns.php?select=3&CityName=$county&site=BOX&State=$state&warnzone=$thecode" | festival --tts

So now what started as a one line program that was hard to deal with has become almost usable.. We could use zenity to make some fancy gui interface, but I think you get the idea.

Note: Yes, I know I left out the shell type, but that changes with the turn anyway. Also these scripts may not work for California and other places where they do not use counties as the basis for reports.

Lastly,  http://mobile.weather.gov is a great source for looking to find web pages to get weather data from. You can even get weather (radar) pictures to and add them to your script. That will make things even more user friendly. For Tallahasse, Florida.

$ wget http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Thumbs/TLH.png --2011-11-02 03:22:12-- http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Thumbs/TLH.png Resolving radar.weather.gov... 209.234.250.138, 209.234.250.202 Connecting to radar.weather.gov|209.234.250.138|:80... connected. HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK Length: 29455 (29K) [image/png] Saving to: `TLH.png' 100%[======================================>] 29,455 --.-K/s in 0.05s 2011-11-02 03:22:12 (561 KB/s) - `TLH.png' saved [29455/29455]

$ convert TLH.png TLH.jpg

Convert to ascii

$ jp2a -i TLH.jpg > tlh.txt
$ cat tlh.txt

Add cat tlh.txt to your script to get the radar picture.

Update: Found an image converter I like better.

$ sudo apt-get install caca-utils

Get the pic

getpic:
[code]
DAY=$(date +"%m%d%y%H%M%S")
picfn="pic$DAY.png"
# echo $picfn wget http://radar.weather.gov/ridge/Thumbs/HGX.png -O hgx$DAY.png
[/code]

Convert

$ img2txt -W 80 -f utf8 img2txt -W 80 -H 25 -f utf8 hgx110711051503.png > hgx110711051503.txt

Display

$ cat hgx110711051503.txt

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