Assign Class attributes from list elements - python-3.x

Question

I'm not sure if the title accurately describes what I'm trying to do. I have a Python3.x script that I wrote that will issue flood warning to my facebook page when the river near my home has reached it's lowest flood stage. Right now the script works, however it only reports data from one measuring station. I would like to be able to process the data from all of the stations in my county (total of 5), so I was thinking that maybe a class method may do the trick but I'm not sure how to implement it. I've been teaching myself Python since January and feel pretty comfortable with the language for the most part, and while I have a good idea of how to build a class object I'm not sure how my flow chart should look. Here is the code now:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
'''
Facebook Flood Warning Alert System - this script will post a notification to
to Facebook whenever the Sabine River # Hawkins reaches flood stage (22.3')
'''
import requests
import facebook
from lxml import html
graph = facebook.GraphAPI(access_token='My_Access_Token')
river_url = 'http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/river.php?wfo=SHV&wfoid=18715&riverid=203413&pt%5B%5D=147710&allpoints=143204%2C147710%2C141425%2C144668%2C141750%2C141658%2C141942%2C143491%2C144810%2C143165%2C145368&data%5B%5D=obs'
ref_url = 'http://water.weather.gov/ahps2/river.php?wfo=SHV&wfoid=18715&riverid=203413&pt%5B%5D=147710&allpoints=143204%2C147710%2C141425%2C144668%2C141750%2C141658%2C141942%2C143491%2C144810%2C143165%2C145368&data%5B%5D=all'
def checkflood():
r = requests.get(river_url)
tree = html.fromstring(r.content)
stage = ''.join(tree.xpath('//div[#class="stage_stage_flow"]//text()'))
warn = ''.join(tree.xpath('//div[#class="current_warns_statmnts_ads"]/text()'))
stage_l = stage.split()
level = float(stage_l[2])
#check if we're at flood level
if level < 22.5:
pass
elif level == 37:
major_diff = level - 23.0
major_r = ('The Sabine River near Hawkins, Tx has reached [Major Flood Stage]: #', stage_l[2], 'Ft. ', str(round(major_diff, 2)), ' Ft. \n Please click the link for more information.\n\n Current Warnings and Alerts:\n ', warn)
major_p = ''.join(major_r)
graph.put_object(parent_object='me', connection_name='feed', message = major_p, link = ref_url)
<--snip-->
checkflood()
Each station has different 5 different catagories for flood stage: Action, Flood, Moderate, Major, each different depths per station. So for Sabine river in Hawkins it will be Action - 22', Flood - 24', Moderate - 28', Major - 32'. For the other statinos those depths are different. So I know that I'll have to start out with something like:
class River:
def __init__(self, id, stage):
self.id = id #station ID
self.stage = stage #river level'
#staticmethod
def check_flood(stage):
if stage < 22.5:
pass
elif stage.....
but from there I'm not sure what to do. Where should it be added in(to?) the code, should I write a class to handle the Facebook postings as well, is this even something that needs a class method to handle, is there any way to clean this up for efficiency? I'm not looking for anyone to write this up for me, but some tips and pointers would sure be helpful. Thanks everyone!
EDIT Here is what I figured out and is working:
class River:
name = ""
stage = ""
action = ""
flood = ""
mod = ""
major = ""
warn = ""
def checkflood(self):
if float(self.stage) < float(self.action):
pass
elif float(self.stage) >= float(self.major):
<--snip-->
mineola = River()
mineola.name = stations[0]
mineola.stage = stages[0]
mineola.action = "13.5"
mineola.flood = "14.0"
mineola.mod = "18.0"
mineola.major = "21.0"
mineola.alert = warn[0]
hawkins = River()
hawkins.name = stations[1]
hawkins.stage = stages[1]
hawkins.action = "22.5"
hawkins.flood = "23.0"
hawkins.mod = "32.0"
hawkins.major = "37.0"
hawkins.alert = warn[1]
<--snip-->
So from here I'm tring to stick all the individual river blocks into one block. What I have tried so far is this:
class River:
... name = ""
... stage = ""
... def testcheck(self):
... return self.name, self.stage
...
>>> for n in range(num_river):
... stations[n] = River()
... stations[n].name = stations[n]
... stations[n].stage = stages[n]
...
>>> for n in range(num_river):
... stations[n].testcheck()
...
<__main__.River object at 0x7fbea469bc50> 4.13
<__main__.River object at 0x7fbea46b4748> 20.76
<__main__.River object at 0x7fbea46b4320> 22.13
<__main__.River object at 0x7fbea46b4898> 16.08
So this doesn't give me the printed results that I was expecting. How can I return the string instead of the object? Will I be able to define the Class variables in this manner or will I have to list them out individually? Thanks again!

Answer 1

After reading many, many, many articles and tutorials on class objects I was able to come up with a solution for creating the objects using list elements.
class River():
def __init__(self, river, stage, flood, action):
self.river = river
self.stage = stage
self.action = action
self.flood = flood
self.action = action
def alerts(self):
if float(self.stage < self.flood):
#alert = "The %s is below Flood Stage (%sFt) # %s Ft. \n" % (self.river, self.flood, self.stage)
pass
elif float(self.stage > self.flood):
alert = "The %s has reached Flood Stage(%sFt) # %sFt. Warnings: %s \n" % (self.river, self.flood, self.stage, self.action)
return alert
'''this is the function that I was trying to create
to build the class objects automagically'''
def riverlist():
river_list = []
for n in range(len(rivers)):
station = River(river[n], stages[n], floods[n], warns[n])
river_list.append(station)
return river_list
if __name__ == '__main__':
for x in riverlist():
print(x.alerts())