Python Library Reference
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Front Matter
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Python Library Reference
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1. Introduction
Contents
Front Matter
1. Introduction
2. Built-in Functions, Types, and Exceptions
2.1 Built-in Functions
2.2 Built-in Types
2.2.1 Truth Value Testing
2.2.2 Boolean Operations
2.2.3 Comparisons
2.2.4 Numeric Types
2.2.5 Iterator Types
2.2.6 Sequence Types
2.2.7 Mapping Types
2.2.8 File Objects
2.2.9 Other Built-in Types
2.2.10 Special Attributes
2.3 Built-in Exceptions
3. Python Runtime Services
3.1
sys
-- System-specific parameters and functions
3.2
gc
-- Garbage Collector interface
3.3
weakref
-- Weak references
3.3.1 Weak Reference Objects
3.3.2 Example
3.3.3 Weak References in Extension Types
3.4
fpectl
-- Floating point exception control
3.4.1 Example
3.4.2 Limitations and other considerations
3.5
atexit
-- Exit handlers
3.5.1
atexit
Example
3.6
types
-- Names for all built-in types
3.7
UserDict
-- Class wrapper for dictionary objects
3.8
UserList
-- Class wrapper for list objects
3.9
UserString
-- Class wrapper for string objects
3.10
operator
-- Standard operators as functions.
3.10.1 Mapping Operators to Functions
3.11
inspect
-- Inspect live objects
3.11.1 Types and members
3.11.2 Retrieving source code
3.11.3 Classes and functions
3.11.4 The interpreter stack
3.12
traceback
-- Print or retrieve a stack traceback
3.12.1 Traceback Example
3.13
linecache
-- Random access to text lines
3.14
pickle
-- Python object serialization
3.14.1 Relationship to other Python modules
3.14.2 Data stream format
3.14.3 Usage
3.14.4 What can be pickled and unpickled?
3.14.5 The pickle protocol
3.14.6 Security
3.14.7 Example
3.15
cPickle
-- A faster
pickle
3.16
copy_reg
-- Register
pickle
support functions
3.17
shelve
-- Python object persistence
3.18
copy
-- Shallow and deep copy operations
3.19
marshal
-- Internal Python object serialization
3.20
warnings
-- Warning control
3.20.1 Warning Categories
3.20.2 The Warnings Filter
3.20.3 Available Functions
3.21
imp
-- Access the
import
internals
3.21.1 Examples
3.22
code
-- Interpreter base classes
3.22.1 Interactive Interpreter Objects
3.22.2 Interactive Console Objects
3.23
codeop
-- Compile Python code
3.24
pprint
-- Data pretty printer
3.24.1 PrettyPrinter Objects
3.25
repr
-- Alternate
repr()
