Python Documentation contents

• What’s New in Python
  • What’s New in Python 2.6
    • Python 3.0
    • Changes to the Development Process
      • New Issue Tracker: Roundup
      • New Documentation Format: reStructuredText Using Sphinx
    • PEP 343: The ‘with’ statement
      • Writing Context Managers
      • The contextlib module
    • PEP 366: Explicit Relative Imports From a Main Module
    • PEP 370: Per-user site-packages Directory
    • PEP 371: The multiprocessing Package
    • PEP 3101: Advanced String Formatting
    • PEP 3105: print As a Function
    • PEP 3110: Exception-Handling Changes
    • PEP 3112: Byte Literals
    • PEP 3116: New I/O Library
    • PEP 3118: Revised Buffer Protocol
    • PEP 3119: Abstract Base Classes
    • PEP 3127: Integer Literal Support and Syntax
    • PEP 3129: Class Decorators
    • PEP 3141: A Type Hierarchy for Numbers
      • The fractions Module
    • Other Language Changes
      • Optimizations
      • Interpreter Changes
    • New and Improved Modules
      • The ast module
      • The future_builtins module
      • The json module: JavaScript Object Notation
      • The plistlib module: A Property-List Parser
      • ctypes Enhancements
      • Improved SSL Support
    • Deprecations and Removals
    • Build and C API Changes
      • Port-Specific Changes: Windows
      • Port-Specific Changes: Mac OS X
      • Port-Specific Changes: IRIX
    • Porting to Python 2.6
    • Acknowledgements
  • What’s New in Python 2.5
    • PEP 308: Conditional Expressions
    • PEP 309: Partial Function Application
    • PEP 314: Metadata for Python Software Packages v1.1
    • PEP 328: Absolute and Relative Imports
    • PEP 338: Executing Modules as Scripts
    • PEP 341: Unified try/except/finally
    • PEP 342: New Generator Features
    • PEP 343: The ‘with’ statement
      • Writing Context Managers
      • The contextlib module
    • PEP 352: Exceptions as New-Style Classes
    • PEP 353: Using ssize_t as the index type
    • PEP 357: The ‘__index__’ method
    • Other Language Changes
      • Interactive Interpreter Changes
      • Optimizations
    • New, Improved, and Removed Modules
      • The ctypes package
      • The ElementTree package
      • The hashlib package
      • The sqlite3 package
      • The wsgiref package
    • Build and C API Changes
      • Port-Specific Changes
    • Porting to Python 2.5
    • Acknowledgements
  • What’s New in Python 2.4
    • PEP 218: Built-In Set Objects
    • PEP 237: Unifying Long Integers and Integers
    • PEP 289: Generator Expressions
    • PEP 292: Simpler String Substitutions
    • PEP 318: Decorators for Functions and Methods
    • PEP 322: Reverse Iteration
    • PEP 324: New subprocess Module
    • PEP 327: Decimal Data Type
      • Why is Decimal needed?
      • The Decimal type
      • The Context type
    • PEP 328: Multi-line Imports
    • PEP 331: Locale-Independent Float/String Conversions
    • Other Language Changes
      • Optimizations
    • New, Improved, and Deprecated Modules
      • cookielib
      • doctest
    • Build and C API Changes
      • Port-Specific Changes
    • Porting to Python 2.4
    • Acknowledgements
  • What’s New in Python 2.3
    • PEP 218: A Standard Set Datatype
    • PEP 255: Simple Generators
    • PEP 263: Source Code Encodings
    • PEP 273: Importing Modules from ZIP Archives
    • PEP 277: Unicode file name support for Windows NT
    • PEP 278: Universal Newline Support
    • PEP 279: enumerate()
    • PEP 282: The logging Package
    • PEP 285: A Boolean Type
    • PEP 293: Codec Error Handling Callbacks
    • PEP 301: Package Index and Metadata for Distutils
    • PEP 302: New Import Hooks
    • PEP 305: Comma-separated Files
    • PEP 307: Pickle Enhancements
    • Extended Slices
    • Other Language Changes
      • String Changes
      • Optimizations
    • New, Improved, and Deprecated Modules
      • Date/Time Type
      • The optparse Module
    • Pymalloc: A Specialized Object Allocator
    • Build and C API Changes
      • Port-Specific Changes
    • Other Changes and Fixes
    • Porting to Python 2.3
    • Acknowledgements
  • What’s New in Python 2.2
    • Introduction
    • PEPs 252 and 253: Type and Class Changes
      • Old and New Classes
      • Descriptors
      • Multiple Inheritance: The Diamond Rule
      • Attribute Access
      • Related Links
    • PEP 234: Iterators
    • PEP 255: Simple Generators
    • PEP 237: Unifying Long Integers and Integers
    • PEP 238: Changing the Division Operator
    • Unicode Changes
    • PEP 227: Nested Scopes
    • New and Improved Modules
    • Interpreter Changes and Fixes
    • Other Changes and Fixes
    • Acknowledgements
  • What’s New in Python 2.1
    • Introduction
    • PEP 227: Nested Scopes
    • PEP 236: __future__ Directives
    • PEP 207: Rich Comparisons
    • PEP 230: Warning Framework
    • PEP 229: New Build System
    • PEP 205: Weak References
    • PEP 232: Function Attributes
    • PEP 235: Importing Modules on Case-Insensitive Platforms
    • PEP 217: Interactive Display Hook
    • PEP 208: New Coercion Model
    • PEP 241: Metadata in Python Packages
    • New and Improved Modules
    • Other Changes and Fixes
    • Acknowledgements
  • What’s New in Python 2.0
    • Introduction
    • What About Python 1.6?
    • New Development Process
    • Unicode
    • List Comprehensions
    • Augmented Assignment
    • String Methods
    • Garbage Collection of Cycles
    • Other Core Changes
      • Minor Language Changes
      • Changes to Built-in Functions
    • Porting to 2.0
    • Extending/Embedding Changes
    • Distutils: Making Modules Easy to Install
    • XML Modules
      • SAX2 Support
      • DOM Support
      • Relationship to PyXML
    • Module changes
    • New modules
    • IDLE Improvements
    • Deleted and Deprecated Modules
    • Acknowledgements
• The Python Tutorial
  • 1. Whetting Your Appetite
  • 2. Using the Python Interpreter
    • 2.1. Invoking the Interpreter
      • 2.1.1. Argument Passing
      • 2.1.2. Interactive Mode
    • 2.2. The Interpreter and Its Environment
      • 2.2.1. Error Handling
      • 2.2.2. Executable Python Scripts
      • 2.2.3. Source Code Encoding
      • 2.2.4. The Interactive Startup File
  • 3. An Informal Introduction to Python
    • 3.1. Using Python as a Calculator
      • 3.1.1. Numbers
      • 3.1.2. Strings
      • 3.1.3. Unicode Strings
      • 3.1.4. Lists
    • 3.2. First Steps Towards Programming
  • 4. More Control Flow Tools
    • 4.1. if Statements
    • 4.2. for Statements
    • 4.3. The range() Function
    • 4.4. break and continue Statements, and else Clauses on Loops
    • 4.5. pass Statements
    • 4.6. Defining Functions
    • 4.7. More on Defining Functions
      • 4.7.1. Default Argument Values
      • 4.7.2. Keyword Arguments
      • 4.7.3. Arbitrary Argument Lists
      • 4.7.4. Unpacking Argument Lists
      • 4.7.5. Lambda Forms
      • 4.7.6. Documentation Strings
    • 4.8. Intermezzo: Coding Style
  • 5. Data Structures
    • 5.1. More on Lists
      • 5.1.1. Using Lists as Stacks
      • 5.1.2. Using Lists as Queues
      • 5.1.3. Functional Programming Tools
      • 5.1.4. List Comprehensions
      • 5.1.5. Nested List Comprehensions
    • 5.2. The del statement
    • 5.3. Tuples and Sequences
    • 5.4. Sets
    • 5.5. Dictionaries
    • 5.6. Looping Techniques
    • 5.7. More on Conditions
    • 5.8. Comparing Sequences and Other Types
  • 6. Modules
    • 6.1. More on Modules
      • 6.1.1. Executing modules as scripts
      • 6.1.2. The Module Search Path
      • 6.1.3. “Compiled” Python files
    • 6.2. Standard Modules
    • 6.3. The dir() Function
    • 6.4. Packages
      • 6.4.1. Importing * From a Package
      • 6.4.2. Intra-package References
      • 6.4.3. Packages in Multiple Directories
  • 7. Input and Output
    • 7.1. Fancier Output Formatting
      • 7.1.1. Old string formatting
    • 7.2. Reading and Writing Files
      • 7.2.1. Methods of File Objects
      • 7.2.2. The pickle Module
  • 8. Errors and Exceptions
    • 8.1. Syntax Errors
    • 8.2. Exceptions
    • 8.3. Handling Exceptions
    • 8.4. Raising Exceptions
    • 8.5. User-defined Exceptions
    • 8.6. Defining Clean-up Actions
    • 8.7. Predefined Clean-up Actions
  • 9. Classes
    • 9.1. A Word About Names and Objects
    • 9.2. Python Scopes and Namespaces
    • 9.3. A First Look at Classes
      • 9.3.1. Class Definition Syntax
      • 9.3.2. Class Objects
      • 9.3.3. Instance Objects
      • 9.3.4. Method Objects
    • 9.4. Random Remarks
    • 9.5. Inheritance
      • 9.5.1. Multiple Inheritance
    • 9.6. Private Variables
    • 9.7. Odds and Ends
    • 9.8. Exceptions Are Classes Too
    • 9.9. Iterators
    • 9.10. Generators
    • 9.11. Generator Expressions
  • 10. Brief Tour of the Standard Library
    • 10.1. Operating System Interface
    • 10.2. File Wildcards
    • 10.3. Command Line Arguments
    • 10.4. Error Output Redirection and Program Termination
    • 10.5. String Pattern Matching
    • 10.6. Mathematics
    • 10.7. Internet Access
    • 10.8. Dates and Times
    • 10.9. Data Compression
    • 10.10. Performance Measurement
    • 10.11. Quality Control
    • 10.12. Batteries Included
  • 11. Brief Tour of the Standard Library – Part II
    • 11.1. Output Formatting
    • 11.2. Templating
    • 11.3. Working with Binary Data Record Layouts
    • 11.4. Multi-threading
    • 11.5. Logging
    • 11.6. Weak References
    • 11.7. Tools for Working with Lists
    • 11.8. Decimal Floating Point Arithmetic
  • 12. What Now?
