coursecode.py

from datetime import datetime
import re
import string

def to_course_code(course_path, creation_date):
    """
    Turns a course path into a short course code.
    Max 14 characters (but likely under 10).
    Not guaranteed to be unique
    but has month/year of creation date, and single character hash
    to prevent collisions in most situations
    """
    course_slug = course_path.strip('/').split('/')[-1]
    course_slug = course_slug.replace('-', ' ').replace('_', ' ')
    course_slug = re.sub('['+string.punctuation+']', '', course_slug)
    course_slug = re.sub("[^\w]", ' ',  course_slug)
    words = course_slug.split()
    abbrv = ''.join([word[0] for word in words][:9]).upper()
    chars = string.ascii_letters + digits 
    return abbrv + creation_date.strftime(r"%m%y") + chars[hash(course_path) % len(chars)]