implementation
3.25.1 Repr Objects
3.25.2 Subclassing Repr Objects
3.26
new
-- Creation of runtime internal objects
3.27
site
-- Site-specific configuration hook
3.28
user
-- User-specific configuration hook
3.29
__builtin__
-- Built-in functions
3.30
__main__
-- Top-level script environment
4. String Services
4.1
string
-- Common string operations
4.2
re
-- Regular expression operations
4.2.1 Regular Expression Syntax
4.2.2 Matching vs Searching
4.2.3 Module Contents
4.2.4 Regular Expression Objects
4.2.5 Match Objects
4.2.6 Examples
4.3
struct
-- Interpret strings as packed binary data
4.4
difflib
-- Helpers for computing deltas
4.4.1 SequenceMatcher Objects
4.4.2 SequenceMatcher Examples
4.4.3 Differ Objects
4.4.4 Differ Example
4.5
fpformat
-- Floating point conversions
4.6
StringIO
-- Read and write strings as files
4.7
cStringIO
-- Faster version of
StringIO
4.8
codecs
-- Codec registry and base classes
4.8.1 Codec Base Classes
4.9
unicodedata
-- Unicode Database
5. Miscellaneous Services
5.1
pydoc
-- Documentation generator and online help system
5.2
doctest
-- Test docstrings represent reality
5.2.1 Normal Usage
5.2.2 Which Docstrings Are Examined?
5.2.3 What's the Execution Context?
5.2.4 What About Exceptions?
5.2.5 Advanced Usage
5.2.6 How are Docstring Examples Recognized?
5.2.7 Warnings
5.2.8 Soapbox
5.3
unittest
-- Unit testing framework
5.3.1 Organizing test code
5.3.2 Re-using old test code
5.3.3 Classes and functions
5.3.4 TestCase Objects
5.3.5 TestSuite Objects
5.3.6 TestResult Objects
5.3.7 TestLoader Objects
5.3.8 Getting Extended Error Information
5.4
math
-- Mathematical functions
5.5
cmath
-- Mathematical functions for complex numbers
5.6
random
-- Generate pseudo-random numbers
5.7
whrandom
-- Pseudo-random number generator
5.8
bisect
-- Array bisection algorithm
5.8.1 Example
5.9
array
-- Efficient arrays of numeric values
5.10
ConfigParser
-- Configuration file parser
5.10.1 ConfigParser Objects
5.11
fileinput
-- Iterate over lines from multiple input streams
5.12
xreadlines
-- Efficient iteration over a file
5.13
calendar
-- General calendar-related functions
5.14
cmd
-- Support for line-oriented command interpreters
5.14.1 Cmd Objects
5.15
shlex
-- Simple lexical analysis
5.15.1 shlex Objects
6. Generic Operating System Services
6.1
os
-- Miscellaneous operating system interfaces
6.1.1 Process Parameters
6.1.2 File Object Creation
6.1.3 File Descriptor Operations
6.1.4 Files and Directories
6.1.5 Process Management
6.1.6 Miscellaneous System Information
6.2
os.path
-- Common pathname manipulations
6.3
dircache
-- Cached directory listings
6.4
stat
-- Interpreting
stat()
results
6.5
statcache
-- An optimization of
os.stat()
6.6
statvfs
-- Constants used with
os.statvfs()
6.7
filecmp
-- File and Directory Comparisons
6.7.1 The
dircmp
class
6.8
popen2
-- Subprocesses with accessible I/O streams
6.8.1 Popen3 and Popen4 Objects
6.8.2 Flow Control Issues
6.9
time
-- Time access and conversions
6.10
sched
-- Event scheduler
6.10.1 Scheduler Objects
6.11
mutex
-- Mutual exclusion support
6.11.1 Mutex Objects
6.12
getpass
-- Portable password input
6.13
curses
-- Terminal handling for character-cell displays
6.13.1 Functions
6.13.2 Window Objects
6.13.3 Constants
6.14
curses.textpad
-- Text input widget for curses programs
6.14.1 Textbox objects
6.15
curses.wrapper
-- Terminal handler for curses programs
6.16
curses.ascii
-- Utilities for ASCII characters
6.17
curses.panel
-- A panel stack extension for curses.