  • 13. Interactive Input Editing and History Substitution
    • 13.1. Line Editing
    • 13.2. History Substitution
    • 13.3. Key Bindings
    • 13.4. Alternatives to the Interactive Interpreter
  • 14. Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and Limitations
    • 14.1. Representation Error
• Using Python
  • 1. Command line and environment
    • 1.1. Command line
      • 1.1.1. Interface options
      • 1.1.2. Generic options
      • 1.1.3. Miscellaneous options
      • 1.1.4. Options you shouldn’t use
    • 1.2. Environment variables
      • 1.2.1. Debug-mode variables
  • 2. Using Python on Unix platforms
    • 2.1. Getting and installing the latest version of Python
      • 2.1.1. On Linux
      • 2.1.2. On FreeBSD and OpenBSD
      • 2.1.3. On OpenSolaris
    • 2.2. Building Python
    • 2.3. Python-related paths and files
    • 2.4. Miscellaneous
    • 2.5. Editors
  • 3. Using Python on Windows
    • 3.1. Installing Python
    • 3.2. Alternative bundles
    • 3.3. Configuring Python
      • 3.3.1. Excursus: Setting environment variables
      • 3.3.2. Finding the Python executable
      • 3.3.3. Finding modules
      • 3.3.4. Executing scripts
    • 3.4. Additional modules
      • 3.4.1. PyWin32
      • 3.4.2. Py2exe
      • 3.4.3. WConio
    • 3.5. Compiling Python on Windows
    • 3.6. Other resources
  • 4. Using Python on a Macintosh
    • 4.1. Getting and Installing MacPython
      • 4.1.1. How to run a Python script
      • 4.1.2. Running scripts with a GUI
      • 4.1.3. Configuration
    • 4.2. The IDE
    • 4.3. Installing Additional Python Packages
    • 4.4. GUI Programming on the Mac
    • 4.5. Distributing Python Applications on the Mac
    • 4.6. Application Scripting
    • 4.7. Other Resources
• The Python Language Reference
  • 1. Introduction
    • 1.1. Alternate Implementations
    • 1.2. Notation
  • 2. Lexical analysis
    • 2.1. Line structure
      • 2.1.1. Logical lines
      • 2.1.2. Physical lines
      • 2.1.3. Comments
      • 2.1.4. Encoding declarations
      • 2.1.5. Explicit line joining
      • 2.1.6. Implicit line joining
      • 2.1.7. Blank lines
      • 2.1.8. Indentation
      • 2.1.9. Whitespace between tokens
    • 2.2. Other tokens
    • 2.3. Identifiers and keywords
      • 2.3.1. Keywords
      • 2.3.2. Reserved classes of identifiers
    • 2.4. Literals
      • 2.4.1. String literals
      • 2.4.2. String literal concatenation
      • 2.4.3. Numeric literals
      • 2.4.4. Integer and long integer literals
      • 2.4.5. Floating point literals
      • 2.4.6. Imaginary literals
    • 2.5. Operators
    • 2.6. Delimiters
  • 3. Data model
    • 3.1. Objects, values and types
    • 3.2. The standard type hierarchy
    • 3.3. New-style and classic classes
    • 3.4. Special method names
      • 3.4.1. Basic customization
      • 3.4.2. Customizing attribute access
        • 3.4.2.1. More attribute access for new-style classes
        • 3.4.2.2. Implementing Descriptors
        • 3.4.2.3. Invoking Descriptors
        • 3.4.2.4. __slots__
      • 3.4.3. Customizing class creation
      • 3.4.4. Customizing instance and subclass checks
      • 3.4.5. Emulating callable objects
      • 3.4.6. Emulating container types
      • 3.4.7. Additional methods for emulation of sequence types
      • 3.4.8. Emulating numeric types
      • 3.4.9. Coercion rules
      • 3.4.10. With Statement Context Managers
      • 3.4.11. Special method lookup for old-style classes
      • 3.4.12. Special method lookup for new-style classes
  • 4. Execution model
    • 4.1. Naming and binding
      • 4.1.1. Interaction with dynamic features
    • 4.2. Exceptions
  • 5. Expressions
    • 5.1. Arithmetic conversions
    • 5.2. Atoms
      • 5.2.1. Identifiers (Names)
      • 5.2.2. Literals
      • 5.2.3. Parenthesized forms
      • 5.2.4. List displays
      • 5.2.5. Generator expressions
      • 5.2.6. Dictionary displays
      • 5.2.7. String conversions
      • 5.2.8. Yield expressions
    • 5.3. Primaries
      • 5.3.1. Attribute references
      • 5.3.2. Subscriptions
      • 5.3.3. Slicings
      • 5.3.4. Calls
    • 5.4. The power operator
    • 5.5. Unary arithmetic and bitwise operations
    • 5.6. Binary arithmetic operations
    • 5.7. Shifting operations
    • 5.8. Binary bitwise operations
    • 5.9. Comparisons
    • 5.10. Boolean operations
    • 5.11. Conditional Expressions
    • 5.12. Lambdas
    • 5.13. Expression lists
    • 5.14. Evaluation order
    • 5.15. Summary
  • 6. Simple statements
    • 6.1. Expression statements
    • 6.2. Assignment statements
      • 6.2.1. Augmented assignment statements
    • 6.3. The assert statement
    • 6.4. The pass statement
    • 6.5. The del statement
    • 6.6. The print statement
    • 6.7. The return statement
    • 6.8. The yield statement
    • 6.9. The raise statement
    • 6.10. The break statement
    • 6.11. The continue statement
    • 6.12. The import statement
      • 6.12.1. Future statements
    • 6.13. The global statement
    • 6.14. The exec statement
  • 7. Compound statements
    • 7.1. The if statement
    • 7.2. The while statement
    • 7.3. The for statement
    • 7.4. The try statement
    • 7.5. The with statement
    • 7.6. Function definitions
    • 7.7. Class definitions
  • 8. Top-level components
    • 8.1. Complete Python programs
    • 8.2. File input
    • 8.3. Interactive input
    • 8.4. Expression input
  • 9. Full Grammar specification
• The Python Standard Library
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Built-in Functions
  • 3. Non-essential Built-in Functions
  • 4. Built-in Constants
    • 4.1. Constants added by the site module
  • 5. Built-in Types
    • 5.1. Truth Value Testing
    • 5.2. Boolean Operations — and, or, not
    • 5.3. Comparisons
    • 5.4. Numeric Types — int, float, long, complex
      • 5.4.1. Bit-string Operations on Integer Types
      • 5.4.2. Additional Methods on Float
    • 5.5. Iterator Types
      • 5.5.1. Generator Types
    • 5.6. Sequence Types — str, unicode, list, tuple, buffer, xrange
      • 5.6.1. String Methods
      • 5.6.2. String Formatting Operations
      • 5.6.3. XRange Type
      • 5.6.4. Mutable Sequence Types
    • 5.7. Set Types — set, frozenset
    • 5.8. Mapping Types — dict
    • 5.9. File Objects
    • 5.10. Context Manager Types
    • 5.11. Other Built-in Types
      • 5.11.1. Modules
      • 5.11.2. Classes and Class Instances
      • 5.11.3. Functions
      • 5.11.4. Methods
      • 5.11.5. Code Objects
      • 5.11.6. Type Objects
      • 5.11.7. The Null Object
      • 5.11.8. The Ellipsis Object
      • 5.11.9. Boolean Values
      • 5.11.10. Internal Objects
    • 5.12. Special Attributes
  • 6. Built-in Exceptions
    • 6.1. Exception hierarchy
  • 7. String Services
    • 7.1. string — Common string operations
      • 7.1.1. String constants
      • 7.1.2. String Formatting
      • 7.1.3. Format String Syntax
        • 7.1.3.1. Format Specification Mini-Language
        • 7.1.3.2. Format examples
      • 7.1.4. Template strings
      • 7.1.5. String functions
      • 7.1.6. Deprecated string functions
    • 7.2. re — Regular expression operations
      • 7.2.1. Regular Expression Syntax
      • 7.2.2. Matching vs Searching
      • 7.2.3. Module Contents
      • 7.2.4. Regular Expression Objects
      • 7.2.5. Match Objects
      • 7.2.6. Examples
        • 7.2.6.1. Checking For a Pair
        • 7.2.6.2. Simulating scanf()
        • 7.2.6.3. Avoiding recursion
        • 7.2.6.4. search() vs. match()
        • 7.2.6.5. Making a Phonebook
        • 7.2.6.6. Text Munging
        • 7.2.6.7. Finding all Adverbs
        • 7.2.6.8. Finding all Adverbs and their Positions
        • 7.2.6.9. Raw String Notation
    • 7.3. struct — Interpret strings as packed binary data
      • 7.3.1. Functions and Exceptions
      • 7.3.2. Format Strings
        • 7.3.2.1. Byte Order, Size, and Alignment
        • 7.3.2.2. Format Characters
        • 7.3.2.3. Examples
      • 7.3.3. Classes
    • 7.4. difflib — Helpers for computing deltas
      • 7.4.1. SequenceMatcher Objects
      • 7.4.2. SequenceMatcher Examples
      • 7.4.3. Differ Objects
      • 7.4.4. Differ Example
      • 7.4.5. A command-line interface to difflib
    • 7.5. StringIO — Read and write strings as files
    • 7.6. cStringIO — Faster version of StringIO
    • 7.7. textwrap — Text wrapping and filling
    • 7.8. codecs — Codec registry and base classes
      • 7.8.1. Codec Base Classes
        • 7.8.1.1. Codec Objects
        • 7.8.1.2. IncrementalEncoder Objects
        • 7.8.1.3. IncrementalDecoder Objects
        • 7.8.1.4. StreamWriter Objects
        • 7.8.1.5. StreamReader Objects
        • 7.8.1.6. StreamReaderWriter Objects
        • 7.8.1.7. StreamRecoder Objects
      • 7.8.2. Encodings and Unicode
      • 7.8.3. Standard Encodings
      • 7.8.4. encodings.idna — Internationalized Domain Names in Applications
      • 7.8.5. encodings.utf_8_sig — UTF-8 codec with BOM signature
    • 7.9. unicodedata — Unicode Database
    • 7.10. stringprep — Internet String Preparation
    • 7.11. fpformat — Floating point conversions
  • 8. Data Types
    • 8.1. datetime — Basic date and time types
      • 8.1.1. Available Types
      • 8.1.2. timedelta Objects
      • 8.1.3. date Objects
      • 8.1.4. datetime Objects
      • 8.1.5. time Objects
      • 8.1.6. tzinfo Objects
      • 8.1.7. strftime() and strptime() Behavior
    • 8.2. calendar — General calendar-related functions
    • 8.3. collections — High-performance container datatypes
      • 8.3.1. ABCs - abstract base classes
      • 8.3.2. deque objects
        • 8.3.2.1. deque Recipes
      • 8.3.3. defaultdict objects
        • 8.3.3.1. defaultdict Examples
      • 8.3.4. namedtuple() Factory Function for Tuples with Named Fields
    • 8.4. heapq — Heap queue algorithm
      • 8.4.1. Theory
    • 8.5. bisect — Array bisection algorithm
      • 8.5.1. Examples
    • 8.6. array — Efficient arrays of numeric values
    • 8.7. sets — Unordered collections of unique elements
      • 8.7.1. Set Objects
      • 8.7.2. Example
      • 8.7.3. Protocol for automatic conversion to immutable
      • 8.7.4. Comparison to the built-in set types
    • 8.8. sched — Event scheduler
      • 8.8.1. Scheduler Objects
    • 8.9. mutex — Mutual exclusion support
      • 8.9.1. Mutex Objects
    • 8.10. queue — A synchronized queue class
      • 8.10.1. Queue Objects
    • 8.11. weakref — Weak references
      • 8.11.1. Weak Reference Objects
      • 8.11.2. Example
    • 8.12. UserDict — Class wrapper for dictionary objects
    • 8.13. UserList — Class wrapper for list objects
    • 8.14. UserString — Class wrapper for string objects
    • 8.15. types — Names for built-in types
    • 8.16. new — Creation of runtime internal objects
    • 8.17. copy — Shallow and deep copy operations
    • 8.18. pprint — Data pretty printer
      • 8.18.1. PrettyPrinter Objects
      • 8.18.2. pprint Example
    • 8.19. repr — Alternate repr() implementation
      • 8.19.1. Repr Objects
      • 8.19.2. Subclassing Repr Objects
  • 9. Numeric and Mathematical Modules
    • 9.1. numbers — Numeric abstract base classes
      • 9.1.1. The numeric tower
      • 9.1.2. Notes for type implementors
        • 9.1.2.1. Adding More Numeric ABCs
        • 9.1.2.2. Implementing the arithmetic operations
    • 9.2. math — Mathematical functions
      • 9.2.1. Number-theoretic and representation functions
      • 9.2.2. Power and logarithmic functions
      • 9.2.3. Trigonometric functions
      • 9.2.4. Angular conversion
      • 9.2.5. Hyperbolic functions
      • 9.2.6. Constants
    • 9.3. cmath — Mathematical functions for complex numbers
      • 9.3.1. Conversions to and from polar coordinates
      • 9.3.2. Power and logarithmic functions
      • 9.3.3. Trigonometric functions
      • 9.3.4. Hyperbolic functions
      • 9.3.5. Classification functions
      • 9.3.6. Constants
    • 9.4. decimal — Decimal fixed point and floating point arithmetic
      • 9.4.1. Quick-start Tutorial
      • 9.4.2. Decimal objects
        • 9.4.2.1. Logical operands
      • 9.4.3. Context objects
      • 9.4.4. Signals
      • 9.4.5. Floating Point Notes
        • 9.4.5.1. Mitigating round-off error with increased precision
        • 9.4.5.2. Special values
      • 9.4.6. Working with threads
      • 9.4.7. Recipes
      • 9.4.8. Decimal FAQ
    • 9.5. fractions — Rational numbers
    • 9.6. random — Generate pseudo-random numbers
    • 9.7. itertools — Functions creating iterators for efficient looping
      • 9.7.1. Itertool functions
      • 9.7.2. Examples
      • 9.7.3. Recipes
    • 9.8. functools — Higher order functions and operations on callable objects
      • 9.8.1. partial Objects
    • 9.9. operator — Standard operators as functions
      • 9.9.1. Mapping Operators to Functions
  • 10. File and Directory Access
    • 10.1. os.path — Common pathname manipulations
    • 10.2. fileinput — Iterate over lines from multiple input streams
    • 10.3. stat — Interpreting stat() results
    • 10.4. statvfs — Constants used with os.statvfs()
    • 10.5. filecmp — File and Directory Comparisons
      • 10.5.1. The dircmp class
    • 10.6. tempfile — Generate temporary files and directories
    • 10.7. glob — Unix style pathname pattern expansion
    • 10.8. fnmatch — Unix filename pattern matching
    • 10.9. linecache — Random access to text lines
    • 10.10. shutil — High-level file operations
      • 10.10.1. Example
    • 10.11. dircache — Cached directory listings
    • 10.12. macpath — Mac OS 9 path manipulation functions
  • 11. Data Persistence
    • 11.1. pickle — Python object serialization
      • 11.1.1. Relationship to other Python modules
      • 11.1.2. Data stream format
      • 11.1.3. Usage
      • 11.1.4. What can be pickled and unpickled?
