Building for local problems, one day at a time.
Intro
Day 1 of my 30 Days of Python: a tiny CLI that logs community market prices in Nigeria, prints prices with the naira symbol (₦), and shows the difference from the last recorded values.
What It Does
- Prompts for market name and date
- Takes current prices for Garri and Rice
- Stores values in a dictionary
- Prints prices with ₦ and thousands separators
- Compares against last record and shows the difference
What I Learned (Debugging Notes)
- Unicode/Encoding: Using the naira sign as "\u20A6" ensures it renders even if the editor font has issues. UTF-8 saves render ₦ fine in VS Code/GitHub.
- f-Strings + Quotes: Avoid nested double quotes inside f-strings when indexing a dict. Use single quotes for keys: {food_items['garri']}. This fixed my syntax error.
- Dictionary Keys vs Index: Access by key strings, not numeric indices, to avoid KeyError.
- Safe Numeric Input: Convert input() to int so you can format with :, (e.g., ₦1,800).
- Tiny UX Wins: Prefix prompts with ₦ so users know the expected unit; add blank lines for readable output.
Next Steps
- Input validation (reject non-numeric input gracefully)
- Persist daily logs to CSV/JSON
- Track more items and compute min/max/average over time
- Add a --market and --date flag for quick logging
See the Demo
Here is a Screenshot showing:
Running the script
Entering prices
The formatted ₦ output and price differences
Call to Action
If you’re building African-focused tools with Python, drop feedback or ideas. Stars and forks welcome!
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