Community Market Price Logger (Day 1 of 30 Days of Python)

Source: Dev.to

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.

• 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 the last record and shows the difference

Implementation 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 fixes syntax errors.
• 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.

Future ideas

• 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

Call to Action

If you’re building African‑focused tools with Python, drop feedback or ideas. Stars and forks are welcome!