      • 11.1.5. The pickle protocol
        • 11.1.5.1. Pickling and unpickling normal class instances
        • 11.1.5.2. Pickling and unpickling extension types
        • 11.1.5.3. Pickling and unpickling external objects
      • 11.1.6. Subclassing Unpicklers
      • 11.1.7. Example
    • 11.2. cPickle — A faster pickle
    • 11.3. copy_reg — Register pickle support functions
    • 11.4. shelve — Python object persistence
      • 11.4.1. Restrictions
      • 11.4.2. Example
    • 11.5. marshal — Internal Python object serialization
    • 11.6. anydbm — Generic access to DBM-style databases
    • 11.7. whichdb — Guess which DBM module created a database
    • 11.8. dbm — Simple “database” interface
    • 11.9. gdbm — GNU’s reinterpretation of dbm
    • 11.10. dbhash — DBM-style interface to the BSD database library
      • 11.10.1. Database Objects
    • 11.11. bsddb — Interface to Berkeley DB library
      • 11.11.1. Hash, BTree and Record Objects
    • 11.12. dumbdbm — Portable DBM implementation
      • 11.12.1. Dumbdbm Objects
    • 11.13. sqlite3 — DB-API 2.0 interface for SQLite databases
      • 11.13.1. Module functions and constants
      • 11.13.2. Connection Objects
      • 11.13.3. Cursor Objects
      • 11.13.4. Row Objects
      • 11.13.5. SQLite and Python types
        • 11.13.5.1. Introduction
        • 11.13.5.2. Using adapters to store additional Python types in SQLite databases
          • 11.13.5.2.1. Letting your object adapt itself
          • 11.13.5.2.2. Registering an adapter callable
        • 11.13.5.3. Converting SQLite values to custom Python types
        • 11.13.5.4. Default adapters and converters
      • 11.13.6. Controlling Transactions
      • 11.13.7. Using sqlite3 efficiently
        • 11.13.7.1. Using shortcut methods
        • 11.13.7.2. Accessing columns by name instead of by index
        • 11.13.7.3. Using the connection as a context manager
  • 12. Data Compression and Archiving
    • 12.1. zlib — Compression compatible with gzip
    • 12.2. gzip — Support for gzip files
      • 12.2.1. Examples of usage
    • 12.3. bz2 — Compression compatible with bzip2
      • 12.3.1. (De)compression of files
      • 12.3.2. Sequential (de)compression
      • 12.3.3. One-shot (de)compression
    • 12.4. zipfile — Work with ZIP archives
      • 12.4.1. ZipFile Objects
      • 12.4.2. PyZipFile Objects
      • 12.4.3. ZipInfo Objects
    • 12.5. tarfile — Read and write tar archive files
      • 12.5.1. TarFile Objects
      • 12.5.2. TarInfo Objects
      • 12.5.3. Examples
      • 12.5.4. Supported tar formats
      • 12.5.5. Unicode issues
  • 13. File Formats
    • 13.1. csv — CSV File Reading and Writing
      • 13.1.1. Module Contents
      • 13.1.2. Dialects and Formatting Parameters
      • 13.1.3. Reader Objects
      • 13.1.4. Writer Objects
      • 13.1.5. Examples
    • 13.2. ConfigParser — Configuration file parser
      • 13.2.1. RawConfigParser Objects
      • 13.2.2. ConfigParser Objects
      • 13.2.3. SafeConfigParser Objects
      • 13.2.4. Examples
    • 13.3. robotparser — Parser for robots.txt
    • 13.4. netrc — netrc file processing
      • 13.4.1. netrc Objects
    • 13.5. xdrlib — Encode and decode XDR data
      • 13.5.1. Packer Objects
      • 13.5.2. Unpacker Objects
      • 13.5.3. Exceptions
    • 13.6. plistlib — Generate and parse Mac OS X .plist files
      • 13.6.1. Examples
  • 14. Cryptographic Services
    • 14.1. hashlib — Secure hashes and message digests
    • 14.2. hmac — Keyed-Hashing for Message Authentication
    • 14.3. md5 — MD5 message digest algorithm
    • 14.4. sha — SHA-1 message digest algorithm
  • 15. Generic Operating System Services
    • 15.1. os — Miscellaneous operating system interfaces
      • 15.1.1. Process Parameters
      • 15.1.2. File Object Creation
      • 15.1.3. File Descriptor Operations
        • 15.1.3.1. open() flag constants
      • 15.1.4. Files and Directories
      • 15.1.5. Process Management
      • 15.1.6. Miscellaneous System Information
      • 15.1.7. Miscellaneous Functions
    • 15.2. io — Core tools for working with streams
      • 15.2.1. Module Interface
      • 15.2.2. I/O Base Classes
      • 15.2.3. Raw File I/O
      • 15.2.4. Buffered Streams
      • 15.2.5. Text I/O
    • 15.3. time — Time access and conversions
    • 15.4. optparse — More powerful command line option parser
      • 15.4.1. Background
        • 15.4.1.1. Terminology
        • 15.4.1.2. What are options for?
        • 15.4.1.3. What are positional arguments for?
      • 15.4.2. Tutorial
        • 15.4.2.1. Understanding option actions
        • 15.4.2.2. The store action
        • 15.4.2.3. Handling boolean (flag) options
        • 15.4.2.4. Other actions
        • 15.4.2.5. Default values
        • 15.4.2.6. Generating help
        • 15.4.2.7. Printing a version string
        • 15.4.2.8. How optparse handles errors
        • 15.4.2.9. Putting it all together
      • 15.4.3. Reference Guide
        • 15.4.3.1. Creating the parser
        • 15.4.3.2. Populating the parser
        • 15.4.3.3. Defining options
        • 15.4.3.4. Option attributes
        • 15.4.3.5. Standard option actions
        • 15.4.3.6. Standard option types
        • 15.4.3.7. Parsing arguments
        • 15.4.3.8. Querying and manipulating your option parser
        • 15.4.3.9. Conflicts between options
        • 15.4.3.10. Cleanup
        • 15.4.3.11. Other methods
      • 15.4.4. Option Callbacks
        • 15.4.4.1. Defining a callback option
        • 15.4.4.2. How callbacks are called
        • 15.4.4.3. Raising errors in a callback
        • 15.4.4.4. Callback example 1: trivial callback
        • 15.4.4.5. Callback example 2: check option order
        • 15.4.4.6. Callback example 3: check option order (generalized)
        • 15.4.4.7. Callback example 4: check arbitrary condition
        • 15.4.4.8. Callback example 5: fixed arguments
        • 15.4.4.9. Callback example 6: variable arguments
      • 15.4.5. Extending optparse
        • 15.4.5.1. Adding new types
        • 15.4.5.2. Adding new actions
    • 15.5. getopt — Parser for command line options
    • 15.6. logging — Logging facility for Python
      • 15.6.1. Logging tutorial
        • 15.6.1.1. Simple examples
        • 15.6.1.2. Loggers
        • 15.6.1.3. Handlers
        • 15.6.1.4. Formatters
        • 15.6.1.5. Configuring Logging
        • 15.6.1.6. Configuring Logging for a Library
      • 15.6.2. Logging Levels
      • 15.6.3. Useful Handlers
      • 15.6.4. Module-Level Functions
      • 15.6.5. Logger Objects
      • 15.6.6. Basic example
      • 15.6.7. Logging to multiple destinations
      • 15.6.8. Exceptions raised during logging
      • 15.6.9. Adding contextual information to your logging output
      • 15.6.10. Logging to a single file from multiple processes
      • 15.6.11. Sending and receiving logging events across a network
      • 15.6.12. Using arbitrary objects as messages
      • 15.6.13. Optimization
      • 15.6.14. Handler Objects
        • 15.6.14.1. StreamHandler
        • 15.6.14.2. FileHandler
        • 15.6.14.3. WatchedFileHandler
        • 15.6.14.4. RotatingFileHandler
        • 15.6.14.5. TimedRotatingFileHandler
        • 15.6.14.6. SocketHandler
        • 15.6.14.7. DatagramHandler
        • 15.6.14.8. SysLogHandler
        • 15.6.14.9. NTEventLogHandler
        • 15.6.14.10. SMTPHandler
        • 15.6.14.11. MemoryHandler
        • 15.6.14.12. HTTPHandler
      • 15.6.15. Formatter Objects
      • 15.6.16. Filter Objects
      • 15.6.17. LogRecord Objects
      • 15.6.18. LoggerAdapter Objects
      • 15.6.19. Thread Safety
      • 15.6.20. Configuration
        • 15.6.20.1. Configuration functions
        • 15.6.20.2. Configuration file format
        • 15.6.20.3. Configuration server example
      • 15.6.21. More examples
        • 15.6.21.1. Multiple handlers and formatters
        • 15.6.21.2. Using logging in multiple modules
    • 15.7. getpass — Portable password input
    • 15.8. curses — Terminal handling for character-cell displays
      • 15.8.1. Functions
      • 15.8.2. Window Objects
      • 15.8.3. Constants
    • 15.9. curses.textpad — Text input widget for curses programs
      • 15.9.1. Textbox objects
    • 15.10. curses.wrapper — Terminal handler for curses programs
    • 15.11. curses.ascii — Utilities for ASCII characters
    • 15.12. curses.panel — A panel stack extension for curses
      • 15.12.1. Functions
      • 15.12.2. Panel Objects
    • 15.13. platform — Access to underlying platform’s identifying data
      • 15.13.1. Cross Platform
      • 15.13.2. Java Platform
      • 15.13.3. Windows Platform
        • 15.13.3.1. Win95/98 specific
      • 15.13.4. Mac OS Platform
      • 15.13.5. Unix Platforms
    • 15.14. errno — Standard errno system symbols
    • 15.15. ctypes — A foreign function library for Python
      • 15.15.1. ctypes tutorial
        • 15.15.1.1. Loading dynamic link libraries
        • 15.15.1.2. Accessing functions from loaded dlls
        • 15.15.1.3. Calling functions
        • 15.15.1.4. Fundamental data types
        • 15.15.1.5. Calling functions, continued
        • 15.15.1.6. Calling functions with your own custom data types
        • 15.15.1.7. Specifying the required argument types (function prototypes)
        • 15.15.1.8. Return types
        • 15.15.1.9. Passing pointers (or: passing parameters by reference)
        • 15.15.1.10. Structures and unions
        • 15.15.1.11. Structure/union alignment and byte order
        • 15.15.1.12. Bit fields in structures and unions
        • 15.15.1.13. Arrays
        • 15.15.1.14. Pointers
        • 15.15.1.15. Type conversions
        • 15.15.1.16. Incomplete Types
        • 15.15.1.17. Callback functions
        • 15.15.1.18. Accessing values exported from dlls
        • 15.15.1.19. Surprises
        • 15.15.1.20. Variable-sized data types
      • 15.15.2. ctypes reference
        • 15.15.2.1. Finding shared libraries
        • 15.15.2.2. Loading shared libraries
        • 15.15.2.3. Foreign functions
        • 15.15.2.4. Function prototypes
        • 15.15.2.5. Utility functions
        • 15.15.2.6. Data types
        • 15.15.2.7. Fundamental data types
        • 15.15.2.8. Structured data types
        • 15.15.2.9. Arrays and pointers
  • 16. Optional Operating System Services
    • 16.1. select — Waiting for I/O completion
