Daily Work Tips

Coding

IPython Underscore Variable

Background

I ran a query that took quite some time to complete, and in the meantime, I accidentally truncated a table.😢 Fortunately, IPython’s underscore variable automatically stores the results of previous computations.

The simplest way to access it is by opening a new cell in Jupyter Notebook and typing _ to retrieve the most recent output. IPython supports _ for the previous output, __ for the next previous output, and ___ for the next-next previous output, as detailed in the official documentation.

Please note that running _, __, or ___ are also executions, meaning the values of these variables will be updated after each execution. For this reason, I recommend using only _ to get the most recent result, as its value remains unchanged after the execution.

Of course, the best practice is to store outputs in custom variables for better clarity and reliability.

Usage

Microsoft Graph REST API Get Email by User

Background

I encountered a request to create an email notification that involved adding a large number of email addresses to a list. However, the stakeholder only provided names.

So instead of searching for usernames in Teams one by one, we can use the Microsoft Graph REST API to retrieve the email addresses in bulk. For API details, please refer to official documentation.

Usage

import requests

def get_user_email(name):

    GRAPH_URL = f"https://graph.microsoft.com/v1.0/users?$filter=displayName eq '{name}'&$select=id,displayName,mail,userPrincipalName"

    ACCESS_TOKEN = # Your token
    HEADERS = {
        "Authorization": f"Bearer {ACCESS_TOKEN}",
        "Content-Type": "application/json"
    }
    
    response = requests.get(GRAPH_URL, headers=HEADERS)
    
    if response.status_code == 200:
        data = response.json()
        users = data.get("value", [])
        # Due to duplicate names, email are not unique. To prevent sending emails to the wrong user, not return email. Can be customized
        if len(users) > 1:
            print(f"Name: {users[0].get('displayName')}, multiple records")
        elif users:
            # print(f"Name: {users[0].get('displayName')}")
            print(f"{users[0].get('mail')}")
        else:
            print("No user found with that name.")
    else:
        print(f"Error: {response.status_code}, {response.text}")