Two 5‑Line Python Projects: Prevent Screen Sleep and Scrape Table Data

Python is praised for its elegance and ease of entry, and with just a few lines of code you can create useful utilities. This article introduces two playful projects that each require about five lines of Python.

Project 1 – Keep the Computer from Sleeping

The idea is to simulate mouse movement so the operating system thinks the user is active. The pyautogui library provides the moveRel(x, y) function for relative mouse moves, and the random.randint function generates random offsets.

pip install pyautogui

# Import libraries
import pyautogui
import random
import time

while True:
    x = random.randint(-200, 200)
    y = random.randint(-200, 200)
    pyautogui.moveRel(x, y)
    time.sleep(5)  # pause to avoid over‑loading the mouse

This simple loop continuously nudges the cursor, preventing the screen saver from activating.

Project 2 – Scrape Table Data with Five Lines

The second example shows how to fetch tabular data from the “中商情报网” website using pandas.read_html . The target table is the fourth one on the page (index 3), and the script iterates over the first ten pages, appending each result to a CSV file.

# Import libraries
import pandas as pd
import csv

for i in range(1, 10):  # scrape pages 1‑9
    tb = pd.read_html(f'http://s.askci.com/stock/a/?reportTime=2021-03-31&pageNum={i}')[3]
    tb.to_csv(r'上市公司.csv', mode='a', encoding='utf_8_sig', header=1, index=0)

The [3] index selects the desired table when multiple tables are present, and tables[x] can be used to choose any specific table.

Both projects illustrate how a few lines of Python can automate everyday tasks and serve as a springboard for deeper exploration of automation, data collection, and analysis.