      • 16.1.1. Edge and Level Trigger Polling (epoll) Objects
      • 16.1.2. Polling Objects
      • 16.1.3. Kqueue Objects
      • 16.1.4. Kevent Objects
    • 16.2. threading — Higher-level threading interface
      • 16.2.1. Thread Objects
      • 16.2.2. Lock Objects
      • 16.2.3. RLock Objects
      • 16.2.4. Condition Objects
      • 16.2.5. Semaphore Objects
        • 16.2.5.1. Semaphore Example
      • 16.2.6. Event Objects
      • 16.2.7. Timer Objects
      • 16.2.8. Using locks, conditions, and semaphores in the with statement
      • 16.2.9. Importing in threaded code
    • 16.3. thread — Multiple threads of control
    • 16.4. dummy_threading — Drop-in replacement for the threading module
    • 16.5. dummy_thread — Drop-in replacement for the thread module
    • 16.6. multiprocessing — Process-based “threading” interface
      • 16.6.1. Introduction
        • 16.6.1.1. The Process class
        • 16.6.1.2. Exchanging objects between processes
        • 16.6.1.3. Synchronization between processes
        • 16.6.1.4. Sharing state between processes
        • 16.6.1.5. Using a pool of workers
      • 16.6.2. Reference
        • 16.6.2.1. Process and exceptions
        • 16.6.2.2. Pipes and Queues
        • 16.6.2.3. Miscellaneous
        • 16.6.2.4. Connection Objects
        • 16.6.2.5. Synchronization primitives
        • 16.6.2.6. Shared ctypes Objects
          • 16.6.2.6.1. The multiprocessing.sharedctypes module
        • 16.6.2.7. Managers
          • 16.6.2.7.1. Namespace objects
          • 16.6.2.7.2. Customized managers
          • 16.6.2.7.3. Using a remote manager
        • 16.6.2.8. Proxy Objects
          • 16.6.2.8.1. Cleanup
        • 16.6.2.9. Process Pools
        • 16.6.2.10. Listeners and Clients
          • 16.6.2.10.1. Address Formats
        • 16.6.2.11. Authentication keys
        • 16.6.2.12. Logging
        • 16.6.2.13. The multiprocessing.dummy module
      • 16.6.3. Programming guidelines
        • 16.6.3.1. All platforms
        • 16.6.3.2. Windows
      • 16.6.4. Examples
    • 16.7. mmap — Memory-mapped file support
    • 16.8. readline — GNU readline interface
      • 16.8.1. Example
    • 16.9. rlcompleter — Completion function for GNU readline
      • 16.9.1. Completer Objects
  • 17. Interprocess Communication and Networking
    • 17.1. subprocess — Subprocess management
      • 17.1.1. Using the subprocess Module
        • 17.1.1.1. Convenience Functions
        • 17.1.1.2. Exceptions
        • 17.1.1.3. Security
      • 17.1.2. Popen Objects
      • 17.1.3. Replacing Older Functions with the subprocess Module
        • 17.1.3.1. Replacing /bin/sh shell backquote
        • 17.1.3.2. Replacing shell pipeline
        • 17.1.3.3. Replacing os.system()
        • 17.1.3.4. Replacing the os.spawn family
        • 17.1.3.5. Replacing os.popen(), os.popen2(), os.popen3()
        • 17.1.3.6. Replacing functions from the popen2 module
    • 17.2. socket — Low-level networking interface
      • 17.2.1. Socket Objects
      • 17.2.2. Example
    • 17.3. ssl — SSL wrapper for socket objects
      • 17.3.1. Functions, Constants, and Exceptions
      • 17.3.2. SSLSocket Objects
      • 17.3.3. Certificates
      • 17.3.4. Examples
        • 17.3.4.1. Testing for SSL support
        • 17.3.4.2. Client-side operation
        • 17.3.4.3. Server-side operation
    • 17.4. signal — Set handlers for asynchronous events
      • 17.4.1. Example
    • 17.5. popen2 — Subprocesses with accessible I/O streams
      • 17.5.1. Popen3 and Popen4 Objects
      • 17.5.2. Flow Control Issues
    • 17.6. asyncore — Asynchronous socket handler
      • 17.6.1. asyncore Example basic HTTP client
    • 17.7. asynchat — Asynchronous socket command/response handler
      • 17.7.1. asynchat - Auxiliary Classes
      • 17.7.2. asynchat Example
  • 18. Internet Data Handling
    • 18.1. email — An email and MIME handling package
      • 18.1.1. email: Representing an email message
      • 18.1.2. email: Parsing email messages
        • 18.1.2.1. FeedParser API
        • 18.1.2.2. Parser class API
        • 18.1.2.3. Additional notes
      • 18.1.3. email: Generating MIME documents
      • 18.1.4. email: Creating email and MIME objects from scratch
      • 18.1.5. email: Internationalized headers
      • 18.1.6. email: Representing character sets
      • 18.1.7. email: Encoders
      • 18.1.8. email: Exception and Defect classes
      • 18.1.9. email: Miscellaneous utilities
      • 18.1.10. email: Iterators
      • 18.1.11. email: Examples
      • 18.1.12. Package History
      • 18.1.13. Differences from mimelib
    • 18.2. json — JSON encoder and decoder
      • 18.2.1. Basic Usage
      • 18.2.2. Encoders and decoders
    • 18.3. mailcap — Mailcap file handling
    • 18.4. mailbox — Manipulate mailboxes in various formats
      • 18.4.1. Mailbox objects
        • 18.4.1.1. Maildir
        • 18.4.1.2. mbox
        • 18.4.1.3. MH
        • 18.4.1.4. Babyl
        • 18.4.1.5. MMDF
      • 18.4.2. Message objects
        • 18.4.2.1. MaildirMessage
        • 18.4.2.2. mboxMessage
        • 18.4.2.3. MHMessage
        • 18.4.2.4. BabylMessage
        • 18.4.2.5. MMDFMessage
      • 18.4.3. Exceptions
      • 18.4.4. Deprecated classes and methods
      • 18.4.5. Examples
    • 18.5. mhlib — Access to MH mailboxes
      • 18.5.1. MH Objects
      • 18.5.2. Folder Objects
      • 18.5.3. Message Objects
    • 18.6. mimetools — Tools for parsing MIME messages
      • 18.6.1. Additional Methods of Message Objects
    • 18.7. mimetypes — Map filenames to MIME types
      • 18.7.1. MimeTypes Objects
    • 18.8. MimeWriter — Generic MIME file writer
      • 18.8.1. MimeWriter Objects
    • 18.9. mimify — MIME processing of mail messages
    • 18.10. multifile — Support for files containing distinct parts
      • 18.10.1. MultiFile Objects
      • 18.10.2. MultiFile Example
    • 18.11. rfc822 — Parse RFC 2822 mail headers
      • 18.11.1. Message Objects
      • 18.11.2. AddressList Objects
    • 18.12. base64 — RFC 3548: Base16, Base32, Base64 Data Encodings
    • 18.13. binhex — Encode and decode binhex4 files
      • 18.13.1. Notes
    • 18.14. binascii — Convert between binary and ASCII
    • 18.15. quopri — Encode and decode MIME quoted-printable data
    • 18.16. uu — Encode and decode uuencode files
  • 19. Structured Markup Processing Tools
    • 19.1. HTMLParser — Simple HTML and XHTML parser
      • 19.1.1. Example HTML Parser Application
    • 19.2. sgmllib — Simple SGML parser
    • 19.3. htmllib — A parser for HTML documents
      • 19.3.1. HTMLParser Objects
    • 19.4. htmlentitydefs — Definitions of HTML general entities
    • 19.5. xml.parsers.expat — Fast XML parsing using Expat
      • 19.5.1. XMLParser Objects
      • 19.5.2. ExpatError Exceptions
      • 19.5.3. Example
      • 19.5.4. Content Model Descriptions
      • 19.5.5. Expat error constants
    • 19.6. xml.dom — The Document Object Model API
      • 19.6.1. Module Contents
      • 19.6.2. Objects in the DOM
        • 19.6.2.1. DOMImplementation Objects
        • 19.6.2.2. Node Objects
        • 19.6.2.3. NodeList Objects
        • 19.6.2.4. DocumentType Objects
        • 19.6.2.5. Document Objects
        • 19.6.2.6. Element Objects
        • 19.6.2.7. Attr Objects
        • 19.6.2.8. NamedNodeMap Objects
        • 19.6.2.9. Comment Objects
        • 19.6.2.10. Text and CDATASection Objects
        • 19.6.2.11. ProcessingInstruction Objects
        • 19.6.2.12. Exceptions
      • 19.6.3. Conformance
        • 19.6.3.1. Type Mapping
        • 19.6.3.2. Accessor Methods
    • 19.7. xml.dom.minidom — Lightweight DOM implementation
      • 19.7.1. DOM Objects
      • 19.7.2. DOM Example
      • 19.7.3. minidom and the DOM standard
    • 19.8. xml.dom.pulldom — Support for building partial DOM trees
      • 19.8.1. DOMEventStream Objects
    • 19.9. xml.sax — Support for SAX2 parsers
      • 19.9.1. SAXException Objects
    • 19.10. xml.sax.handler — Base classes for SAX handlers
      • 19.10.1. ContentHandler Objects
      • 19.10.2. DTDHandler Objects
      • 19.10.3. EntityResolver Objects
      • 19.10.4. ErrorHandler Objects
    • 19.11. xml.sax.saxutils — SAX Utilities
    • 19.12. xml.sax.xmlreader — Interface for XML parsers
      • 19.12.1. XMLReader Objects
      • 19.12.2. IncrementalParser Objects
      • 19.12.3. Locator Objects
      • 19.12.4. InputSource Objects
      • 19.12.5. The Attributes Interface
      • 19.12.6. The AttributesNS Interface
    • 19.13. xml.etree.ElementTree — The ElementTree XML API
      • 19.13.1. Functions
      • 19.13.2. The Element Interface
      • 19.13.3. ElementTree Objects
      • 19.13.4. QName Objects
      • 19.13.5. TreeBuilder Objects
      • 19.13.6. XMLTreeBuilder Objects
  • 20. Internet Protocols and Support
    • 20.1. webbrowser — Convenient Web-browser controller
      • 20.1.1. Browser Controller Objects
    • 20.2. cgi — Common Gateway Interface support
      • 20.2.1. Introduction
      • 20.2.2. Using the cgi module
      • 20.2.3. Higher Level Interface
      • 20.2.4. Old classes
      • 20.2.5. Functions
      • 20.2.6. Caring about security
      • 20.2.7. Installing your CGI script on a Unix system
      • 20.2.8. Testing your CGI script
      • 20.2.9. Debugging CGI scripts
      • 20.2.10. Common problems and solutions
    • 20.3. cgitb — Traceback manager for CGI scripts
    • 20.4. wsgiref — WSGI Utilities and Reference Implementation
      • 20.4.1. wsgiref.util – WSGI environment utilities
      • 20.4.2. wsgiref.headers – WSGI response header tools
      • 20.4.3. wsgiref.simple_server – a simple WSGI HTTP server
      • 20.4.4. wsgiref.validate — WSGI conformance checker
      • 20.4.5. wsgiref.handlers – server/gateway base classes
      • 20.4.6. Examples
    • 20.5. urllib — Open arbitrary resources by URL
      • 20.5.1. High-level interface
      • 20.5.2. Utility functions
      • 20.5.3. URL Opener objects
      • 20.5.4. urllib Restrictions
      • 20.5.5. Examples
    • 20.6. urllib2 — extensible library for opening URLs
      • 20.6.1. Request Objects
      • 20.6.2. OpenerDirector Objects
      • 20.6.3. BaseHandler Objects
      • 20.6.4. HTTPRedirectHandler Objects
      • 20.6.5. HTTPCookieProcessor Objects
      • 20.6.6. ProxyHandler Objects
      • 20.6.7. HTTPPasswordMgr Objects
