Mini Project: Use a Library

Install and use the rich library to build colorful terminal output

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Using a third-party library

You installed rich earlier in this lesson. Now you will use it to build formatted terminal output. This is the workflow you will follow for every third-party package: install, import, use.

The rich library

rich makes terminal output look professional. Instead of plain print(), you can use:

Console — a replacement for print() with color and style support
Table — displays data in formatted tables
Panel — wraps text in a bordered box

from rich.console import Console
from rich.table import Table

console = Console()
console.print("Hello!", style="bold green")

Building a table

rich tables work in three steps:

Create a Table object with a title
Add columns with add_column()
Add rows with add_row()

table = Table(title="My Data")
table.add_column("Name", style="cyan")
table.add_column("Value", style="green")
table.add_row("Python", "3.12")
console.print(table)

Your task

Build a project dependency viewer. Create a table that displays package information, then wrap it in styled output. This mimics what tools like pip list do, but with better formatting.

Instructions

Build a formatted dependency report using rich.

Import Console from rich.console and Table from rich.table.
Create a variable named console and assign it Console().
Create a variable named packages and assign it the list [("numpy", "1.26.4", "Math"), ("pypdf", "4.1.0", "PDF"), ("rich", "13.7.0", "Terminal")].
Create a variable named table and assign it Table(title="Project Dependencies").
Call table.add_column("Package", style="cyan").
Call table.add_column("Version", style="green").
Call table.add_column("Purpose", style="yellow").
Loop through packages with loop variable name, version, purpose. Inside the loop, call table.add_row(name, version, purpose).
Call console.print(table).
Call console.print() with f"Total: {len(packages)} packages" and style="bold".

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# Step 1: Import Console and Table from rich

# Step 2: Create a Console instance

# Step 3: Create the packages list

# Step 4: Create a Table with title "Project Dependencies"

# Step 5: Add "Package" column (cyan)
# Step 6: Add "Version" column (green)
# Step 7: Add "Purpose" column (yellow)

# Step 8: Loop through packages and add each as a row

# Step 9: Print the table

# Step 10: Print the total count