6.17.1 Functions
6.17.2 Panel Objects
6.18
getopt
-- Parser for command line options
6.19
tempfile
-- Generate temporary file names
6.20
errno
-- Standard errno system symbols
6.21
glob
-- Unix style pathname pattern expansion
6.22
fnmatch
-- Unix filename pattern matching
6.23
shutil
-- High-level file operations
6.23.1 Example
6.24
locale
-- Internationalization services
6.24.1 Background, details, hints, tips and caveats
6.24.2 For extension writers and programs that embed Python
6.25
gettext
-- Multilingual internationalization services
6.25.1 GNU
gettext
API
6.25.2 Class-based API
6.25.3 Internationalizing your programs and modules
6.25.4 Acknowledgements
7. Optional Operating System Services
7.1
signal
-- Set handlers for asynchronous events
7.1.1 Example
7.2
socket
-- Low-level networking interface
7.2.1 Socket Objects
7.2.2 SSL Objects
7.2.3 Example
7.3
select
-- Waiting for I/O completion
7.3.1 Polling Objects
7.4
thread
-- Multiple threads of control
7.5
threading
-- Higher-level threading interface
7.5.1 Lock Objects
7.5.2 RLock Objects
7.5.3 Condition Objects
7.5.4 Semaphore Objects
7.5.5 Event Objects
7.5.6 Thread Objects
7.5.7 Timer Objects
7.6
Queue
-- A synchronized queue class
7.6.1 Queue Objects
7.7
mmap
-- Memory-mapped file support
7.8
anydbm
-- Generic access to DBM-style databases
7.9
dumbdbm
-- Portable DBM implementation
7.10
dbhash
-- DBM-style interface to the BSD database library
7.10.1 Database Objects
7.11
whichdb
-- Guess which DBM module created a database
7.12
bsddb
-- Interface to Berkeley DB library
7.12.1 Hash, BTree and Record Objects
7.13
zlib
-- Compression compatible with
gzip
7.14
gzip
-- Support for
gzip
files
7.15
zipfile
-- Work with ZIP archives
7.15.1 ZipFile Objects
7.15.2 PyZipFile Objects
7.15.3 ZipInfo Objects
7.16
readline
-- GNU readline interface
7.16.1 Example
7.17
rlcompleter
-- Completion function for GNU readline
7.17.1 Completer Objects
8. Unix Specific Services
8.1
posix
-- The most common POSIX system calls
8.1.1 Large File Support
8.1.2 Module Contents
8.2
pwd
-- The password database
8.3
grp
-- The group database
8.4
crypt
-- Function to check Unix passwords
8.5
dl
-- Call C functions in shared objects
8.5.1 Dl Objects
8.6
dbm
-- Simple ``database'' interface
8.7
gdbm
-- GNU's reinterpretation of dbm
8.8
termios
-- POSIX style tty control
8.8.1 Example
8.9
TERMIOS
-- Constants used with the
termios
module
8.10
tty
-- Terminal control functions
8.11
pty
-- Pseudo-terminal utilities
8.12
fcntl
-- The
fcntl()
and
ioctl()
system calls
8.13
pipes
-- Interface to shell pipelines
8.13.1 Template Objects
8.14
posixfile
-- File-like objects with locking support
8.15
resource
-- Resource usage information
8.15.1 Resource Limits
8.15.2 Resource Usage
8.16
nis
-- Interface to Sun's NIS (Yellow Pages)
8.17
syslog
-- Unix syslog library routines
8.18
commands
-- Utilities for running commands
9. The Python Debugger
9.1 Debugger Commands
9.2 How It Works
10. The Python Profiler
10.1 Introduction to the profiler
10.2 How Is This Profiler Different From The Old Profiler?
10.3 Instant Users Manual
10.4 What Is Deterministic Profiling?
10.5 Reference Manual
10.5.1 The
Stats
Class
10.6 Limitations
10.7 Calibration
10.8 Extensions -- Deriving Better Profilers
11. Internet Protocols and Support
11.1
webbrowser
-- Convenient Web-browser controller
11.1.1 Browser Controller Objects
11.2
cgi
-- Common Gateway Interface support.
11.2.1 Introduction
11.2.2 Using the cgi module
11.2.3 Higher Level Interface
11.2.4 Old classes
11.2.5 Functions
11.2.6 Caring about security
11.2.7 Installing your CGI script on a Unix system
11.2.8 Testing your CGI script
11.2.9 Debugging CGI scripts
11.2.10 Common problems and solutions
11.3
cgitb
-- Traceback manager for CGI scripts
11.4
urllib
-- Open arbitrary resources by URL
11.4.1 URLopener Objects
11.4.2 Examples
11.5
urllib2
-- extensible library for opening URLs
11.5.1 Request Objects
11.5.2 OpenerDirector Objects
11.5.3 BaseHandler Objects
11.5.4 HTTPRedirectHandler Objects
11.5.5 ProxyHandler Objects
11.5.6 HTTPPasswordMgr Objects
11.5.7 AbstractBasicAuthHandler Objects
11.5.8 HTTPBasicAuthHandler Objects
11.5.9 ProxyBasicAuthHandler Objects
11.5.10 AbstractDigestAuthHandler Objects
11.5.11 HTTPDigestAuthHandler Objects
11.5.12 ProxyDigestAuthHandler Objects
11.5.13 HTTPHandler Objects
11.5.14 HTTPSHandler Objects
11.5.15 FileHandler Objects
11.5.16 FTPHandler Objects
11.5.17 CacheFTPHandler Objects
11.5.18 GopherHandler Objects
11.5.19 UnknownHandler Objects
11.6
httplib
-- HTTP protocol client
11.6.1 HTTPConnection Objects
11.6.2 HTTPResponse Objects
11.6.3 Examples
11.7
ftplib
-- FTP protocol client
11.7.1 FTP Objects
11.8
gopherlib
-- Gopher protocol client
11.9
poplib
-- POP3 protocol client
11.9.1 POP3 Objects
11.9.2 POP3 Example
11.10
imaplib
-- IMAP4 protocol client
11.10.1 IMAP4 Objects
11.10.2 IMAP4 Example
11.11
nntplib
-- NNTP protocol client
11.11.1 NNTP Objects
11.12
smtplib
-- SMTP protocol client
11.12.1 SMTP Objects
11.12.2 SMTP Example
11.13
telnetlib
-- Telnet client
11.13.1 Telnet Objects
11.13.2 Telnet Example
11.14
urlparse
-- Parse URLs into components
11.15
SocketServer
-- A framework for network servers
11.16
BaseHTTPServer
-- Basic HTTP server
11.17
SimpleHTTPServer
-- Simple HTTP request handler
11.18
CGIHTTPServer
-- CGI-capable HTTP request handler
11.19
Cookie
-- HTTP state management
11.19.1 Cookie Objects
11.19.2 Morsel Objects
11.19.3 Example
11.20
xmlrpclib
-- XML-RPC client access
11.20.1 ServerProxy Objects
11.20.2 Boolean Objects
11.20.3 DateTime Objects
11.20.4 Binary Objects
11.20.5 Fault Objects
11.20.6 ProtocolError Objects
11.20.7 Convenience Functions
11.20.8 Example of Client Usage
11.21
SimpleXMLRPCServer
-- Basic XML-RPC server
11.21.1 SimpleXMLRPCServer Objects
11.22
asyncore
-- Asynchronous socket handler
11.22.1 Example basic HTTP client
12. Internet Data Handling
12.1
formatter
-- Generic output formatting
12.1.1 The Formatter Interface
12.1.2 Formatter Implementations
12.1.3 The Writer Interface
12.1.4 Writer Implementations
12.2
email
-- An email and MIME handling package
12.2.1 Representing an email message
12.2.2 Parsing email messages
12.2.3 Generating MIME documents
12.2.4 Creating email and MIME objects from scratch
12.2.5 Internationalized headers
12.2.6 Representing character sets
12.2.7 Encoders
12.2.8 Exception classes
12.2.9 Miscellaneous utilities
12.2.10 Iterators
12.2.11 Differences from
email
v1 (up to Python 2.2.1)
12.2.12 Differences from
mimelib
12.2.13 Examples
12.3
mailcap
-- Mailcap file handling.
12.4
mailbox
-- Read various mailbox formats
12.4.1 Mailbox Objects
12.5
mhlib
-- Access to MH mailboxes
12.5.1 MH Objects
12.5.2 Folder Objects
12.5.3 Message Objects
12.6
mimetools
-- Tools for parsing MIME messages
12.6.1 Additional Methods of Message Objects
12.7
mimetypes
-- Map filenames to MIME types
12.7.1 MimeTypes Objects
12.8
MimeWriter
-- Generic MIME file writer
12.8.1 MimeWriter Objects
12.9
mimify
-- MIME processing of mail messages
12.10
multifile
-- Support for files containing distinct parts
12.10.1 MultiFile Objects
12.10.2
MultiFile
Example
12.11
rfc822
-- Parse RFC 2822 mail headers
12.11.1 Message Objects
12.11.2 AddressList Objects
12.12
base64
-- Encode and decode MIME base64 data
12.13
binascii
-- Convert between binary and ASCII
12.14
binhex
-- Encode and decode binhex4 files
12.14.1 Notes
12.15
quopri
-- Encode and decode MIME quoted-printable data
12.16
uu
-- Encode and decode uuencode files
12.17
xdrlib
-- Encode and decode XDR data
12.17.1 Packer Objects
12.17.2 Unpacker Objects
12.17.3 Exceptions
12.18
netrc
-- netrc file processing
12.18.1 netrc Objects
12.19
robotparser
-- Parser for robots.txt
13. Structured Markup Processing Tools
13.1
HTMLParser
-- Simple HTML and XHTML parser
13.1.1 Example HTML Parser
13.2
sgmllib
-- Simple SGML parser
13.3
htmllib
-- A parser for HTML documents
13.3.1 HTMLParser Objects
13.4
htmlentitydefs
-- Definitions of HTML general entities
13.5
xml.parsers.expat
-- Fast XML parsing using Expat
13.5.1 XMLParser Objects
13.5.2 ExpatError Exceptions
13.5.3 Example
13.5.4 Content Model Descriptions
13.5.5 Expat error constants
13.6
xml.dom
-- The Document Object Model API
13.6.1 Module Contents
13.6.2 Objects in the DOM
13.6.3 Conformance
13.7
xml.dom.minidom
-- Lightweight DOM implementation
13.7.1 DOM objects
13.7.2 DOM Example
13.7.3 minidom and the DOM standard
13.8
xml.dom.pulldom
-- Support for building partial DOM trees
13.8.1 DOMEventStream Objects
13.9
xml.sax
-- Support for SAX2 parsers
13.9.1 SAXException Objects
13.10
xml.sax.handler
-- Base classes for SAX handlers
13.10.1 ContentHandler Objects
13.10.2 DTDHandler Objects
13.10.3 EntityResolver Objects
13.10.4 ErrorHandler Objects
13.11
xml.sax.saxutils
-- SAX Utilities
13.12
xml.sax.xmlreader
-- Interface for XML parsers
13.12.1 XMLReader Objects
13.12.2 IncrementalParser Objects
13.12.3 Locator Objects
13.12.4 InputSource Objects
13.12.5 The
Attributes
Interface
13.12.6 The
AttributesNS
Interface
13.13
xmllib
-- A parser for XML documents
13.13.1 XML Namespaces
14. Multimedia Services
14.1
audioop
-- Manipulate raw audio data
14.2
imageop
-- Manipulate raw image data
14.3
aifc
-- Read and write AIFF and AIFC files
14.4
sunau
-- Read and write Sun AU files
14.4.1 AU_read Objects
14.4.2 AU_write Objects
14.5
wave
-- Read and write WAV files
14.5.1 Wave_read Objects
14.5.2 Wave_write Objects
14.6
chunk
-- Read IFF chunked data
14.7
colorsys
-- Conversions between color systems
14.8
rgbimg
-- Read and write ``SGI RGB'' files
14.9
imghdr
-- Determine the type of an image
14.10
sndhdr
-- Determine type of sound file
15. Cryptographic Services
15.1
hmac
-- Keyed-Hashing for Message Authentication
15.2
md5
-- MD5 message digest algorithm
15.3
sha
-- SHA message digest algorithm
15.4
mpz
-- GNU arbitrary magnitude integers
15.5
rotor
-- Enigma-like encryption and decryption
16. Graphical User Interfaces with Tk
16.1
Tkinter
-- Python interface to Tcl/Tk
16.1.1 Tkinter Modules
16.1.2 Tkinter Life Preserver
16.1.3 A (Very) Quick Look at Tcl/Tk
16.1.4 Mapping Basic Tk into Tkinter
16.1.5 How Tk and Tkinter are Related
16.1.6 Handy Reference
16.2
Tix
-- Extension widgets for Tk
16.2.1 Using Tix
16.2.2 Tix Widgets
16.2.3 Tix Commands
16.3
ScrolledText
-- Scrolled Text Widget
16.4
turtle
-- Turtle graphics for Tk
16.4.1 Pen and RawPen Objects
16.5 Idle
16.5.1 Menus
16.5.2 Basic editing and navigation
16.5.3 Syntax colors
16.6 Other Graphical User Interface Packages
17. Restricted Execution
17.1
rexec
-- Restricted execution framework
17.1.1 RExec Objects
17.1.2 Defining restricted environments
17.1.3 An example
17.2
Bastion
-- Restricting access to objects
18. Python Language Services
18.1
parser
-- Access Python parse trees
18.1.1 Creating AST Objects
18.1.2 Converting AST Objects
18.1.3 Queries on AST Objects
18.1.4 Exceptions and Error Handling
18.1.5 AST Objects
18.1.6 Examples
18.2
symbol
-- Constants used with Python parse trees
18.3
token
-- Constants used with Python parse trees
18.4
keyword
-- Testing for Python keywords
18.5
tokenize
-- Tokenizer for Python source
18.6
tabnanny
-- Detection of ambiguous indentation
18.7
pyclbr
-- Python class browser support
18.7.1 Class Descriptor Objects
18.8
py_compile
-- Compile Python source files
18.9
compileall
-- Byte-compile Python libraries
18.10
dis
-- Disassembler for Python byte code
18.10.1 Python Byte Code Instructions
18.11
distutils
-- Building and installing Python modules
19. Python compiler package
19.1 The basic interface
19.2 Limitations
19.3 Python Abstract Syntax
19.3.1 AST Nodes
19.3.2 Assignment nodes
19.3.3 Examples
19.4 Using Visitors to Walk ASTs
19.5 Bytecode Generation
20. SGI IRIX Specific Services
20.1
al
-- Audio functions on the SGI
20.1.1 Configuration Objects
20.1.2 Port Objects
20.2
AL
-- Constants used with the
al
module
20.3
cd
-- CD-ROM access on SGI systems
20.3.1 Player Objects
20.3.2 Parser Objects
20.4
fl
-- FORMS library for graphical user interfaces
20.4.1 Functions Defined in Module
fl
20.4.2 Form Objects
20.4.3 FORMS Objects
20.5
FL
-- Constants used with the
fl
module
20.6
flp
-- Functions for loading stored FORMS designs
20.7
fm
--
Font Manager
interface
20.8
gl
--
Graphics Library
interface
20.9
DEVICE
-- Constants used with the
gl
module
20.10
GL
-- Constants used with the
gl
module
20.11
imgfile
-- Support for SGI imglib files
20.12
jpeg
-- Read and write JPEG files
21. SunOS Specific Services
21.1
sunaudiodev
-- Access to Sun audio hardware
21.1.1 Audio Device Objects
21.2
SUNAUDIODEV
-- Constants used with
sunaudiodev
22. MS Windows Specific Services
22.1
msvcrt
- Useful routines from the MS VC++ runtime
22.1.1 File Operations
22.1.2 Console I/O
22.1.3 Other Functions
22.2
_winreg
- Windows registry access
22.2.1 Registry Handle Objects
22.3
winsound
-- Sound-playing interface for Windows
A. Undocumented Modules
A.1 Frameworks
A.2 Miscellaneous useful utilities
A.3 Platform specific modules
A.4 Multimedia
A.5 Obsolete
A.6 SGI-specific Extension modules
B. Reporting Bugs
C. History and License
C.1 History of the software
C.2 Terms and conditions for accessing or otherwise using Python
Module Index
Index
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Python Library Reference
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Release 2.2.2, documentation updated on October 14, 2002.
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