      • 20.6.8. AbstractBasicAuthHandler Objects
      • 20.6.9. HTTPBasicAuthHandler Objects
      • 20.6.10. ProxyBasicAuthHandler Objects
      • 20.6.11. AbstractDigestAuthHandler Objects
      • 20.6.12. HTTPDigestAuthHandler Objects
      • 20.6.13. ProxyDigestAuthHandler Objects
      • 20.6.14. HTTPHandler Objects
      • 20.6.15. HTTPSHandler Objects
      • 20.6.16. FileHandler Objects
      • 20.6.17. FTPHandler Objects
      • 20.6.18. CacheFTPHandler Objects
      • 20.6.19. UnknownHandler Objects
      • 20.6.20. HTTPErrorProcessor Objects
      • 20.6.21. Examples
    • 20.7. httplib — HTTP protocol client
      • 20.7.1. HTTPConnection Objects
      • 20.7.2. HTTPResponse Objects
      • 20.7.3. Examples
    • 20.8. ftplib — FTP protocol client
      • 20.8.1. FTP Objects
    • 20.9. poplib — POP3 protocol client
      • 20.9.1. POP3 Objects
      • 20.9.2. POP3 Example
    • 20.10. imaplib — IMAP4 protocol client
      • 20.10.1. IMAP4 Objects
      • 20.10.2. IMAP4 Example
    • 20.11. nntplib — NNTP protocol client
      • 20.11.1. NNTP Objects
    • 20.12. smtplib — SMTP protocol client
      • 20.12.1. SMTP Objects
      • 20.12.2. SMTP Example
    • 20.13. smtpd — SMTP Server
      • 20.13.1. SMTPServer Objects
      • 20.13.2. DebuggingServer Objects
      • 20.13.3. PureProxy Objects
      • 20.13.4. MailmanProxy Objects
    • 20.14. telnetlib — Telnet client
      • 20.14.1. Telnet Objects
      • 20.14.2. Telnet Example
    • 20.15. uuid — UUID objects according to RFC 4122
      • 20.15.1. Example
    • 20.16. urlparse — Parse URLs into components
      • 20.16.1. Results of urlparse() and urlsplit()
    • 20.17. SocketServer — A framework for network servers
      • 20.17.1. Server Creation Notes
      • 20.17.2. Server Objects
      • 20.17.3. RequestHandler Objects
      • 20.17.4. Examples
        • 20.17.4.1. SocketServer.TCPServer Example
        • 20.17.4.2. SocketServer.UDPServer Example
        • 20.17.4.3. Asynchronous Mixins
    • 20.18. BaseHTTPServer — Basic HTTP server
      • 20.18.1. More examples
    • 20.19. SimpleHTTPServer — Simple HTTP request handler
    • 20.20. CGIHTTPServer — CGI-capable HTTP request handler
    • 20.21. cookielib — Cookie handling for HTTP clients
      • 20.21.1. CookieJar and FileCookieJar Objects
      • 20.21.2. FileCookieJar subclasses and co-operation with web browsers
      • 20.21.3. CookiePolicy Objects
      • 20.21.4. DefaultCookiePolicy Objects
      • 20.21.5. Cookie Objects
      • 20.21.6. Examples
    • 20.22. Cookie — HTTP state management
      • 20.22.1. Cookie Objects
      • 20.22.2. Morsel Objects
      • 20.22.3. Example
    • 20.23. xmlrpclib — XML-RPC client access
      • 20.23.1. ServerProxy Objects
      • 20.23.2. Boolean Objects
      • 20.23.3. DateTime Objects
      • 20.23.4. Binary Objects
      • 20.23.5. Fault Objects
      • 20.23.6. ProtocolError Objects
      • 20.23.7. MultiCall Objects
      • 20.23.8. Convenience Functions
      • 20.23.9. Example of Client Usage
      • 20.23.10. Example of Client and Server Usage
    • 20.24. SimpleXMLRPCServer — Basic XML-RPC server
      • 20.24.1. SimpleXMLRPCServer Objects
        • 20.24.1.1. SimpleXMLRPCServer Example
      • 20.24.2. CGIXMLRPCRequestHandler
    • 20.25. DocXMLRPCServer — Self-documenting XML-RPC server
      • 20.25.1. DocXMLRPCServer Objects
      • 20.25.2. DocCGIXMLRPCRequestHandler
  • 21. Multimedia Services
    • 21.1. audioop — Manipulate raw audio data
    • 21.2. imageop — Manipulate raw image data
    • 21.3. aifc — Read and write AIFF and AIFC files
    • 21.4. sunau — Read and write Sun AU files
      • 21.4.1. AU_read Objects
      • 21.4.2. AU_write Objects
    • 21.5. wave — Read and write WAV files
      • 21.5.1. Wave_read Objects
      • 21.5.2. Wave_write Objects
    • 21.6. chunk — Read IFF chunked data
    • 21.7. colorsys — Conversions between color systems
    • 21.8. imghdr — Determine the type of an image
    • 21.9. sndhdr — Determine type of sound file
    • 21.10. ossaudiodev — Access to OSS-compatible audio devices
      • 21.10.1. Audio Device Objects
      • 21.10.2. Mixer Device Objects
  • 22. Internationalization
    • 22.1. gettext — Multilingual internationalization services
      • 22.1.1. GNU gettext API
      • 22.1.2. Class-based API
        • 22.1.2.1. The NullTranslations class
        • 22.1.2.2. The GNUTranslations class
        • 22.1.2.3. Solaris message catalog support
        • 22.1.2.4. The Catalog constructor
      • 22.1.3. Internationalizing your programs and modules
        • 22.1.3.1. Localizing your module
        • 22.1.3.2. Localizing your application
        • 22.1.3.3. Changing languages on the fly
        • 22.1.3.4. Deferred translations
        • 22.1.3.5. gettext() vs. lgettext()
      • 22.1.4. Acknowledgements
    • 22.2. locale — Internationalization services
      • 22.2.1. Background, details, hints, tips and caveats
      • 22.2.2. For extension writers and programs that embed Python
      • 22.2.3. Access to message catalogs
  • 23. Program Frameworks
    • 23.1. cmd — Support for line-oriented command interpreters
      • 23.1.1. Cmd Objects
    • 23.2. shlex — Simple lexical analysis
      • 23.2.1. shlex Objects
      • 23.2.2. Parsing Rules
  • 24. Graphical User Interfaces with Tk
    • 24.1. Tkinter — Python interface to Tcl/Tk
      • 24.1.1. Tkinter Modules
      • 24.1.2. Tkinter Life Preserver
        • 24.1.2.1. How To Use This Section
        • 24.1.2.2. A Simple Hello World Program
      • 24.1.3. A (Very) Quick Look at Tcl/Tk
      • 24.1.4. Mapping Basic Tk into Tkinter
      • 24.1.5. How Tk and Tkinter are Related
      • 24.1.6. Handy Reference
        • 24.1.6.1. Setting Options
        • 24.1.6.2. The Packer
        • 24.1.6.3. Packer Options
        • 24.1.6.4. Coupling Widget Variables
        • 24.1.6.5. The Window Manager
        • 24.1.6.6. Tk Option Data Types
        • 24.1.6.7. Bindings and Events
        • 24.1.6.8. The index Parameter
        • 24.1.6.9. Images
    • 24.2. Tix — Extension widgets for Tk
      • 24.2.1. Using Tix
      • 24.2.2. Tix Widgets
        • 24.2.2.1. Basic Widgets
        • 24.2.2.2. File Selectors
        • 24.2.2.3. Hierarchical ListBox
        • 24.2.2.4. Tabular ListBox
        • 24.2.2.5. Manager Widgets
        • 24.2.2.6. Image Types
        • 24.2.2.7. Miscellaneous Widgets
        • 24.2.2.8. Form Geometry Manager
      • 24.2.3. Tix Commands
    • 24.3. ScrolledText — Scrolled Text Widget
    • 24.4. turtle — Turtle graphics for Tk
      • 24.4.1. Introduction
      • 24.4.2. Overview over available Turtle and Screen methods
        • 24.4.2.1. Turtle methods
        • 24.4.2.2. Methods of TurtleScreen/Screen
      • 24.4.3. Methods of RawTurtle/Turtle and corresponding functions
        • 24.4.3.1. Turtle motion
        • 24.4.3.2. Tell Turtle’s state
        • 24.4.3.3. Settings for measurement
        • 24.4.3.4. Pen control
          • 24.4.3.4.1. Drawing state
          • 24.4.3.4.2. Color control
          • 24.4.3.4.3. Filling
          • 24.4.3.4.4. More drawing control
        • 24.4.3.5. Turtle state
          • 24.4.3.5.1. Visibility
          • 24.4.3.5.2. Appearance
        • 24.4.3.6. Using events
        • 24.4.3.7. Special Turtle methods
        • 24.4.3.8. Excursus about the use of compound shapes
      • 24.4.4. Methods of TurtleScreen/Screen and corresponding functions
        • 24.4.4.1. Window control
        • 24.4.4.2. Animation control
        • 24.4.4.3. Using screen events
        • 24.4.4.4. Settings and special methods
        • 24.4.4.5. Methods specific to Screen, not inherited from TurtleScreen
      • 24.4.5. The public classes of the module turtle
      • 24.4.6. Help and configuration
        • 24.4.6.1. How to use help
        • 24.4.6.2. Translation of docstrings into different languages
        • 24.4.6.3. How to configure Screen and Turtles
      • 24.4.7. Demo scripts
    • 24.5. IDLE
      • 24.5.1. Menus
        • 24.5.1.1. File menu
        • 24.5.1.2. Edit menu
        • 24.5.1.3. Windows menu
        • 24.5.1.4. Debug menu (in the Python Shell window only)
      • 24.5.2. Basic editing and navigation
        • 24.5.2.1. Automatic indentation
        • 24.5.2.2. Python Shell window
      • 24.5.3. Syntax colors
      • 24.5.4. Startup
        • 24.5.4.1. Command line usage
    • 24.6. Other Graphical User Interface Packages
  • 25. Development Tools
    • 25.1. pydoc — Documentation generator and online help system
    • 25.2. doctest — Test interactive Python examples
      • 25.2.1. Simple Usage: Checking Examples in Docstrings
      • 25.2.2. Simple Usage: Checking Examples in a Text File
      • 25.2.3. How It Works
        • 25.2.3.1. Which Docstrings Are Examined?
        • 25.2.3.2. How are Docstring Examples Recognized?
        • 25.2.3.3. What’s the Execution Context?
        • 25.2.3.4. What About Exceptions?
        • 25.2.3.5. Option Flags and Directives
        • 25.2.3.6. Warnings
      • 25.2.4. Basic API
      • 25.2.5. Unittest API
      • 25.2.6. Advanced API
        • 25.2.6.1. DocTest Objects
        • 25.2.6.2. Example Objects
        • 25.2.6.3. DocTestFinder objects
        • 25.2.6.4. DocTestParser objects
        • 25.2.6.5. DocTestRunner objects
        • 25.2.6.6. OutputChecker objects
      • 25.2.7. Debugging
      • 25.2.8. Soapbox
    • 25.3. unittest — Unit testing framework
      • 25.3.1. Basic example
      • 25.3.2. Organizing test code
      • 25.3.3. Re-using old test code
      • 25.3.4. Classes and functions
      • 25.3.5. TestCase Objects
      • 25.3.6. TestSuite Objects
      • 25.3.7. TestResult Objects
      • 25.3.8. TestLoader Objects
    • 25.4. 2to3 - Automated Python 2 to 3 code translation
      • 25.4.1. Using 2to3
      • 25.4.2. Fixers
      • 25.4.3. lib2to3 - 2to3’s library
    • 25.5. test — Regression tests package for Python
      • 25.5.1. Writing Unit Tests for the test package
      • 25.5.2. Running tests using test.regrtest
    • 25.6. test.test_support — Utility functions for tests
  • 26. Debugging and Profiling
    • 26.1. bdb — Debugger framework
    • 26.2. pdb — The Python Debugger
    • 26.3. Debugger Commands
    • 26.4. The Python Profilers
      • 26.4.1. Introduction to the profilers
      • 26.4.2. Instant User’s Manual
      • 26.4.3. What Is Deterministic Profiling?
      • 26.4.4. Reference Manual – profile and cProfile
        • 26.4.4.1. The Stats Class
      • 26.4.5. Limitations
      • 26.4.6. Calibration
      • 26.4.7. Extensions — Deriving Better Profilers
    • 26.5. hotshot — High performance logging profiler
      • 26.5.1. Profile Objects
      • 26.5.2. Using hotshot data
      • 26.5.3. Example Usage
    • 26.6. timeit — Measure execution time of small code snippets
      • 26.6.1. Command Line Interface
      • 26.6.2. Examples
    • 26.7. trace — Trace or track Python statement execution
      • 26.7.1. Command Line Usage
        • 26.7.1.1. Meta-options
        • 26.7.1.2. Main options
        • 26.7.1.3. Modifiers
        • 26.7.1.4. Filters
      • 26.7.2. Programming Interface
  • 27. Python Runtime Services
    • 27.1. sys — System-specific parameters and functions
    • 27.2. __builtin__ — Built-in objects
    • 27.3. future_builtins — Python 3 builtins
    • 27.4. __main__ — Top-level script environment
    • 27.5. warnings — Warning control
      • 27.5.1. Warning Categories
      • 27.5.2. The Warnings Filter
      • 27.5.3. Temporarily Suppressing Warnings
      • 27.5.4. Testing Warnings
      • 27.5.5. Available Functions
      • 27.5.6. Available Context Managers
    • 27.6. contextlib — Utilities for with-statement contexts
    • 27.7. abc — Abstract Base Classes
    • 27.8. atexit — Exit handlers
      • 27.8.1. atexit Example
    • 27.9. traceback — Print or retrieve a stack traceback
      • 27.9.1. Traceback Examples
    • 27.10. __future__ — Future statement definitions
    • 27.11. gc — Garbage Collector interface
    • 27.12. inspect — Inspect live objects
      • 27.12.1. Types and members
      • 27.12.2. Retrieving source code
      • 27.12.3. Classes and functions
      • 27.12.4. The interpreter stack
    • 27.13. site — Site-specific configuration hook
    • 27.14. user — User-specific configuration hook
    • 27.15. fpectl — Floating point exception control
      • 27.15.1. Example
      • 27.15.2. Limitations and other considerations
    • 27.16. distutils — Building and installing Python modules
  • 28. Custom Python Interpreters
    • 28.1. code — Interpreter base classes
      • 28.1.1. Interactive Interpreter Objects
      • 28.1.2. Interactive Console Objects
    • 28.2. codeop — Compile Python code
  • 29. Restricted Execution
    • 29.1. rexec — Restricted execution framework
      • 29.1.1. RExec Objects
      • 29.1.2. Defining restricted environments
      • 29.1.3. An example
    • 29.2. Bastion — Restricting access to objects
  • 30. Importing Modules
    • 30.1. imp — Access the import internals
      • 30.1.1. Examples
    • 30.2. imputil — Import utilities
      • 30.2.1. Examples
    • 30.3. zipimport — Import modules from Zip archives
      • 30.3.1. zipimporter Objects
      • 30.3.2. Examples
    • 30.4. pkgutil — Package extension utility
    • 30.5. modulefinder — Find modules used by a script
      • 30.5.1. Example usage of ModuleFinder
    • 30.6. runpy — Locating and executing Python modules
  • 31. Python Language Services
    • 31.1. parser — Access Python parse trees
      • 31.1.1. Creating ST Objects
      • 31.1.2. Converting ST Objects
      • 31.1.3. Queries on ST Objects
      • 31.1.4. Exceptions and Error Handling
      • 31.1.5. ST Objects
      • 31.1.6. Examples
        • 31.1.6.1. Emulation of compile()
        • 31.1.6.2. Information Discovery
    • 31.2. Abstract Syntax Trees
      • 31.2.1. Node classes
      • 31.2.2. Abstract Grammar
      • 31.2.3. ast Helpers
    • 31.3. symtable — Access to the compiler’s symbol tables
      • 31.3.1. Generating Symbol Tables
      • 31.3.2. Examining Symbol Tables
    • 31.4. symbol — Constants used with Python parse trees
    • 31.5. token — Constants used with Python parse trees
    • 31.6. keyword — Testing for Python keywords
    • 31.7. tokenize — Tokenizer for Python source
    • 31.8. tabnanny — Detection of ambiguous indentation
    • 31.9. pyclbr — Python class browser support
      • 31.9.1. Class Objects
      • 31.9.2. Function Objects
    • 31.10. py_compile — Compile Python source files
    • 31.11. compileall — Byte-compile Python libraries
    • 31.12. dis — Disassembler for Python bytecode
      • 31.12.1. Python Bytecode Instructions
    • 31.13. pickletools — Tools for pickle developers
  • 32. Python compiler package
    • 32.1. The basic interface
    • 32.2. Limitations
    • 32.3. Python Abstract Syntax
      • 32.3.1. AST Nodes
      • 32.3.2. Assignment nodes
      • 32.3.3. Examples
    • 32.4. Using Visitors to Walk ASTs
    • 32.5. Bytecode Generation
  • 33. Miscellaneous Services
    • 33.1. formatter — Generic output formatting
      • 33.1.1. The Formatter Interface
      • 33.1.2. Formatter Implementations
      • 33.1.3. The Writer Interface
      • 33.1.4. Writer Implementations
  • 34. MS Windows Specific Services
    • 34.1. msilib — Read and write Microsoft Installer files
      • 34.1.1. Database Objects
      • 34.1.2. View Objects
      • 34.1.3. Summary Information Objects
      • 34.1.4. Record Objects
      • 34.1.5. Errors
      • 34.1.6. CAB Objects
      • 34.1.7. Directory Objects
      • 34.1.8. Features
      • 34.1.9. GUI classes
      • 34.1.10. Precomputed tables
    • 34.2. msvcrt – Useful routines from the MS VC++ runtime
      • 34.2.1. File Operations
      • 34.2.2. Console I/O
      • 34.2.3. Other Functions
    • 34.3. _winreg – Windows registry access
      • 34.3.1. Constants
        • 34.3.1.1. HKEY_* Constants
        • 34.3.1.2. Access Rights
          • 34.3.1.2.1. 64-bit Specific
        • 34.3.1.3. Value Types
      • 34.3.2. Registry Handle Objects
    • 34.4. winsound — Sound-playing interface for Windows
  • 35. Unix Specific Services
    • 35.1. posix — The most common POSIX system calls
      • 35.1.1. Large File Support
      • 35.1.2. Notable Module Contents
    • 35.2. pwd — The password database
    • 35.3. spwd — The shadow password database
    • 35.4. grp — The group database
    • 35.5. crypt — Function to check Unix passwords
    • 35.6. dl — Call C functions in shared objects
      • 35.6.1. Dl Objects
    • 35.7. termios — POSIX style tty control
      • 35.7.1. Example
    • 35.8. tty — Terminal control functions
    • 35.9. pty — Pseudo-terminal utilities
    • 35.10. fcntl — The fcntl() and ioctl() system calls
    • 35.11. pipes — Interface to shell pipelines
      • 35.11.1. Template Objects
    • 35.12. posixfile — File-like objects with locking support
    • 35.13. resource — Resource usage information
      • 35.13.1. Resource Limits
      • 35.13.2. Resource Usage
    • 35.14. nis — Interface to Sun’s NIS (Yellow Pages)
    • 35.15. syslog — Unix syslog library routines
    • 35.16. commands — Utilities for running commands
  • 36. Mac OS X specific services
    • 36.1. ic — Access to the Mac OS X Internet Config
      • 36.1.1. IC Objects
    • 36.2. MacOS — Access to Mac OS interpreter features
    • 36.3. macostools — Convenience routines for file manipulation
    • 36.4. findertools — The finder‘s Apple Events interface
    • 36.5. EasyDialogs — Basic Macintosh dialogs
      • 36.5.1. ProgressBar Objects
    • 36.6. FrameWork — Interactive application framework
      • 36.6.1. Application Objects
      • 36.6.2. Window Objects
      • 36.6.3. ControlsWindow Object
      • 36.6.4. ScrolledWindow Object
      • 36.6.5. DialogWindow Objects
    • 36.7. autoGIL — Global Interpreter Lock handling in event loops
    • 36.8. Mac OS Toolbox Modules
      • 36.8.1. Carbon.AE — Apple Events
      • 36.8.2. Carbon.AH — Apple Help
      • 36.8.3. Carbon.App — Appearance Manager
      • 36.8.4. Carbon.Appearance — Appearance Manager constants
      • 36.8.5. Carbon.CF — Core Foundation
      • 36.8.6. Carbon.CG — Core Graphics
      • 36.8.7. Carbon.CarbonEvt — Carbon Event Manager
      • 36.8.8. Carbon.CarbonEvents — Carbon Event Manager constants
      • 36.8.9. Carbon.Cm — Component Manager
      • 36.8.10. Carbon.Components — Component Manager constants
      • 36.8.11. Carbon.ControlAccessor — Control Manager accssors
      • 36.8.12. Carbon.Controls — Control Manager constants
      • 36.8.13. Carbon.CoreFounation — CoreFounation constants
      • 36.8.14. Carbon.CoreGraphics — CoreGraphics constants
      • 36.8.15. Carbon.Ctl — Control Manager
      • 36.8.16. Carbon.Dialogs — Dialog Manager constants
      • 36.8.17. Carbon.Dlg — Dialog Manager
      • 36.8.18. Carbon.Drag — Drag and Drop Manager
      • 36.8.19. Carbon.Dragconst — Drag and Drop Manager constants
      • 36.8.20. Carbon.Events — Event Manager constants
      • 36.8.21. Carbon.Evt — Event Manager
      • 36.8.22. Carbon.File — File Manager
      • 36.8.23. Carbon.Files — File Manager constants
      • 36.8.24. Carbon.Fm — Font Manager
      • 36.8.25. Carbon.Folder — Folder Manager
      • 36.8.26. Carbon.Folders — Folder Manager constants
      • 36.8.27. Carbon.Fonts — Font Manager constants
      • 36.8.28. Carbon.Help — Help Manager
      • 36.8.29. Carbon.IBCarbon — Carbon InterfaceBuilder
      • 36.8.30. Carbon.IBCarbonRuntime — Carbon InterfaceBuilder constants
      • 36.8.31. Carbon.Icn — Carbon Icon Manager
      • 36.8.32. Carbon.Icons — Carbon Icon Manager constants
      • 36.8.33. Carbon.Launch — Carbon Launch Services
      • 36.8.34. Carbon.LaunchServices — Carbon Launch Services constants
      • 36.8.35. Carbon.List — List Manager
      • 36.8.36. Carbon.Lists — List Manager constants
      • 36.8.37. Carbon.MacHelp — Help Manager constants
      • 36.8.38. Carbon.MediaDescr — Parsers and generators for Quicktime Media descriptors
      • 36.8.39. Carbon.Menu — Menu Manager
      • 36.8.40. Carbon.Menus — Menu Manager constants
      • 36.8.41. Carbon.Mlte — MultiLingual Text Editor
      • 36.8.42. Carbon.OSA — Carbon OSA Interface
      • 36.8.43. Carbon.OSAconst — Carbon OSA Interface constants
      • 36.8.44. Carbon.QDOffscreen — QuickDraw Offscreen constants
      • 36.8.45. Carbon.Qd — QuickDraw
      • 36.8.46. Carbon.Qdoffs — QuickDraw Offscreen
      • 36.8.47. Carbon.Qt — QuickTime
      • 36.8.48. Carbon.QuickDraw — QuickDraw constants
      • 36.8.49. Carbon.QuickTime — QuickTime constants
      • 36.8.50. Carbon.Res — Resource Manager and Handles
      • 36.8.51. Carbon.Resources — Resource Manager and Handles constants
      • 36.8.52. Carbon.Scrap — Scrap Manager
      • 36.8.53. Carbon.Snd — Sound Manager
      • 36.8.54. Carbon.Sound — Sound Manager constants
      • 36.8.55. Carbon.TE — TextEdit
      • 36.8.56. Carbon.TextEdit — TextEdit constants
      • 36.8.57. Carbon.Win — Window Manager
      • 36.8.58. Carbon.Windows — Window Manager constants
    • 36.9. ColorPicker — Color selection dialog
  • 37. MacPython OSA Modules
    • 37.1. gensuitemodule — Generate OSA stub packages
    • 37.2. aetools — OSA client support
    • 37.3. aepack — Conversion between Python variables and AppleEvent data containers
    • 37.4. aetypes — AppleEvent objects
    • 37.5. MiniAEFrame — Open Scripting Architecture server support
      • 37.5.1. AEServer Objects
  • 38. SGI IRIX Specific Services
    • 38.1. al — Audio functions on the SGI
      • 38.1.1. Configuration Objects
      • 38.1.2. Port Objects
    • 38.2. AL — Constants used with the al module
    • 38.3. cd — CD-ROM access on SGI systems
      • 38.3.1. Player Objects
      • 38.3.2. Parser Objects
    • 38.4. fl — FORMS library for graphical user interfaces
      • 38.4.1. Functions Defined in Module fl
      • 38.4.2. Form Objects
      • 38.4.3. FORMS Objects
    • 38.5. FL — Constants used with the fl module
    • 38.6. flp — Functions for loading stored FORMS designs
    • 38.7. fm — Font Manager interface
    • 38.8. gl — Graphics Library interface
    • 38.9. DEVICE — Constants used with the gl module
    • 38.10. GL — Constants used with the gl module
    • 38.11. imgfile — Support for SGI imglib files
    • 38.12. jpeg — Read and write JPEG files
  • 39. SunOS Specific Services
    • 39.1. sunaudiodev — Access to Sun audio hardware
      • 39.1.1. Audio Device Objects
    • 39.2. SUNAUDIODEV — Constants used with sunaudiodev
  • 40. Undocumented Modules
    • 40.1. Miscellaneous useful utilities
    • 40.2. Platform specific modules
    • 40.3. Multimedia
    • 40.4. Undocumented Mac OS modules
      • 40.4.1. applesingle — AppleSingle decoder
      • 40.4.2. buildtools — Helper module for BuildApplet and Friends
      • 40.4.3. cfmfile — Code Fragment Resource module
      • 40.4.4. icopen — Internet Config replacement for open()
      • 40.4.5. macerrors — Mac OS Errors
      • 40.4.6. macresource — Locate script resources
      • 40.4.7. Nav — NavServices calls
      • 40.4.8. PixMapWrapper — Wrapper for PixMap objects
      • 40.4.9. videoreader — Read QuickTime movies
      • 40.4.10. W — Widgets built on FrameWork
    • 40.5. Obsolete
    • 40.6. SGI-specific Extension modules
• Extending and Embedding the Python Interpreter
  • 1. Extending Python with C or C++
    • 1.1. A Simple Example
    • 1.2. Intermezzo: Errors and Exceptions
    • 1.3. Back to the Example
    • 1.4. The Module’s Method Table and Initialization Function
    • 1.5. Compilation and Linkage
    • 1.6. Calling Python Functions from C
    • 1.7. Extracting Parameters in Extension Functions
    • 1.8. Keyword Parameters for Extension Functions
    • 1.9. Building Arbitrary Values
    • 1.10. Reference Counts
      • 1.10.1. Reference Counting in Python
      • 1.10.2. Ownership Rules
      • 1.10.3. Thin Ice
      • 1.10.4. NULL Pointers
    • 1.11. Writing Extensions in C++
    • 1.12. Providing a C API for an Extension Module
  • 2. Defining New Types
    • 2.1. The Basics
      • 2.1.1. Adding data and methods to the Basic example
      • 2.1.2. Providing finer control over data attributes
      • 2.1.3. Supporting cyclic garbage collection
      • 2.1.4. Subclassing other types
    • 2.2. Type Methods
      • 2.2.1. Finalization and De-allocation
      • 2.2.2. Object Presentation
      • 2.2.3. Attribute Management
        • 2.2.3.1. Generic Attribute Management
        • 2.2.3.2. Type-specific Attribute Management
      • 2.2.4. Object Comparison
      • 2.2.5. Abstract Protocol Support
      • 2.2.6. Weak Reference Support
      • 2.2.7. More Suggestions
  • 3. Building C and C++ Extensions with distutils
    • 3.1. Distributing your extension modules
  • 4. Building C and C++ Extensions on Windows
    • 4.1. A Cookbook Approach
    • 4.2. Differences Between Unix and Windows
    • 4.3. Using DLLs in Practice
  • 5. Embedding Python in Another Application
    • 5.1. Very High Level Embedding
    • 5.2. Beyond Very High Level Embedding: An overview
    • 5.3. Pure Embedding
    • 5.4. Extending Embedded Python
    • 5.5. Embedding Python in C++
    • 5.6. Linking Requirements
• Python/C API Reference Manual
  • Introduction
    • Include Files
    • Objects, Types and Reference Counts
      • Reference Counts
        • Reference Count Details
      • Types
    • Exceptions
    • Embedding Python
    • Debugging Builds
  • The Very High Level Layer
  • Reference Counting
  • Exception Handling
    • Recursion Control
    • Standard Exceptions
    • Deprecation of String Exceptions
  • Utilities
    • Operating System Utilities
    • System Functions
    • Process Control
    • Importing Modules
    • Data marshalling support
    • Parsing arguments and building values
    • String conversion and formatting
    • Reflection
  • Abstract Objects Layer
    • Object Protocol
    • Number Protocol
    • Sequence Protocol
    • Mapping Protocol
    • Iterator Protocol
    • Old Buffer Protocol
  • Concrete Objects Layer
    • Fundamental Objects
      • Type Objects
      • The None Object
    • Numeric Objects
      • Plain Integer Objects
      • Boolean Objects
      • Long Integer Objects
      • Floating Point Objects
      • Complex Number Objects
        • Complex Numbers as C Structures
        • Complex Numbers as Python Objects
    • Sequence Objects
      • Byte Array Objects
        • Type check macros
        • Direct API functions
        • Macros
      • String/Bytes Objects
      • Unicode Objects and Codecs
        • Unicode Objects
          • Unicode Type
          • Unicode Character Properties
          • Plain Py_UNICODE
          • wchar_t Support
        • Built-in Codecs
          • Generic Codecs
          • UTF-8 Codecs
          • UTF-32 Codecs
          • UTF-16 Codecs
          • UTF-7 Codecs
          • Unicode-Escape Codecs
          • Raw-Unicode-Escape Codecs
          • Latin-1 Codecs
          • ASCII Codecs
          • Character Map Codecs
          • MBCS codecs for Windows
          • Methods & Slots
        • Methods and Slot Functions
      • Buffer Objects
        • The new-style Py_buffer struct
        • Buffer related functions
        • Old-style buffer objects
      • Tuple Objects
      • List Objects
    • Mapping Objects
      • Dictionary Objects
    • Other Objects
      • Class and Instance Objects
      • Function Objects
      • Method Objects
      • File Objects
      • Module Objects
      • Iterator Objects
      • Descriptor Objects
      • Slice Objects
      • Weak Reference Objects
      • CObjects
      • Cell Objects
      • Generator Objects
      • DateTime Objects
      • Set Objects
  • Initialization, Finalization, and Threads
    • Thread State and the Global Interpreter Lock
    • Profiling and Tracing
    • Advanced Debugger Support
  • Memory Management
    • Overview
    • Memory Interface
    • Examples
  • Object Implementation Support
    • Allocating Objects on the Heap
    • Common Object Structures
    • Type Objects
    • Number Object Structures
    • Mapping Object Structures
    • Sequence Object Structures
    • Buffer Object Structures
    • Supporting Cyclic Garbage Collection
• Distributing Python Modules
  • 1. An Introduction to Distutils
    • 1.1. Concepts & Terminology
    • 1.2. A Simple Example
    • 1.3. General Python terminology
    • 1.4. Distutils-specific terminology
  • 2. Writing the Setup Script
    • 2.1. Listing whole packages
    • 2.2. Listing individual modules
    • 2.3. Describing extension modules
      • 2.3.1. Extension names and packages
      • 2.3.2. Extension source files
      • 2.3.3. Preprocessor options
      • 2.3.4. Library options
      • 2.3.5. Other options
    • 2.4. Relationships between Distributions and Packages
    • 2.5. Installing Scripts
    • 2.6. Installing Package Data
    • 2.7. Installing Additional Files
    • 2.8. Additional meta-data
    • 2.9. Debugging the setup script
  • 3. Writing the Setup Configuration File
  • 4. Creating a Source Distribution
    • 4.1. Specifying the files to distribute
    • 4.2. Manifest-related options
  • 5. Creating Built Distributions
    • 5.1. Creating dumb built distributions
    • 5.2. Creating RPM packages
    • 5.3. Creating Windows Installers
    • 5.4. Cross-compiling on Windows
      • 5.4.1. The Postinstallation script
    • 5.5. Vista User Access Control (UAC)
  • 6. Registering with the Package Index
    • 6.1. The .pypirc file
  • 7. Uploading Packages to the Package Index
  • 8. Examples
    • 8.1. Pure Python distribution (by module)
    • 8.2. Pure Python distribution (by package)
    • 8.3. Single extension module
  • 9. Extending Distutils
    • 9.1. Integrating new commands
    • 9.2. Adding new distribution types
  • 10. Command Reference
    • 10.1. Installing modules: the install command family
      • 10.1.1. install_data
      • 10.1.2. install_scripts
    • 10.2. Creating a source distribution: the sdist command
  • 11. API Reference
    • 11.1. distutils.core — Core Distutils functionality
    • 11.2. distutils.ccompiler — CCompiler base class
    • 11.3. distutils.unixccompiler — Unix C Compiler
    • 11.4. distutils.msvccompiler — Microsoft Compiler
    • 11.5. distutils.bcppcompiler — Borland Compiler
    • 11.6. distutils.cygwincompiler — Cygwin Compiler
    • 11.7. distutils.emxccompiler — OS/2 EMX Compiler
    • 11.8. distutils.mwerkscompiler — Metrowerks CodeWarrior support
    • 11.9. distutils.archive_util — Archiving utilities
    • 11.10. distutils.dep_util — Dependency checking
    • 11.11. distutils.dir_util — Directory tree operations
    • 11.12. distutils.file_util — Single file operations
    • 11.13. distutils.util — Miscellaneous other utility functions
    • 11.14. distutils.dist — The Distribution class
    • 11.15. distutils.extension — The Extension class
    • 11.16. distutils.debug — Distutils debug mode
    • 11.17. distutils.errors — Distutils exceptions
    • 11.18. distutils.fancy_getopt — Wrapper around the standard getopt module
    • 11.19. distutils.filelist — The FileList class
    • 11.20. distutils.log — Simple PEP 282-style logging
    • 11.21. distutils.spawn — Spawn a sub-process
    • 11.22. distutils.sysconfig — System configuration information
    • 11.23. distutils.text_file — The TextFile class
    • 11.24. distutils.version — Version number classes
    • 11.25. distutils.cmd — Abstract base class for Distutils commands
    • 11.26. distutils.command — Individual Distutils commands
    • 11.27. distutils.command.bdist — Build a binary installer
    • 11.28. distutils.command.bdist_packager — Abstract base class for packagers
    • 11.29. distutils.command.bdist_dumb — Build a “dumb” installer
    • 11.30. distutils.command.bdist_msi — Build a Microsoft Installer binary package
    • 11.31. distutils.command.bdist_rpm — Build a binary distribution as a Redhat RPM and SRPM
    • 11.32. distutils.command.bdist_wininst — Build a Windows installer
    • 11.33. distutils.command.sdist — Build a source distribution
    • 11.34. distutils.command.build — Build all files of a package
    • 11.35. distutils.command.build_clib — Build any C libraries in a package
    • 11.36. distutils.command.build_ext — Build any extensions in a package
    • 11.37. distutils.command.build_py — Build the .py/.pyc files of a package
    • 11.38. distutils.command.build_scripts — Build the scripts of a package
    • 11.39. distutils.command.clean — Clean a package build area
    • 11.40. distutils.command.config — Perform package configuration
    • 11.41. distutils.command.install — Install a package
    • 11.42. distutils.command.install_data — Install data files from a package
    • 11.43. distutils.command.install_headers — Install C/C++ header files from a package
    • 11.44. distutils.command.install_lib — Install library files from a package
    • 11.45. distutils.command.install_scripts — Install script files from a package
    • 11.46. distutils.command.register — Register a module with the Python Package Index
    • 11.47. Creating a new Distutils command
• Installing Python Modules
  • Introduction
    • Best case: trivial installation
    • The new standard: Distutils
  • Standard Build and Install
    • Platform variations
    • Splitting the job up
    • How building works
    • How installation works
  • Alternate Installation
    • Alternate installation: the home scheme
    • Alternate installation: Unix (the prefix scheme)
    • Alternate installation: Windows (the prefix scheme)
  • Custom Installation
    • Modifying Python’s Search Path
  • Distutils Configuration Files
    • Location and names of config files
    • Syntax of config files
  • Building Extensions: Tips and Tricks
    • Tweaking compiler/linker flags
    • Using non-Microsoft compilers on Windows
      • Borland/CodeGear C++
      • GNU C / Cygwin / MinGW
• Documenting Python
  • 1. Introduction
  • 2. Style Guide
  • 3. reStructuredText Primer
    • 3.1. Paragraphs
    • 3.2. Inline markup
    • 3.3. Lists and Quotes
    • 3.4. Source Code
    • 3.5. Hyperlinks
      • 3.5.1. External links
      • 3.5.2. Internal links
    • 3.6. Sections
    • 3.7. Explicit Markup
    • 3.8. Directives
    • 3.9. Footnotes
    • 3.10. Comments
    • 3.11. Source encoding
    • 3.12. Gotchas
  • 4. Additional Markup Constructs
    • 4.1. Meta-information markup
    • 4.2. Module-specific markup
    • 4.3. Information units
    • 4.4. Showing code examples
    • 4.5. Inline markup
    • 4.6. Cross-linking markup
    • 4.7. Paragraph-level markup
    • 4.8. Table-of-contents markup
    • 4.9. Index-generating markup
    • 4.10. Grammar production displays
    • 4.11. Substitutions
  • 5. Differences to the LaTeX markup
    • 5.1. Inline markup
    • 5.2. Information units
    • 5.3. Structure
  • 6. Building the documentation
    • 6.1. Using make
    • 6.2. Without make
• Python HOWTOs
  • Python Advocacy HOWTO
    • Reasons to Use Python
      • Programmability
      • Prototyping
      • Simplicity and Ease of Understanding
      • Java Integration
    • Arguments and Rebuttals
    • Useful Resources
  • Porting Extension Modules to 3.0
    • Conditional compilation
    • Changes to Object APIs
      • str/unicode Unification
      • long/int Unification
    • Module initialization and state
    • Other options
  • Curses Programming with Python
    • What is curses?
      • The Python curses module
    • Starting and ending a curses application
    • Windows and Pads
    • Displaying Text
      • Attributes and Color
    • User Input
    • For More Information
  • Descriptor HowTo Guide
    • Abstract
    • Definition and Introduction
    • Descriptor Protocol
    • Invoking Descriptors
    • Descriptor Example
    • Properties
    • Functions and Methods
    • Static Methods and Class Methods
  • Idioms and Anti-Idioms in Python
    • Language Constructs You Should Not Use
      • from module import *
        • Inside Function Definitions
        • At Module Level
        • When It Is Just Fine
      • Unadorned exec, execfile() and friends
      • from module import name1, name2
      • except:
    • Exceptions
    • Using the Batteries
    • Using Backslash to Continue Statements
  • Functional Programming HOWTO
    • Introduction
      • Formal provability
      • Modularity
      • Ease of debugging and testing
      • Composability
    • Iterators
      • Data Types That Support Iterators
    • Generator expressions and list comprehensions
    • Generators
      • Passing values into a generator
    • Built-in functions
    • Small functions and the lambda expression
    • The itertools module
      • Creating new iterators
      • Calling functions on elements
      • Selecting elements
      • Grouping elements
    • The functools module
      • The operator module
      • The functional module
    • Revision History and Acknowledgements
    • References
      • General
      • Python-specific
      • Python documentation
  • Regular Expression HOWTO
    • Introduction
    • Simple Patterns
      • Matching Characters
      • Repeating Things
    • Using Regular Expressions
      • Compiling Regular Expressions
      • The Backslash Plague
      • Performing Matches
      • Module-Level Functions
      • Compilation Flags
    • More Pattern Power
      • More Metacharacters
      • Grouping
      • Non-capturing and Named Groups
      • Lookahead Assertions
    • Modifying Strings
      • Splitting Strings
      • Search and Replace
    • Common Problems
      • Use String Methods
      • match() versus search()
      • Greedy versus Non-Greedy
      • Not Using re.VERBOSE
    • Feedback
  • Socket Programming HOWTO
    • Sockets
      • History
    • Creating a Socket
      • IPC
    • Using a Socket
      • Binary Data
    • Disconnecting
      • When Sockets Die
    • Non-blocking Sockets
      • Performance
  • Sorting HOW TO
    • Sorting Basics
    • Key Functions
    • Operator Module Functions
    • Ascending and Descending
    • Sort Stability and Complex Sorts
    • The Old Way Using Decorate-Sort-Undecorate
    • The Old Way Using the cmp Parameter
    • Odd and Ends
  • Unicode HOWTO
    • Introduction to Unicode
      • History of Character Codes
      • Definitions
      • Encodings
      • References
    • Python’s Unicode Support
      • The Unicode Type
      • Unicode Literals in Python Source Code
      • Unicode Properties
      • References
    • Reading and Writing Unicode Data
      • Unicode filenames
      • Tips for Writing Unicode-aware Programs
      • References
    • Revision History and Acknowledgements
  • HOWTO Fetch Internet Resources Using urllib2
    • Introduction
    • Fetching URLs
      • Data
      • Headers
    • Handling Exceptions
      • URLError
      • HTTPError
        • Error Codes
      • Wrapping it Up
        • Number 1
        • Number 2
    • info and geturl
    • Openers and Handlers
    • Basic Authentication
    • Proxies
    • Sockets and Layers
    • Footnotes
  • HOWTO Use Python in the web
    • The Low-Level View
      • Common Gateway Interface
        • Simple script for testing CGI
        • Setting up CGI on your own server
        • Common problems with CGI scripts
      • mod_python
      • FastCGI and SCGI
        • Setting up FastCGI
      • mod_wsgi
    • Step back: WSGI
      • WSGI Servers
      • Case study: MoinMoin
    • Model-View-Controller
    • Ingredients for Websites
      • Templates
      • Data persistence
    • Frameworks
      • Some notable frameworks
        • Django
        • TurboGears
        • Zope
        • Other notable frameworks
• Python Frequently Asked Questions
  • General Python FAQ
    • General Information
    • Python in the real world
    • Upgrading Python
  • Programming FAQ
    • General Questions
    • Core Language
    • Numbers and strings
    • Sequences (Tuples/Lists)
    • Dictionaries
    • Objects
    • Modules
  • Design and History FAQ
    • Why does Python use indentation for grouping of statements?
    • Why am I getting strange results with simple arithmetic operations?
    • Why are floating point calculations so inaccurate?
    • Why are Python strings immutable?
    • Why must ‘self’ be used explicitly in method definitions and calls?
    • Why can’t I use an assignment in an expression?
    • Why does Python use methods for some functionality (e.g. list.index()) but functions for other (e.g. len(list))?
    • Why is join() a string method instead of a list or tuple method?
    • How fast are exceptions?
    • Why isn’t there a switch or case statement in Python?
    • Can’t you emulate threads in the interpreter instead of relying on an OS-specific thread implementation?
    • Why can’t lambda forms contain statements?
    • Can Python be compiled to machine code, C or some other language?
    • How does Python manage memory?
    • Why isn’t all memory freed when Python exits?
    • Why are there separate tuple and list data types?
    • How are lists implemented?
    • How are dictionaries implemented?
    • Why must dictionary keys be immutable?
    • Why doesn’t list.sort() return the sorted list?
    • How do you specify and enforce an interface spec in Python?
    • Why are default values shared between objects?
    • Why is there no goto?
    • Why can’t raw strings (r-strings) end with a backslash?
    • Why doesn’t Python have a “with” statement for attribute assignments?
    • Why are colons required for the if/while/def/class statements?
    • Why does Python allow commas at the end of lists and tuples?
  • Library and Extension FAQ
    • General Library Questions
    • Common tasks
    • Threads
    • Input and Output
    • Network/Internet Programming
    • Databases
    • Mathematics and Numerics
  • Extending/Embedding FAQ
    • Can I create my own functions in C?
    • Can I create my own functions in C++?
    • Writing C is hard; are there any alternatives?
    • How can I execute arbitrary Python statements from C?
    • How can I evaluate an arbitrary Python expression from C?
    • How do I extract C values from a Python object?
    • How do I use Py_BuildValue() to create a tuple of arbitrary length?
    • How do I call an object’s method from C?
    • How do I catch the output from PyErr_Print() (or anything that prints to stdout/stderr)?
    • How do I access a module written in Python from C?
    • How do I interface to C++ objects from Python?
    • I added a module using the Setup file and the make fails; why?
    • How do I debug an extension?
    • I want to compile a Python module on my Linux system, but some files are missing. Why?
    • What does “SystemError: _PyImport_FixupExtension: module yourmodule not loaded” mean?
    • How do I tell “incomplete input” from “invalid input”?
    • How do I find undefined g++ symbols __builtin_new or __pure_virtual?
    • Can I create an object class with some methods implemented in C and others in Python (e.g. through inheritance)?
    • When importing module X, why do I get “undefined symbol: PyUnicodeUCS2*”?
  • Python on Windows FAQ
    • How do I run a Python program under Windows?
    • How do I make Python scripts executable?
    • Why does Python sometimes take so long to start?
    • Where is Freeze for Windows?
    • Is a *.pyd file the same as a DLL?
    • How can I embed Python into a Windows application?
    • How do I use Python for CGI?
    • How do I keep editors from inserting tabs into my Python source?
    • How do I check for a keypress without blocking?
    • How do I emulate os.kill() in Windows?
    • Why does os.path.isdir() fail on NT shared directories?
    • cgi.py (or other CGI programming) doesn’t work sometimes on NT or win95!
    • Why doesn’t os.popen() work in PythonWin on NT?
    • Why doesn’t os.popen()/win32pipe.popen() work on Win9x?
    • PyRun_SimpleFile() crashes on Windows but not on Unix; why?
    • Importing _tkinter fails on Windows 95/98: why?
    • How do I extract the downloaded documentation on Windows?
    • Missing cw3215mt.dll (or missing cw3215.dll)
    • Warning about CTL3D32 version from installer
  • Graphic User Interface FAQ
    • General GUI Questions
    • Tkinter questions
  • “Why is Python Installed on my Computer?” FAQ
    • What is Python?
    • Why is Python installed on my machine?
    • Can I delete Python?
• Glossary
• About these documents
  • Contributors to the Python Documentation
• Reporting Bugs
  • Documentation bugs
  • Using the Python issue tracker
• Copyright
• History and License
  • History of the software
  • Terms and conditions for accessing or otherwise using Python
  • Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software
    • Mersenne Twister
    • Sockets
    • Floating point exception control
    • MD5 message digest algorithm
    • Asynchronous socket services
    • Cookie management
    • Execution tracing
    • UUencode and UUdecode functions
    • XML Remote Procedure Calls
    • test_epoll
    • Select kqueue