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Python Library Reference

Guido van Rossum
Fred L. Drake, Jr., editor

PythonLabs
Email: python-docs@python.org

Release 2.2.3
30 May 2003

Front Matter
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Built-in Functions, Types, and Exceptions
- 2.1 Built-in Functions
- 2.2 Built-in Types
- 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
- 4.3 struct -- Interpret strings as packed binary data
- 4.4 difflib -- Helpers for computing deltas
- 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
- 5.3 unittest -- Unit testing framework
- 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
- 7.3 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
- 7.6 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
- 7.16 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
  - 11.5.20 Examples
- 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
- 12.2 email -- An email and MIME handling package
- 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
- 12.6 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
- 12.18 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 Application
- 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
- 13.6 xml.dom -- The Document Object Model API
- 13.7 xml.dom.minidom -- Lightweight DOM implementation
- 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
- 13.11 xml.sax.saxutils -- SAX Utilities
- 13.12 xml.sax.xmlreader -- Interface for XML parsers
- 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
- 16.2 Tix -- Extension widgets for Tk
- 16.3 ScrolledText -- Scrolled Text Widget
- 16.4 turtle -- Turtle graphics for Tk
  - 16.4.1 Pen and RawPen Objects
- 16.5 Idle
- 16.6 Other Graphical User Interface Packages
17. Restricted Execution
- 17.1 rexec -- Restricted execution framework
- 17.2 Bastion -- Restricting access to objects
18. Python Language Services
- 18.1 parser -- Access Python parse trees
- 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
- 19.4 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
- 20.5 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
- 22.2 _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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Release 2.2.3, documentation updated on 30 May 2003.

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