Frequently asked questions

When logging to tmc first time, whats the server address it asks?

Your TMC client is old, load newest version from tmc-cli

tmc not found

You installed the TMC client successfully, but the program is not found when you say tmc in the command prompt. If you are using Windows, use the doskey program so that tmc can be found even if you are not in the same folder as the tmc executable. For instructions, see tmc-cli.

If you are using Linux, then you may have close the terminal window and open a new one. Or alternatively, run source ~/.bashrc.

tmc test says: “Test results: 0/0 tests passed”

If the output is Test results: 0/0 tests passed All tests passed! Submit to server with ‘tmc submit’ Then several things can be wrong.

First make sure that the program run correctly, e.g. python3 src/hello_world.py. If it crashes, then tmc will most likely give the above message.

If the program does not crash, you are using Windows, and you have installed Anaconda, then possibly TMC cannot find Anaconda installation. Make sure you use TMC version at least 0.9.2. You can check the version of TMC with tmc --version. If it still does not work, then try to activate Anaconda. To achieve this check the question: ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘somelibrary’

What version of Python should I use? What is the name of the executable?

The Python version should be at least 3.6. You can check your version with python3 --version on Linux or macOS, and with python --version on Windows. Note: on Linux the program python might refer to an old Python version 2. Don’t ever use that!

How to load a file that resides in the src folder?

If you want to open a file file.txt that resides in the src folder, use the provided function get_path like in open(get_path("file.txt")). But if you are requested to write a function, say f, that gets a filename as a parameter, then calling get_path is the responsibility of the caller of f. If the filename comes from the command line parameters (sys.argv), then it is the responsibility of the person who runs the program to provided correct path, like src/file.txt (no call to get_path is involved in this case).

Make sure the get_path function has the following definition. The command tmc update cannot modify files in the src folder, so the function definition cannot be automatically updated. Now it should work also on Windows.

def get_path(filename):
    import sys
    import os
    return os.path.join(os.path.dirname(sys.argv[0]), "..", "src", filename)

Note: the get_path contruct does not work in Jupyter, as the first command line parameter (sys.argv[0]) in Jupyter does not refer to your program (myprogram.py), but instead to a certain system program.

Tests complain about missing attribute assert_called, assert_called_once, …

These require at least Python version 3.6. Check your installation. See the next question.

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘somelibrary’

The libraries needed in the course (numpy, pandas, matplotlib, scikit-learn, scipy, seaborn, and statsmodels) are contained in the Anaconda distribution. Either you haven’t installed Anaconda or it hasn’t been activated.

On Windows you it may help, if you use ‘Anaconda prompt’ from the Windows menu. That should activate Anaconda automatically.

If you don’t want to use ‘Anaconda prompt’, then in command prompt try where python to see if it finds Python under Anaconda’s folder. If not, try to activate Anaconda with C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\Continuum\Anaconda3\Scripts\activate Or something similar, depending where you installed it.

On Linux/macOS:

You can check whether Anaconda is active with the command which python3. If the python3 binary is under anaconda3 folder, then Anaconda is active. If you are sure you have already installed Anaconda, then you can activate it with

  • conda activate, or
  • ~/acaconda3/bin/conda activate (or where ever Anaconda is installed)
  • On older Anaconda distributions use: source ~/anaconda3/bin/activate

Then try again which python3.

I cannot understand the error message from a failed test case

First run tmc update to make sure I haven’t already fixed that issue. If the problem persists, make a bug report in: