0802 Python Tutorial
0802 Python Tutorial
0802 Python Tutorial
Release 3.6.4
5 Data Structures 31
5.1 More on Lists . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
5.2 The del statement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
5.3 Tuples and Sequences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
5.4 Sets . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.5 Dictionaries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
5.6 Looping Techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
5.7 More on Conditions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
5.8 Comparing Sequences and Other Types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
6 Modules 43
6.1 More on Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
6.2 Standard Modules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
6.3 The dir() Function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
6.4 Packages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
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8.1 Syntax Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
8.2 Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
8.3 Handling Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
8.4 Raising Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
8.5 User-defined Exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
8.6 Defining Clean-up Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
8.7 Predefined Clean-up Actions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64
9 Classes 67
9.1 A Word About Names and Objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
9.2 Python Scopes and Namespaces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
9.3 A First Look at Classes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
9.4 Random Remarks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
9.5 Inheritance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
9.6 Private Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
9.7 Odds and Ends . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
9.8 Iterators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
9.9 Generators . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
9.10 Generator Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 79
13 What Now? 99
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15 Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and Limitations 103
15.1 Representation Error . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
16 Appendix 109
16.1 Interactive Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
A Glossary 111
D Copyright 141
Index 143
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Python is an easy to learn, powerful programming language. It has efficient high-level data structures and
a simple but effective approach to object-oriented programming. Python’s elegant syntax and dynamic
typing, together with its interpreted nature, make it an ideal language for scripting and rapid application
development in many areas on most platforms.
The Python interpreter and the extensive standard library are freely available in source or binary form for all
major platforms from the Python Web site, https://www.python.org/, and may be freely distributed. The
same site also contains distributions of and pointers to many free third party Python modules, programs
and tools, and additional documentation.
The Python interpreter is easily extended with new functions and data types implemented in C or C++
(or other languages callable from C). Python is also suitable as an extension language for customizable
applications.
This tutorial introduces the reader informally to the basic concepts and features of the Python language
and system. It helps to have a Python interpreter handy for hands-on experience, but all examples are
self-contained, so the tutorial can be read off-line as well.
For a description of standard objects and modules, see library-index. reference-index gives a more formal
definition of the language. To write extensions in C or C++, read extending-index and c-api-index. There
are also several books covering Python in depth.
This tutorial does not attempt to be comprehensive and cover every single feature, or even every commonly
used feature. Instead, it introduces many of Python’s most noteworthy features, and will give you a good
idea of the language’s flavor and style. After reading it, you will be able to read and write Python modules
and programs, and you will be ready to learn more about the various Python library modules described in
library-index.
The Glossary is also worth going through.
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2 CONTENTS
CHAPTER
ONE
If you do much work on computers, eventually you find that there’s some task you’d like to automate. For
example, you may wish to perform a search-and-replace over a large number of text files, or rename and
rearrange a bunch of photo files in a complicated way. Perhaps you’d like to write a small custom database,
or a specialized GUI application, or a simple game.
If you’re a professional software developer, you may have to work with several C/C++/Java libraries but
find the usual write/compile/test/re-compile cycle is too slow. Perhaps you’re writing a test suite for such
a library and find writing the testing code a tedious task. Or maybe you’ve written a program that could
use an extension language, and you don’t want to design and implement a whole new language for your
application.
Python is just the language for you.
You could write a Unix shell script or Windows batch files for some of these tasks, but shell scripts are best
at moving around files and changing text data, not well-suited for GUI applications or games. You could
write a C/C++/Java program, but it can take a lot of development time to get even a first-draft program.
Python is simpler to use, available on Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix operating systems, and will help you
get the job done more quickly.
Python is simple to use, but it is a real programming language, offering much more structure and support
for large programs than shell scripts or batch files can offer. On the other hand, Python also offers much
more error checking than C, and, being a very-high-level language, it has high-level data types built in, such
as flexible arrays and dictionaries. Because of its more general data types Python is applicable to a much
larger problem domain than Awk or even Perl, yet many things are at least as easy in Python as in those
languages.
Python allows you to split your program into modules that can be reused in other Python programs. It
comes with a large collection of standard modules that you can use as the basis of your programs — or as
examples to start learning to program in Python. Some of these modules provide things like file I/O, system
calls, sockets, and even interfaces to graphical user interface toolkits like Tk.
Python is an interpreted language, which can save you considerable time during program development
because no compilation and linking is necessary. The interpreter can be used interactively, which makes it
easy to experiment with features of the language, to write throw-away programs, or to test functions during
bottom-up program development. It is also a handy desk calculator.
Python enables programs to be written compactly and readably. Programs written in Python are typically
much shorter than equivalent C, C++, or Java programs, for several reasons:
• the high-level data types allow you to express complex operations in a single statement;
• statement grouping is done by indentation instead of beginning and ending brackets;
• no variable or argument declarations are necessary.
Python is extensible: if you know how to program in C it is easy to add a new built-in function or module
to the interpreter, either to perform critical operations at maximum speed, or to link Python programs to
libraries that may only be available in binary form (such as a vendor-specific graphics library). Once you
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are really hooked, you can link the Python interpreter into an application written in C and use it as an
extension or command language for that application.
By the way, the language is named after the BBC show “Monty Python’s Flying Circus” and has nothing
to do with reptiles. Making references to Monty Python skits in documentation is not only allowed, it is
encouraged!
Now that you are all excited about Python, you’ll want to examine it in some more detail. Since the best
way to learn a language is to use it, the tutorial invites you to play with the Python interpreter as you read.
In the next chapter, the mechanics of using the interpreter are explained. This is rather mundane information,
but essential for trying out the examples shown later.
The rest of the tutorial introduces various features of the Python language and system through examples,
beginning with simple expressions, statements and data types, through functions and modules, and finally
touching upon advanced concepts like exceptions and user-defined classes.
TWO
to the shell.1 Since the choice of the directory where the interpreter lives is an installation option, other
places are possible; check with your local Python guru or system administrator. (E.g., /usr/local/python
is a popular alternative location.)
On Windows machines, the Python installation is usually placed in C:\Python36, though you can change
this when you’re running the installer. To add this directory to your path, you can type the following
command into the command prompt in a DOS box:
set path=%path%;C:\python36
Typing an end-of-file character (Control-D on Unix, Control-Z on Windows) at the primary prompt causes
the interpreter to exit with a zero exit status. If that doesn’t work, you can exit the interpreter by typing
the following command: quit().
The interpreter’s line-editing features include interactive editing, history substitution and code completion
on systems that support readline. Perhaps the quickest check to see whether command line editing is
supported is typing Control-P to the first Python prompt you get. If it beeps, you have command line
editing; see Appendix Interactive Input Editing and History Substitution for an introduction to the keys. If
nothing appears to happen, or if ^P is echoed, command line editing isn’t available; you’ll only be able to
use backspace to remove characters from the current line.
The interpreter operates somewhat like the Unix shell: when called with standard input connected to a tty
device, it reads and executes commands interactively; when called with a file name argument or with a file
as standard input, it reads and executes a script from that file.
A second way of starting the interpreter is python -c command [arg] ..., which executes the statement(s)
in command, analogous to the shell’s -c option. Since Python statements often contain spaces or other
characters that are special to the shell, it is usually advised to quote command in its entirety with single
quotes.
Some Python modules are also useful as scripts. These can be invoked using python -m module [arg] ...,
which executes the source file for module as if you had spelled out its full name on the command line.
When a script file is used, it is sometimes useful to be able to run the script and enter interactive mode
afterwards. This can be done by passing -i before the script.
1 On Unix, the Python 3.x interpreter is by default not installed with the executable named python, so that it does not
conflict with a simultaneously installed Python 2.x executable.
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$ python3.6
Python 3.6 (default, Sep 16 2015, 09:25:04)
[GCC 4.8.2] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>
Continuation lines are needed when entering a multi-line construct. As an example, take a look at this if
statement:
For example, to declare that Windows-1252 encoding is to be used, the first line of your source code file
should be:
One exception to the first line rule is when the source code starts with a UNIX “shebang” line. In this case,
the encoding declaration should be added as the second line of the file. For example:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
# -*- coding: cp-1252 -*-
THREE
In the following examples, input and output are distinguished by the presence or absence of prompts (>>>
and …): to repeat the example, you must type everything after the prompt, when the prompt appears; lines
that do not begin with a prompt are output from the interpreter. Note that a secondary prompt on a line
by itself in an example means you must type a blank line; this is used to end a multi-line command.
Many of the examples in this manual, even those entered at the interactive prompt, include comments.
Comments in Python start with the hash character, #, and extend to the end of the physical line. A
comment may appear at the start of a line or following whitespace or code, but not within a string literal.
A hash character within a string literal is just a hash character. Since comments are to clarify code and are
not interpreted by Python, they may be omitted when typing in examples.
Some examples:
Let’s try some simple Python commands. Start the interpreter and wait for the primary prompt, >>>. (It
shouldn’t take long.)
3.1.1 Numbers
The interpreter acts as a simple calculator: you can type an expression at it and it will write the value.
Expression syntax is straightforward: the operators +, -, * and / work just like in most other languages (for
example, Pascal or C); parentheses (()) can be used for grouping. For example:
>>> 2 + 2
4
>>> 50 - 5*6
20
>>> (50 - 5*6) / 4
5.0
>>> 8 / 5 # division always returns a floating point number
1.6
The integer numbers (e.g. 2, 4, 20) have type int, the ones with a fractional part (e.g. 5.0, 1.6) have type
float. We will see more about numeric types later in the tutorial.
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Division (/) always returns a float. To do floor division and get an integer result (discarding any fractional
result) you can use the // operator; to calculate the remainder you can use %:
>>> 5 ** 2 # 5 squared
25
>>> 2 ** 7 # 2 to the power of 7
128
The equal sign (=) is used to assign a value to a variable. Afterwards, no result is displayed before the next
interactive prompt:
>>> width = 20
>>> height = 5 * 9
>>> width * height
900
If a variable is not “defined” (assigned a value), trying to use it will give you an error:
There is full support for floating point; operators with mixed type operands convert the integer operand to
floating point:
>>> 4 * 3.75 - 1
14.0
In interactive mode, the last printed expression is assigned to the variable _. This means that when you are
using Python as a desk calculator, it is somewhat easier to continue calculations, for example:
This variable should be treated as read-only by the user. Don’t explicitly assign a value to it — you
would create an independent local variable with the same name masking the built-in variable with its magic
behavior.
1 Since ** has higher precedence than -, -3**2 will be interpreted as -(3**2) and thus result in -9. To avoid this and get
In addition to int and float, Python supports other types of numbers, such as Decimal and Fraction.
Python also has built-in support for complex numbers, and uses the j or J suffix to indicate the imaginary
part (e.g. 3+5j).
3.1.2 Strings
Besides numbers, Python can also manipulate strings, which can be expressed in several ways. They can be
enclosed in single quotes ('...') or double quotes ("...") with the same result2 . \ can be used to escape
quotes:
In the interactive interpreter, the output string is enclosed in quotes and special characters are escaped with
backslashes. While this might sometimes look different from the input (the enclosing quotes could change),
the two strings are equivalent. The string is enclosed in double quotes if the string contains a single quote
and no double quotes, otherwise it is enclosed in single quotes. The print() function produces a more
readable output, by omitting the enclosing quotes and by printing escaped and special characters:
If you don’t want characters prefaced by \ to be interpreted as special characters, you can use raw strings
by adding an r before the first quote:
String literals can span multiple lines. One way is using triple-quotes: """...""" or '''...'''. End of
lines are automatically included in the string, but it’s possible to prevent this by adding a \ at the end of
the line. The following example:
2 Unlike other languages, special characters such as \n have the same meaning with both single ('...') and double ("...")
quotes. The only difference between the two is that within single quotes you don’t need to escape " (but you have to escape
\') and vice versa.
print("""\
Usage: thingy [OPTIONS]
-h Display this usage message
-H hostname Hostname to connect to
""")
produces the following output (note that the initial newline is not included):
Strings can be concatenated (glued together) with the + operator, and repeated with *:
Two or more string literals (i.e. the ones enclosed between quotes) next to each other are automatically
concatenated.
This feature is particularly useful when you want to break long strings:
This only works with two literals though, not with variables or expressions:
Strings can be indexed (subscripted), with the first character having index 0. There is no separate character
type; a character is simply a string of size one:
Indices may also be negative numbers, to start counting from the right:
Note that since -0 is the same as 0, negative indices start from -1.
In addition to indexing, slicing is also supported. While indexing is used to obtain individual characters,
slicing allows you to obtain substring:
Note how the start is always included, and the end always excluded. This makes sure that s[:i] + s[i:]
is always equal to s:
Slice indices have useful defaults; an omitted first index defaults to zero, an omitted second index defaults
to the size of the string being sliced.
One way to remember how slices work is to think of the indices as pointing between characters, with the left
edge of the first character numbered 0. Then the right edge of the last character of a string of n characters
has index n, for example:
+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| P | y | t | h | o | n |
+---+---+---+---+---+---+
0 1 2 3 4 5 6
-6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1
The first row of numbers gives the position of the indices 0…6 in the string; the second row gives the
corresponding negative indices. The slice from i to j consists of all characters between the edges labeled i
and j, respectively.
For non-negative indices, the length of a slice is the difference of the indices, if both are within bounds. For
example, the length of word[1:3] is 2.
Attempting to use an index that is too large will result in an error:
However, out of range slice indexes are handled gracefully when used for slicing:
>>> word[4:42]
'on'
>>> word[42:]
''
Python strings cannot be changed — they are immutable. Therefore, assigning to an indexed position in the
string results in an error:
>>> word[0] = 'J'
...
TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment
>>> word[2:] = 'py'
...
TypeError: 'str' object does not support item assignment
See also:
textseq Strings are examples of sequence types, and support the common operations supported by such
types.
string-methods Strings support a large number of methods for basic transformations and searching.
f-strings String literals that have embedded expressions.
formatstrings Information about string formatting with str.format().
old-string-formatting The old formatting operations invoked when strings are the left operand of the %
operator are described in more detail here.
3.1.3 Lists
Python knows a number of compound data types, used to group together other values. The most versatile
is the list, which can be written as a list of comma-separated values (items) between square brackets. Lists
might contain items of different types, but usually the items all have the same type.
>>> squares = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25]
>>> squares
[1, 4, 9, 16, 25]
Like strings (and all other built-in sequence type), lists can be indexed and sliced:
>>> squares[0] # indexing returns the item
1
>>> squares[-1]
25
All slice operations return a new list containing the requested elements. This means that the following slice
returns a new (shallow) copy of the list:
>>> squares[:]
[1, 4, 9, 16, 25]
Unlike strings, which are immutable, lists are a mutable type, i.e. it is possible to change their content:
You can also add new items at the end of the list, by using the append() method (we will see more about
methods later):
Assignment to slices is also possible, and this can even change the size of the list or clear it entirely:
It is possible to nest lists (create lists containing other lists), for example:
>>> i = 256*256
>>> print('The value of i is', i)
The value of i is 65536
The keyword argument end can be used to avoid the newline after the output, or end the output with
a different string:
>>> a, b = 0, 1
>>> while b < 1000:
... print(b, end=',')
... a, b = b, a+b
...
1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233,377,610,987,
FOUR
Besides the while statement just introduced, Python knows the usual control flow statements known from
other languages, with some twists.
4.1 if Statements
Perhaps the most well-known statement type is the if statement. For example:
There can be zero or more elif parts, and the else part is optional. The keyword ‘elif’ is short for ‘else
if’, and is useful to avoid excessive indentation. An if … elif … elif … sequence is a substitute for the
switch or case statements found in other languages.
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If you need to modify the sequence you are iterating over while inside the loop (for example to duplicate
selected items), it is recommended that you first make a copy. Iterating over a sequence does not implicitly
make a copy. The slice notation makes this especially convenient:
>>> for w in words[:]: # Loop over a slice copy of the entire list.
... if len(w) > 6:
... words.insert(0, w)
...
>>> words
['defenestrate', 'cat', 'window', 'defenestrate']
With for w in words:, the example would attempt to create an infinite list, inserting defenestrate over
and over again.
The given end point is never part of the generated sequence; range(10) generates 10 values, the legal indices
for items of a sequence of length 10. It is possible to let the range start at another number, or to specify a
different increment (even negative; sometimes this is called the ‘step’):
range(5, 10)
5 through 9
range(0, 10, 3)
0, 3, 6, 9
To iterate over the indices of a sequence, you can combine range() and len() as follows:
In most such cases, however, it is convenient to use the enumerate() function, see Looping Techniques.
A strange thing happens if you just print a range:
>>> print(range(10))
range(0, 10)
In many ways the object returned by range() behaves as if it is a list, but in fact it isn’t. It is an object
which returns the successive items of the desired sequence when you iterate over it, but it doesn’t really
make the list, thus saving space.
We say such an object is iterable, that is, suitable as a target for functions and constructs that expect
something from which they can obtain successive items until the supply is exhausted. We have seen that
the for statement is such an iterator. The function list() is another; it creates lists from iterables:
>>> list(range(5))
[0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
Later we will see more functions that return iterables and take iterables as argument.
(Yes, this is the correct code. Look closely: the else clause belongs to the for loop, not the if statement.)
When used with a loop, the else clause has more in common with the else clause of a try statement than it
does that of if statements: a try statement’s else clause runs when no exception occurs, and a loop’s else
clause runs when no break occurs. For more on the try statement and exceptions, see Handling Exceptions.
The continue statement, also borrowed from C, continues with the next iteration of the loop:
Another place pass can be used is as a place-holder for a function or conditional body when you are working
on new code, allowing you to keep thinking at a more abstract level. The pass is silently ignored:
The keyword def introduces a function definition. It must be followed by the function name and the
parenthesized list of formal parameters. The statements that form the body of the function start at the next
line, and must be indented.
The first statement of the function body can optionally be a string literal; this string literal is the function’s
documentation string, or docstring. (More about docstrings can be found in the section Documentation
Strings.) There are tools which use docstrings to automatically produce online or printed documentation,
or to let the user interactively browse through code; it’s good practice to include docstrings in code that you
write, so make a habit of it.
The execution of a function introduces a new symbol table used for the local variables of the function. More
precisely, all variable assignments in a function store the value in the local symbol table; whereas variable
references first look in the local symbol table, then in the local symbol tables of enclosing functions, then in
the global symbol table, and finally in the table of built-in names. Thus, global variables cannot be directly
assigned a value within a function (unless named in a global statement), although they may be referenced.
The actual parameters (arguments) to a function call are introduced in the local symbol table of the called
function when it is called; thus, arguments are passed using call by value (where the value is always an object
reference, not the value of the object).1 When a function calls another function, a new local symbol table is
created for that call.
A function definition introduces the function name in the current symbol table. The value of the function
name has a type that is recognized by the interpreter as a user-defined function. This value can be assigned
to another name which can then also be used as a function. This serves as a general renaming mechanism:
>>> fib
<function fib at 10042ed0>
>>> f = fib
>>> f(100)
0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89
Coming from other languages, you might object that fib is not a function but a procedure since it doesn’t
return a value. In fact, even functions without a return statement do return a value, albeit a rather boring
one. This value is called None (it’s a built-in name). Writing the value None is normally suppressed by the
interpreter if it would be the only value written. You can see it if you really want to using print():
>>> fib(0)
>>> print(fib(0))
None
It is simple to write a function that returns a list of the numbers of the Fibonacci series, instead of printing
it:
types define different methods. Methods of different types may have the same name without causing
ambiguity. (It is possible to define your own object types and methods, using classes, see Classes) The
method append() shown in the example is defined for list objects; it adds a new element at the end of
the list. In this example it is equivalent to result = result + [a], but more efficient.
def f(arg=i):
print(arg)
i = 6
f()
will print 5.
Important warning: The default value is evaluated only once. This makes a difference when the default is
a mutable object such as a list, dictionary, or instances of most classes. For example, the following function
accumulates the arguments passed to it on subsequent calls:
def f(a, L=[]):
L.append(a)
return L
print(f(1))
print(f(2))
print(f(3))
[1]
[1, 2]
[1, 2, 3]
If you don’t want the default to be shared between subsequent calls, you can write the function like this
instead:
accepts one required argument (voltage) and three optional arguments (state, action, and type). This
function can be called in any of the following ways:
In a function call, keyword arguments must follow positional arguments. All the keyword arguments
passed must match one of the arguments accepted by the function (e.g. actor is not a valid argument
for the parrot function), and their order is not important. This also includes non-optional arguments (e.g.
parrot(voltage=1000) is valid too). No argument may receive a value more than once. Here’s an example
that fails due to this restriction:
When a final formal parameter of the form **name is present, it receives a dictionary (see typesmapping)
containing all keyword arguments except for those corresponding to a formal parameter. This may be
combined with a formal parameter of the form *name (described in the next subsection) which receives
a tuple containing the positional arguments beyond the formal parameter list. (*name must occur before
**name.) For example, if we define a function like this:
Note that the order in which the keyword arguments are printed is guaranteed to match the order in which
they were provided in the function call.
Normally, these variadic arguments will be last in the list of formal parameters, because they scoop up
all remaining input arguments that are passed to the function. Any formal parameters which occur after
the *args parameter are ‘keyword-only’ arguments, meaning that they can only be used as keywords rather
than positional arguments.
In the same fashion, dictionaries can deliver keyword arguments with the **-operator:
The above example uses a lambda expression to return a function. Another use is to pass a small function
as an argument:
>>> pairs = [(1, 'one'), (2, 'two'), (3, 'three'), (4, 'four')]
>>> pairs.sort(key=lambda pair: pair[1])
>>> pairs
[(4, 'four'), (1, 'one'), (3, 'three'), (2, 'two')]
>>> f('spam')
Annotations: {'ham': <class 'str'>, 'return': <class 'str'>, 'eggs': <class 'str'>}
Arguments: spam eggs
'spam and eggs'
FIVE
DATA STRUCTURES
This chapter describes some things you’ve learned about already in more detail, and adds some new things
as well.
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list.reverse()
Reverse the elements of the list in place.
list.copy()
Return a shallow copy of the list. Equivalent to a[:].
An example that uses most of the list methods:
You might have noticed that methods like insert, remove or sort that only modify the list have no return
value printed – they return the default None.1 This is a design principle for all mutable data structures in
Python.
1 Other languages may return the mutated object, which allows method chaining, such as
d->insert("a")->remove("b")->sort();.
>>> squares = []
>>> for x in range(10):
... squares.append(x**2)
...
>>> squares
[0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81]
Note that this creates (or overwrites) a variable named x that still exists after the loop completes. We can
calculate the list of squares without any side effects using:
or, equivalently:
>>> combs = []
>>> for x in [1,2,3]:
... for y in [3,1,4]:
... if x != y:
... combs.append((x, y))
...
>>> combs
[(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 1), (2, 4), (3, 1), (3, 4)]
Note how the order of the for and if statements is the same in both these snippets.
If the expression is a tuple (e.g. the (x, y) in the previous example), it must be parenthesized.
>>> matrix = [
... [1, 2, 3, 4],
... [5, 6, 7, 8],
As we saw in the previous section, the nested listcomp is evaluated in the context of the for that follows it,
so this example is equivalent to:
>>> transposed = []
>>> for i in range(4):
... transposed.append([row[i] for row in matrix])
...
>>> transposed
[[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]
In the real world, you should prefer built-in functions to complex flow statements. The zip() function would
do a great job for this use case:
>>> list(zip(*matrix))
[(1, 5, 9), (2, 6, 10), (3, 7, 11), (4, 8, 12)]
See Unpacking Argument Lists for details on the asterisk in this line.
>>> del a
Referencing the name a hereafter is an error (at least until another value is assigned to it). We’ll find other
uses for del later.
As you see, on output tuples are always enclosed in parentheses, so that nested tuples are interpreted
correctly; they may be input with or without surrounding parentheses, although often parentheses are
necessary anyway (if the tuple is part of a larger expression). It is not possible to assign to the individual
items of a tuple, however it is possible to create tuples which contain mutable objects, such as lists.
Though tuples may seem similar to lists, they are often used in different situations and for different purposes.
Tuples are immutable, and usually contain a heterogeneous sequence of elements that are accessed via
unpacking (see later in this section) or indexing (or even by attribute in the case of namedtuples). Lists are
mutable, and their elements are usually homogeneous and are accessed by iterating over the list.
A special problem is the construction of tuples containing 0 or 1 items: the syntax has some extra quirks to
accommodate these. Empty tuples are constructed by an empty pair of parentheses; a tuple with one item is
constructed by following a value with a comma (it is not sufficient to enclose a single value in parentheses).
Ugly, but effective. For example:
>>> empty = ()
>>> singleton = 'hello', # <-- note trailing comma
>>> len(empty)
0
>>> len(singleton)
1
>>> singleton
('hello',)
The statement t = 12345, 54321, 'hello!' is an example of tuple packing: the values 12345, 54321 and
'hello!' are packed together in a tuple. The reverse operation is also possible:
>>> x, y, z = t
This is called, appropriately enough, sequence unpacking and works for any sequence on the right-hand side.
Sequence unpacking requires that there are as many variables on the left side of the equals sign as there are
elements in the sequence. Note that multiple assignment is really just a combination of tuple packing and
sequence unpacking.
5.4 Sets
Python also includes a data type for sets. A set is an unordered collection with no duplicate elements. Basic
uses include membership testing and eliminating duplicate entries. Set objects also support mathematical
operations like union, intersection, difference, and symmetric difference.
Curly braces or the set() function can be used to create sets. Note: to create an empty set you have to use
set(), not {}; the latter creates an empty dictionary, a data structure that we discuss in the next section.
Here is a brief demonstration:
5.5 Dictionaries
Another useful data type built into Python is the dictionary (see typesmapping). Dictionaries are sometimes
found in other languages as “associative memories” or “associative arrays”. Unlike sequences, which are
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indexed by a range of numbers, dictionaries are indexed by keys, which can be any immutable type; strings
and numbers can always be keys. Tuples can be used as keys if they contain only strings, numbers, or tuples;
if a tuple contains any mutable object either directly or indirectly, it cannot be used as a key. You can’t use
lists as keys, since lists can be modified in place using index assignments, slice assignments, or methods like
append() and extend().
It is best to think of a dictionary as an unordered set of key: value pairs, with the requirement that the keys
are unique (within one dictionary). A pair of braces creates an empty dictionary: {}. Placing a comma-
separated list of key:value pairs within the braces adds initial key:value pairs to the dictionary; this is also
the way dictionaries are written on output.
The main operations on a dictionary are storing a value with some key and extracting the value given the
key. It is also possible to delete a key:value pair with del. If you store using a key that is already in use,
the old value associated with that key is forgotten. It is an error to extract a value using a non-existent key.
Performing list(d.keys()) on a dictionary returns a list of all the keys used in the dictionary, in arbitrary
order (if you want it sorted, just use sorted(d.keys()) instead).2 To check whether a single key is in the
dictionary, use the in keyword.
Here is a small example using a dictionary:
The dict() constructor builds dictionaries directly from sequences of key-value pairs:
In addition, dict comprehensions can be used to create dictionaries from arbitrary key and value expressions:
When the keys are simple strings, it is sometimes easier to specify pairs using keyword arguments:
2 Calling d.keys() will return a dictionary view object. It supports operations like membership test and iteration, but its
When looping through a sequence, the position index and corresponding value can be retrieved at the same
time using the enumerate() function.
To loop over two or more sequences at the same time, the entries can be paired with the zip() function.
To loop over a sequence in reverse, first specify the sequence in a forward direction and then call the
reversed() function.
To loop over a sequence in sorted order, use the sorted() function which returns a new sorted list while
leaving the source unaltered.
It is sometimes tempting to change a list while you are looping over it; however, it is often simpler and safer
to create a new list instead.
Note that in Python, unlike C, assignment cannot occur inside expressions. C programmers may grumble
about this, but it avoids a common class of problems encountered in C programs: typing = in an expression
when == was intended.
one. Lexicographical ordering for strings uses the Unicode code point number to order individual characters.
Some examples of comparisons between sequences of the same type:
Note that comparing objects of different types with < or > is legal provided that the objects have appropriate
comparison methods. For example, mixed numeric types are compared according to their numeric value,
so 0 equals 0.0, etc. Otherwise, rather than providing an arbitrary ordering, the interpreter will raise a
TypeError exception.
SIX
MODULES
If you quit from the Python interpreter and enter it again, the definitions you have made (functions and
variables) are lost. Therefore, if you want to write a somewhat longer program, you are better off using a
text editor to prepare the input for the interpreter and running it with that file as input instead. This is
known as creating a script. As your program gets longer, you may want to split it into several files for easier
maintenance. You may also want to use a handy function that you’ve written in several programs without
copying its definition into each program.
To support this, Python has a way to put definitions in a file and use them in a script or in an interactive
instance of the interpreter. Such a file is called a module; definitions from a module can be imported into
other modules or into the main module (the collection of variables that you have access to in a script executed
at the top level and in calculator mode).
A module is a file containing Python definitions and statements. The file name is the module name with
the suffix .py appended. Within a module, the module’s name (as a string) is available as the value of the
global variable __name__. For instance, use your favorite text editor to create a file called fibo.py in the
current directory with the following contents:
Now enter the Python interpreter and import this module with the following command:
This does not enter the names of the functions defined in fibo directly in the current symbol table; it only
enters the module name fibo there. Using the module name you can access the functions:
>>> fibo.fib(1000)
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987
>>> fibo.fib2(100)
[1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89]
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>>> fibo.__name__
'fibo'
If you intend to use a function often you can assign it to a local name:
This does not introduce the module name from which the imports are taken in the local symbol table (so in
the example, fibo is not defined).
There is even a variant to import all names that a module defines:
This imports all names except those beginning with an underscore (_). In most cases Python programmers
do not use this facility since it introduces an unknown set of names into the interpreter, possibly hiding some
things you have already defined.
Note that in general the practice of importing * from a module or package is frowned upon, since it often
causes poorly readable code. However, it is okay to use it to save typing in interactive sessions.
Note: For efficiency reasons, each module is only imported once per interpreter session. Therefore, if
you change your modules, you must restart the interpreter – or, if it’s just one module you want to test
interactively, use importlib.reload(), e.g. import importlib; importlib.reload(modulename).
1 In fact function definitions are also ‘statements’ that are ‘executed’; the execution of a module-level function definition
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the code in the module will be executed, just as if you imported it, but with the __name__ set to "__main__".
That means that by adding this code at the end of your module:
if __name__ == "__main__":
import sys
fib(int(sys.argv[1]))
you can make the file usable as a script as well as an importable module, because the code that parses the
command line only runs if the module is executed as the “main” file:
$ python fibo.py 50
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34
This is often used either to provide a convenient user interface to a module, or for testing purposes (running
the module as a script executes a test suite).
Note: On file systems which support symlinks, the directory containing the input script is calculated after
the symlink is followed. In other words the directory containing the symlink is not added to the module
search path.
After initialization, Python programs can modify sys.path. The directory containing the script being run
is placed at the beginning of the search path, ahead of the standard library path. This means that scripts in
that directory will be loaded instead of modules of the same name in the library directory. This is an error
unless the replacement is intended. See section Standard Modules for more information.
Python checks the modification date of the source against the compiled version to see if it’s out of date
and needs to be recompiled. This is a completely automatic process. Also, the compiled modules are
platform-independent, so the same library can be shared among systems with different architectures.
Python does not check the cache in two circumstances. First, it always recompiles and does not store the
result for the module that’s loaded directly from the command line. Second, it does not check the cache if
there is no source module. To support a non-source (compiled only) distribution, the compiled module must
be in the source directory, and there must not be a source module.
Some tips for experts:
• You can use the -O or -OO switches on the Python command to reduce the size of a compiled module.
The -O switch removes assert statements, the -OO switch removes both assert statements and __doc__
strings. Since some programs may rely on having these available, you should only use this option if
you know what you’re doing. “Optimized” modules have an opt- tag and are usually smaller. Future
releases may change the effects of optimization.
• A program doesn’t run any faster when it is read from a .pyc file than when it is read from a .py file;
the only thing that’s faster about .pyc files is the speed with which they are loaded.
• The module compileall can create .pyc files for all modules in a directory.
• There is more detail on this process, including a flow chart of the decisions, in PEP 3147.
These two variables are only defined if the interpreter is in interactive mode.
The variable sys.path is a list of strings that determines the interpreter’s search path for modules. It is
initialized to a default path taken from the environment variable PYTHONPATH, or from a built-in default if
PYTHONPATH is not set. You can modify it using standard list operations:
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Without arguments, dir() lists the names you have defined currently:
>>> a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> import fibo
>>> fib = fibo.fib
>>> dir()
['__builtins__', '__name__', 'a', 'fib', 'fibo', 'sys']
Note that it lists all types of names: variables, modules, functions, etc.
dir() does not list the names of built-in functions and variables. If you want a list of those, they are defined
in the standard module builtins:
6.4 Packages
Packages are a way of structuring Python’s module namespace by using “dotted module names”. For example,
the module name A.B designates a submodule named B in a package named A. Just like the use of modules
saves the authors of different modules from having to worry about each other’s global variable names, the
use of dotted module names saves the authors of multi-module packages like NumPy or the Python Imaging
Library from having to worry about each other’s module names.
Suppose you want to design a collection of modules (a “package”) for the uniform handling of sound files and
sound data. There are many different sound file formats (usually recognized by their extension, for example:
.wav, .aiff, .au), so you may need to create and maintain a growing collection of modules for the conversion
between the various file formats. There are also many different operations you might want to perform on
sound data (such as mixing, adding echo, applying an equalizer function, creating an artificial stereo effect),
so in addition you will be writing a never-ending stream of modules to perform these operations. Here’s a
possible structure for your package (expressed in terms of a hierarchical filesystem):
When importing the package, Python searches through the directories on sys.path looking for the package
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subdirectory.
The __init__.py files are required to make Python treat the directories as containing packages; this is done
to prevent directories with a common name, such as string, from unintentionally hiding valid modules that
occur later on the module search path. In the simplest case, __init__.py can just be an empty file, but it
can also execute initialization code for the package or set the __all__ variable, described later.
Users of the package can import individual modules from the package, for example:
import sound.effects.echo
This loads the submodule sound.effects.echo. It must be referenced with its full name.
This also loads the submodule echo, and makes it available without its package prefix, so it can be used as
follows:
Again, this loads the submodule echo, but this makes its function echofilter() directly available:
Note that when using from package import item, the item can be either a submodule (or subpackage)
of the package, or some other name defined in the package, like a function, class or variable. The import
statement first tests whether the item is defined in the package; if not, it assumes it is a module and attempts
to load it. If it fails to find it, an ImportError exception is raised.
Contrarily, when using syntax like import item.subitem.subsubitem, each item except for the last must
be a package; the last item can be a module or a package but can’t be a class or function or variable defined
in the previous item.
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This would mean that from sound.effects import * would import the three named submodules of the
sound package.
If __all__ is not defined, the statement from sound.effects import * does not import all submodules from
the package sound.effects into the current namespace; it only ensures that the package sound.effects
has been imported (possibly running any initialization code in __init__.py) and then imports whatever
names are defined in the package. This includes any names defined (and submodules explicitly loaded) by
__init__.py. It also includes any submodules of the package that were explicitly loaded by previous import
statements. Consider this code:
import sound.effects.echo
import sound.effects.surround
from sound.effects import *
In this example, the echo and surround modules are imported in the current namespace because they are
defined in the sound.effects package when the from...import statement is executed. (This also works
when __all__ is defined.)
Although certain modules are designed to export only names that follow certain patterns when you use
import *, it is still considered bad practice in production code.
Remember, there is nothing wrong with using from Package import specific_submodule! In fact, this is
the recommended notation unless the importing module needs to use submodules with the same name from
different packages.
Note that relative imports are based on the name of the current module. Since the name of the main module
is always "__main__", modules intended for use as the main module of a Python application must always
use absolute imports.
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CHAPTER
SEVEN
There are several ways to present the output of a program; data can be printed in a human-readable form,
or written to a file for future use. This chapter will discuss some of the possibilities.
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>>> print(hellos)
'hello, world\n'
>>> # The argument to repr() may be any Python object:
... repr((x, y, ('spam', 'eggs')))
"(32.5, 40000, ('spam', 'eggs'))"
(Note that in the first example, one space between each column was added by the way print() works: it
always adds spaces between its arguments.)
This example demonstrates the str.rjust() method of string objects, which right-justifies a string in a
field of a given width by padding it with spaces on the left. There are similar methods str.ljust() and
str.center(). These methods do not write anything, they just return a new string. If the input string is
too long, they don’t truncate it, but return it unchanged; this will mess up your column lay-out but that’s
usually better than the alternative, which would be lying about a value. (If you really want truncation you
can always add a slice operation, as in x.ljust(n)[:n].)
There is another method, str.zfill(), which pads a numeric string on the left with zeros. It understands
about plus and minus signs:
>>> '12'.zfill(5)
'00012'
>>> '-3.14'.zfill(7)
'-003.14'
>>> '3.14159265359'.zfill(5)
'3.14159265359'
The brackets and characters within them (called format fields) are replaced with the objects passed into the
str.format() method. A number in the brackets can be used to refer to the position of the object passed
into the str.format() method.
If keyword arguments are used in the str.format() method, their values are referred to by using the name
of the argument.
'!a' (apply ascii()), '!s' (apply str()) and '!r' (apply repr()) can be used to convert the value before
it is formatted:
An optional ':' and format specifier can follow the field name. This allows greater control over how the
value is formatted. The following example rounds Pi to three places after the decimal.
Passing an integer after the ':' will cause that field to be a minimum number of characters wide. This is
useful for making tables pretty.
If you have a really long format string that you don’t want to split up, it would be nice if you could reference
the variables to be formatted by name instead of by position. This can be done by simply passing the dict
and using square brackets '[]' to access the keys
This could also be done by passing the table as keyword arguments with the ‘**’ notation.
This is particularly useful in combination with the built-in function vars(), which returns a dictionary
containing all local variables.
For a complete overview of string formatting with str.format(), see formatstrings.
The first argument is a string containing the filename. The second argument is another string containing a
few characters describing the way in which the file will be used. mode can be 'r' when the file will only
be read, 'w' for only writing (an existing file with the same name will be erased), and 'a' opens the file
for appending; any data written to the file is automatically added to the end. 'r+' opens the file for both
reading and writing. The mode argument is optional; 'r' will be assumed if it’s omitted.
Normally, files are opened in text mode, that means, you read and write strings from and to the file, which are
encoded in a specific encoding. If encoding is not specified, the default is platform dependent (see open()).
'b' appended to the mode opens the file in binary mode: now the data is read and written in the form of
bytes objects. This mode should be used for all files that don’t contain text.
In text mode, the default when reading is to convert platform-specific line endings (\n on Unix, \r\n on
Windows) to just \n. When writing in text mode, the default is to convert occurrences of \n back to
platform-specific line endings. This behind-the-scenes modification to file data is fine for text files, but will
corrupt binary data like that in JPEG or EXE files. Be very careful to use binary mode when reading and
writing such files.
It is good practice to use the with keyword when dealing with file objects. The advantage is that the file is
properly closed after its suite finishes, even if an exception is raised at some point. Using with is also much
shorter than writing equivalent try-finally blocks:
If you’re not using the with keyword, then you should call f.close() to close the file and immediately
free up any system resources used by it. If you don’t explicitly close a file, Python’s garbage collector will
eventually destroy the object and close the open file for you, but the file may stay open for a while. Another
risk is that different Python implementations will do this clean-up at different times.
After a file object is closed, either by a with statement or by calling f.close(), attempts to use the file
object will automatically fail.
>>> f.close()
>>> f.read()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: I/O operation on closed file
>>> f.read()
'This is the entire file.\n'
>>> f.read()
''
f.readline() reads a single line from the file; a newline character (\n) is left at the end of the string, and
is only omitted on the last line of the file if the file doesn’t end in a newline. This makes the return value
unambiguous; if f.readline() returns an empty string, the end of the file has been reached, while a blank
line is represented by '\n', a string containing only a single newline.
>>> f.readline()
'This is the first line of the file.\n'
>>> f.readline()
'Second line of the file\n'
>>> f.readline()
''
For reading lines from a file, you can loop over the file object. This is memory efficient, fast, and leads to
simple code:
If you want to read all the lines of a file in a list you can also use list(f) or f.readlines().
f.write(string) writes the contents of string to the file, returning the number of characters written.
Other types of objects need to be converted – either to a string (in text mode) or a bytes object (in binary
mode) – before writing them:
f.tell() returns an integer giving the file object’s current position in the file represented as number of bytes
from the beginning of the file when in binary mode and an opaque number when in text mode.
To change the file object’s position, use f.seek(offset, from_what). The position is computed from
adding offset to a reference point; the reference point is selected by the from_what argument. A from_what
value of 0 measures from the beginning of the file, 1 uses the current file position, and 2 uses the end of the
file as the reference point. from_what can be omitted and defaults to 0, using the beginning of the file as
the reference point.
In text files (those opened without a b in the mode string), only seeks relative to the beginning of the file are
allowed (the exception being seeking to the very file end with seek(0, 2)) and the only valid offset values
are those returned from the f.tell(), or zero. Any other offset value produces undefined behaviour.
File objects have some additional methods, such as isatty() and truncate() which are less frequently
used; consult the Library Reference for a complete guide to file objects.
Note: The JSON format is commonly used by modern applications to allow for data exchange. Many
programmers are already familiar with it, which makes it a good choice for interoperability.
If you have an object x, you can view its JSON string representation with a simple line of code:
Another variant of the dumps() function, called dump(), simply serializes the object to a text file. So if f is
a text file object opened for writing, we can do this:
json.dump(x, f)
To decode the object again, if f is a text file object which has been opened for reading:
x = json.load(f)
This simple serialization technique can handle lists and dictionaries, but serializing arbitrary class instances
in JSON requires a bit of extra effort. The reference for the json module contains an explanation of this.
See also:
pickle - the pickle module
Contrary to JSON , pickle is a protocol which allows the serialization of arbitrarily complex Python objects.
As such, it is specific to Python and cannot be used to communicate with applications written in other
languages. It is also insecure by default: deserializing pickle data coming from an untrusted source can
execute arbitrary code, if the data was crafted by a skilled attacker.
EIGHT
Until now error messages haven’t been more than mentioned, but if you have tried out the examples you have
probably seen some. There are (at least) two distinguishable kinds of errors: syntax errors and exceptions.
The parser repeats the offending line and displays a little ‘arrow’ pointing at the earliest point in the line
where the error was detected. The error is caused by (or at least detected at) the token preceding the arrow:
in the example, the error is detected at the function print(), since a colon (':') is missing before it. File
name and line number are printed so you know where to look in case the input came from a script.
8.2 Exceptions
Even if a statement or expression is syntactically correct, it may cause an error when an attempt is made
to execute it. Errors detected during execution are called exceptions and are not unconditionally fatal: you
will soon learn how to handle them in Python programs. Most exceptions are not handled by programs,
however, and result in error messages as shown here:
>>> 10 * (1/0)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ZeroDivisionError: division by zero
>>> 4 + spam*3
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'spam' is not defined
>>> '2' + 2
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: Can't convert 'int' object to str implicitly
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The last line of the error message indicates what happened. Exceptions come in different types, and the
type is printed as part of the message: the types in the example are ZeroDivisionError, NameError and
TypeError. The string printed as the exception type is the name of the built-in exception that occurred.
This is true for all built-in exceptions, but need not be true for user-defined exceptions (although it is a
useful convention). Standard exception names are built-in identifiers (not reserved keywords).
The rest of the line provides detail based on the type of exception and what caused it.
The preceding part of the error message shows the context where the exception happened, in the form of
a stack traceback. In general it contains a stack traceback listing source lines; however, it will not display
lines read from standard input.
bltin-exceptions lists the built-in exceptions and their meanings.
A class in an except clause is compatible with an exception if it is the same class or a base class thereof (but
not the other way around — an except clause listing a derived class is not compatible with a base class).
For example, the following code will print B, C, D in that order:
class B(Exception):
pass
class C(B):
pass
class D(C):
pass
Note that if the except clauses were reversed (with except B first), it would have printed B, B, B — the
first matching except clause is triggered.
The last except clause may omit the exception name(s), to serve as a wildcard. Use this with extreme
caution, since it is easy to mask a real programming error in this way! It can also be used to print an error
message and then re-raise the exception (allowing a caller to handle the exception as well):
import sys
try:
f = open('myfile.txt')
s = f.readline()
i = int(s.strip())
except OSError as err:
print("OS error: {0}".format(err))
except ValueError:
print("Could not convert data to an integer.")
except:
print("Unexpected error:", sys.exc_info()[0])
raise
The try … except statement has an optional else clause, which, when present, must follow all except clauses.
It is useful for code that must be executed if the try clause does not raise an exception. For example:
The use of the else clause is better than adding additional code to the try clause because it avoids acciden-
tally catching an exception that wasn’t raised by the code being protected by the try … except statement.
When an exception occurs, it may have an associated value, also known as the exception’s argument. The
presence and type of the argument depend on the exception type.
The except clause may specify a variable after the exception name. The variable is bound to an exception
instance with the arguments stored in instance.args. For convenience, the exception instance defines
__str__() so the arguments can be printed directly without having to reference .args. One may also
instantiate an exception first before raising it and add any attributes to it as desired.
>>> try:
... raise Exception('spam', 'eggs')
... except Exception as inst:
... print(type(inst)) # the exception instance
... print(inst.args) # arguments stored in .args
... print(inst) # __str__ allows args to be printed directly,
... # but may be overridden in exception subclasses
... x, y = inst.args # unpack args
... print('x =', x)
... print('y =', y)
...
<class 'Exception'>
('spam', 'eggs')
('spam', 'eggs')
x = spam
y = eggs
If an exception has arguments, they are printed as the last part (‘detail’) of the message for unhandled
exceptions.
Exception handlers don’t just handle exceptions if they occur immediately in the try clause, but also if they
occur inside functions that are called (even indirectly) in the try clause. For example:
>>> def this_fails():
... x = 1/0
...
>>> try:
... this_fails()
... except ZeroDivisionError as err:
... print('Handling run-time error:', err)
...
Handling run-time error: division by zero
The sole argument to raise indicates the exception to be raised. This must be either an exception instance or
an exception class (a class that derives from Exception). If an exception class is passed, it will be implicitly
instantiated by calling its constructor with no arguments:
raise ValueError # shorthand for 'raise ValueError()'
If you need to determine whether an exception was raised but don’t intend to handle it, a simpler form of
the raise statement allows you to re-raise the exception:
>>> try:
... raise NameError('HiThere')
... except NameError:
... print('An exception flew by!')
... raise
...
An exception flew by!
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
NameError: HiThere
Programs may name their own exceptions by creating a new exception class (see Classes for more about
Python classes). Exceptions should typically be derived from the Exception class, either directly or indi-
rectly.
Exception classes can be defined which do anything any other class can do, but are usually kept simple, often
only offering a number of attributes that allow information about the error to be extracted by handlers for
the exception. When creating a module that can raise several distinct errors, a common practice is to create
a base class for exceptions defined by that module, and subclass that to create specific exception classes for
different error conditions:
class Error(Exception):
"""Base class for exceptions in this module."""
pass
class InputError(Error):
"""Exception raised for errors in the input.
Attributes:
expression -- input expression in which the error occurred
message -- explanation of the error
"""
class TransitionError(Error):
"""Raised when an operation attempts a state transition that's not
allowed.
Attributes:
previous -- state at beginning of transition
next -- attempted new state
message -- explanation of why the specific transition is not allowed
"""
Most exceptions are defined with names that end in “Error,” similar to the naming of the standard exceptions.
Many standard modules define their own exceptions to report errors that may occur in functions they define.
More information on classes is presented in chapter Classes.
>>> try:
... raise KeyboardInterrupt
... finally:
... print('Goodbye, world!')
...
Goodbye, world!
KeyboardInterrupt
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
A finally clause is always executed before leaving the try statement, whether an exception has occurred or
not. When an exception has occurred in the try clause and has not been handled by an except clause (or it
has occurred in an except or else clause), it is re-raised after the finally clause has been executed. The
finally clause is also executed “on the way out” when any other clause of the try statement is left via a
break, continue or return statement. A more complicated example:
As you can see, the finally clause is executed in any event. The TypeError raised by dividing two strings
is not handled by the except clause and therefore re-raised after the finally clause has been executed.
In real world applications, the finally clause is useful for releasing external resources (such as files or
network connections), regardless of whether the use of the resource was successful.
The problem with this code is that it leaves the file open for an indeterminate amount of time after this part
of the code has finished executing. This is not an issue in simple scripts, but can be a problem for larger
applications. The with statement allows objects like files to be used in a way that ensures they are always
cleaned up promptly and correctly.
with open("myfile.txt") as f:
for line in f:
print(line, end="")
After the statement is executed, the file f is always closed, even if a problem was encountered while pro-
cessing the lines. Objects which, like files, provide predefined clean-up actions will indicate this in their
documentation.
NINE
CLASSES
Classes provide a means of bundling data and functionality together. Creating a new class creates a new type
of object, allowing new instances of that type to be made. Each class instance can have attributes attached
to it for maintaining its state. Class instances can also have methods (defined by its class) for modifying its
state.
Compared with other programming languages, Python’s class mechanism adds classes with a minimum of
new syntax and semantics. It is a mixture of the class mechanisms found in C++ and Modula-3. Python
classes provide all the standard features of Object Oriented Programming: the class inheritance mechanism
allows multiple base classes, a derived class can override any methods of its base class or classes, and a
method can call the method of a base class with the same name. Objects can contain arbitrary amounts and
kinds of data. As is true for modules, classes partake of the dynamic nature of Python: they are created at
runtime, and can be modified further after creation.
In C++ terminology, normally class members (including the data members) are public (except see below
Private Variables), and all member functions are virtual. As in Modula-3, there are no shorthands for
referencing the object’s members from its methods: the method function is declared with an explicit first
argument representing the object, which is provided implicitly by the call. As in Smalltalk, classes themselves
are objects. This provides semantics for importing and renaming. Unlike C++ and Modula-3, built-in types
can be used as base classes for extension by the user. Also, like in C++, most built-in operators with special
syntax (arithmetic operators, subscripting etc.) can be redefined for class instances.
(Lacking universally accepted terminology to talk about classes, I will make occasional use of Smalltalk and
C++ terms. I would use Modula-3 terms, since its object-oriented semantics are closer to those of Python
than C++, but I expect that few readers have heard of it.)
Objects have individuality, and multiple names (in multiple scopes) can be bound to the same object. This
is known as aliasing in other languages. This is usually not appreciated on a first glance at Python, and
can be safely ignored when dealing with immutable basic types (numbers, strings, tuples). However, aliasing
has a possibly surprising effect on the semantics of Python code involving mutable objects such as lists,
dictionaries, and most other types. This is usually used to the benefit of the program, since aliases behave
like pointers in some respects. For example, passing an object is cheap since only a pointer is passed by the
implementation; and if a function modifies an object passed as an argument, the caller will see the change
— this eliminates the need for two different argument passing mechanisms as in Pascal.
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understand what’s going on. Incidentally, knowledge about this subject is useful for any advanced Python
programmer.
Let’s begin with some definitions.
A namespace is a mapping from names to objects. Most namespaces are currently implemented as Python
dictionaries, but that’s normally not noticeable in any way (except for performance), and it may change
in the future. Examples of namespaces are: the set of built-in names (containing functions such as abs(),
and built-in exception names); the global names in a module; and the local names in a function invocation.
In a sense the set of attributes of an object also form a namespace. The important thing to know about
namespaces is that there is absolutely no relation between names in different namespaces; for instance, two
different modules may both define a function maximize without confusion — users of the modules must
prefix it with the module name.
By the way, I use the word attribute for any name following a dot — for example, in the expression z.
real, real is an attribute of the object z. Strictly speaking, references to names in modules are attribute
references: in the expression modname.funcname, modname is a module object and funcname is an attribute
of it. In this case there happens to be a straightforward mapping between the module’s attributes and the
global names defined in the module: they share the same namespace!1
Attributes may be read-only or writable. In the latter case, assignment to attributes is possible. Module
attributes are writable: you can write modname.the_answer = 42. Writable attributes may also be deleted
with the del statement. For example, del modname.the_answer will remove the attribute the_answer from
the object named by modname.
Namespaces are created at different moments and have different lifetimes. The namespace containing the
built-in names is created when the Python interpreter starts up, and is never deleted. The global namespace
for a module is created when the module definition is read in; normally, module namespaces also last until
the interpreter quits. The statements executed by the top-level invocation of the interpreter, either read
from a script file or interactively, are considered part of a module called __main__, so they have their own
global namespace. (The built-in names actually also live in a module; this is called builtins.)
The local namespace for a function is created when the function is called, and deleted when the function
returns or raises an exception that is not handled within the function. (Actually, forgetting would be a
better way to describe what actually happens.) Of course, recursive invocations each have their own local
namespace.
A scope is a textual region of a Python program where a namespace is directly accessible. “Directly accessible”
here means that an unqualified reference to a name attempts to find the name in the namespace.
Although scopes are determined statically, they are used dynamically. At any time during execution, there
are at least three nested scopes whose namespaces are directly accessible:
• the innermost scope, which is searched first, contains the local names
• the scopes of any enclosing functions, which are searched starting with the nearest enclosing scope,
contains non-local, but also non-global names
• the next-to-last scope contains the current module’s global names
• the outermost scope (searched last) is the namespace containing built-in names
If a name is declared global, then all references and assignments go directly to the middle scope containing the
module’s global names. To rebind variables found outside of the innermost scope, the nonlocal statement
can be used; if not declared nonlocal, those variables are read-only (an attempt to write to such a variable
will simply create a new local variable in the innermost scope, leaving the identically named outer variable
unchanged).
1 Except for one thing. Module objects have a secret read-only attribute called __dict__ which returns the dictionary used
to implement the module’s namespace; the name __dict__ is an attribute but not a global name. Obviously, using this violates
the abstraction of namespace implementation, and should be restricted to things like post-mortem debuggers.
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Usually, the local scope references the local names of the (textually) current function. Outside functions, the
local scope references the same namespace as the global scope: the module’s namespace. Class definitions
place yet another namespace in the local scope.
It is important to realize that scopes are determined textually: the global scope of a function defined in a
module is that module’s namespace, no matter from where or by what alias the function is called. On the
other hand, the actual search for names is done dynamically, at run time — however, the language definition
is evolving towards static name resolution, at “compile” time, so don’t rely on dynamic name resolution! (In
fact, local variables are already determined statically.)
A special quirk of Python is that – if no global statement is in effect – assignments to names always go into
the innermost scope. Assignments do not copy data — they just bind names to objects. The same is true for
deletions: the statement del x removes the binding of x from the namespace referenced by the local scope.
In fact, all operations that introduce new names use the local scope: in particular, import statements and
function definitions bind the module or function name in the local scope.
The global statement can be used to indicate that particular variables live in the global scope and should
be rebound there; the nonlocal statement indicates that particular variables live in an enclosing scope and
should be rebound there.
def scope_test():
def do_local():
spam = "local spam"
def do_nonlocal():
nonlocal spam
spam = "nonlocal spam"
def do_global():
global spam
spam = "global spam"
scope_test()
print("In global scope:", spam)
Note how the local assignment (which is default) didn’t change scope_test’s binding of spam. The nonlocal
assignment changed scope_test’s binding of spam, and the global assignment changed the module-level
binding.
You can also see that there was no previous binding for spam before the global assignment.
class ClassName:
<statement-1>
.
.
.
<statement-N>
Class definitions, like function definitions (def statements) must be executed before they have any effect.
(You could conceivably place a class definition in a branch of an if statement, or inside a function.)
In practice, the statements inside a class definition will usually be function definitions, but other statements
are allowed, and sometimes useful — we’ll come back to this later. The function definitions inside a class
normally have a peculiar form of argument list, dictated by the calling conventions for methods — again,
this is explained later.
When a class definition is entered, a new namespace is created, and used as the local scope — thus, all
assignments to local variables go into this new namespace. In particular, function definitions bind the name
of the new function here.
When a class definition is left normally (via the end), a class object is created. This is basically a wrapper
around the contents of the namespace created by the class definition; we’ll learn more about class objects
in the next section. The original local scope (the one in effect just before the class definition was entered)
is reinstated, and the class object is bound here to the class name given in the class definition header
(ClassName in the example).
class MyClass:
"""A simple example class"""
i = 12345
def f(self):
return 'hello world'
then MyClass.i and MyClass.f are valid attribute references, returning an integer and a function object,
respectively. Class attributes can also be assigned to, so you can change the value of MyClass.i by assign-
ment. __doc__ is also a valid attribute, returning the docstring belonging to the class: "A simple example
class".
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Class instantiation uses function notation. Just pretend that the class object is a parameterless function
that returns a new instance of the class. For example (assuming the above class):
x = MyClass()
creates a new instance of the class and assigns this object to the local variable x.
The instantiation operation (“calling” a class object) creates an empty object. Many classes like to create
objects with instances customized to a specific initial state. Therefore a class may define a special method
named __init__(), like this:
def __init__(self):
self.data = []
When a class defines an __init__() method, class instantiation automatically invokes __init__() for the
newly-created class instance. So in this example, a new, initialized instance can be obtained by:
x = MyClass()
Of course, the __init__() method may have arguments for greater flexibility. In that case, arguments given
to the class instantiation operator are passed on to __init__(). For example,
x.counter = 1
while x.counter < 10:
x.counter = x.counter * 2
print(x.counter)
del x.counter
The other kind of instance attribute reference is a method. A method is a function that “belongs to” an
object. (In Python, the term method is not unique to class instances: other object types can have methods
as well. For example, list objects have methods called append, insert, remove, sort, and so on. However, in
the following discussion, we’ll use the term method exclusively to mean methods of class instance objects,
unless explicitly stated otherwise.)
Valid method names of an instance object depend on its class. By definition, all attributes of a class that
are function objects define corresponding methods of its instances. So in our example, x.f is a valid method
reference, since MyClass.f is a function, but x.i is not, since MyClass.i is not. But x.f is not the same
thing as MyClass.f — it is a method object, not a function object.
x.f()
In the MyClass example, this will return the string 'hello world'. However, it is not necessary to call a
method right away: x.f is a method object, and can be stored away and called at a later time. For example:
xf = x.f
while True:
print(xf())
class Dog:
>>> d = Dog('Fido')
>>> e = Dog('Buddy')
>>> d.kind # shared by all dogs
'canine'
>>> e.kind # shared by all dogs
'canine'
>>> d.name # unique to d
'Fido'
>>> e.name # unique to e
'Buddy'
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As discussed in A Word About Names and Objects, shared data can have possibly surprising effects with
involving mutable objects such as lists and dictionaries. For example, the tricks list in the following code
should not be used as a class variable because just a single list would be shared by all Dog instances:
class Dog:
>>> d = Dog('Fido')
>>> e = Dog('Buddy')
>>> d.add_trick('roll over')
>>> e.add_trick('play dead')
>>> d.tricks # unexpectedly shared by all dogs
['roll over', 'play dead']
class Dog:
>>> d = Dog('Fido')
>>> e = Dog('Buddy')
>>> d.add_trick('roll over')
>>> e.add_trick('play dead')
>>> d.tricks
['roll over']
>>> e.tricks
['play dead']
by stamping on their data attributes. Note that clients may add data attributes of their own to an instance
object without affecting the validity of the methods, as long as name conflicts are avoided — again, a naming
convention can save a lot of headaches here.
There is no shorthand for referencing data attributes (or other methods!) from within methods. I find that
this actually increases the readability of methods: there is no chance of confusing local variables and instance
variables when glancing through a method.
Often, the first argument of a method is called self. This is nothing more than a convention: the name
self has absolutely no special meaning to Python. Note, however, that by not following the convention
your code may be less readable to other Python programmers, and it is also conceivable that a class browser
program might be written that relies upon such a convention.
Any function object that is a class attribute defines a method for instances of that class. It is not necessary
that the function definition is textually enclosed in the class definition: assigning a function object to a local
variable in the class is also ok. For example:
class C:
f = f1
def g(self):
return 'hello world'
h = g
Now f, g and h are all attributes of class C that refer to function objects, and consequently they are all
methods of instances of C — h being exactly equivalent to g. Note that this practice usually only serves to
confuse the reader of a program.
Methods may call other methods by using method attributes of the self argument:
class Bag:
def __init__(self):
self.data = []
Methods may reference global names in the same way as ordinary functions. The global scope associated
with a method is the module containing its definition. (A class is never used as a global scope.) While one
rarely encounters a good reason for using global data in a method, there are many legitimate uses of the
global scope: for one thing, functions and modules imported into the global scope can be used by methods,
as well as functions and classes defined in it. Usually, the class containing the method is itself defined in this
global scope, and in the next section we’ll find some good reasons why a method would want to reference its
own class.
Each value is an object, and therefore has a class (also called its type). It is stored as object.__class__.
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9.5 Inheritance
Of course, a language feature would not be worthy of the name “class” without supporting inheritance. The
syntax for a derived class definition looks like this:
class DerivedClassName(BaseClassName):
<statement-1>
.
.
.
<statement-N>
The name BaseClassName must be defined in a scope containing the derived class definition. In place of
a base class name, other arbitrary expressions are also allowed. This can be useful, for example, when the
base class is defined in another module:
class DerivedClassName(modname.BaseClassName):
Execution of a derived class definition proceeds the same as for a base class. When the class object is
constructed, the base class is remembered. This is used for resolving attribute references: if a requested
attribute is not found in the class, the search proceeds to look in the base class. This rule is applied
recursively if the base class itself is derived from some other class.
There’s nothing special about instantiation of derived classes: DerivedClassName() creates a new instance of
the class. Method references are resolved as follows: the corresponding class attribute is searched, descending
down the chain of base classes if necessary, and the method reference is valid if this yields a function object.
Derived classes may override methods of their base classes. Because methods have no special privileges when
calling other methods of the same object, a method of a base class that calls another method defined in the
same base class may end up calling a method of a derived class that overrides it. (For C++ programmers:
all methods in Python are effectively virtual.)
An overriding method in a derived class may in fact want to extend rather than simply replace the base
class method of the same name. There is a simple way to call the base class method directly: just call
BaseClassName.methodname(self, arguments). This is occasionally useful to clients as well. (Note that
this only works if the base class is accessible as BaseClassName in the global scope.)
Python has two built-in functions that work with inheritance:
• Use isinstance() to check an instance’s type: isinstance(obj, int) will be True only if obj.
__class__ is int or some class derived from int.
• Use issubclass() to check class inheritance: issubclass(bool, int) is True since bool is a subclass
of int. However, issubclass(float, int) is False since float is not a subclass of int.
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For most purposes, in the simplest cases, you can think of the search for attributes inherited from a parent
class as depth-first, left-to-right, not searching twice in the same class where there is an overlap in the hier-
archy. Thus, if an attribute is not found in DerivedClassName, it is searched for in Base1, then (recursively)
in the base classes of Base1, and if it was not found there, it was searched for in Base2, and so on.
In fact, it is slightly more complex than that; the method resolution order changes dynamically to support
cooperative calls to super(). This approach is known in some other multiple-inheritance languages as
call-next-method and is more powerful than the super call found in single-inheritance languages.
Dynamic ordering is necessary because all cases of multiple inheritance exhibit one or more diamond re-
lationships (where at least one of the parent classes can be accessed through multiple paths from the
bottommost class). For example, all classes inherit from object, so any case of multiple inheritance
provides more than one path to reach object. To keep the base classes from being accessed more than
once, the dynamic algorithm linearizes the search order in a way that preserves the left-to-right order-
ing specified in each class, that calls each parent only once, and that is monotonic (meaning that a class
can be subclassed without affecting the precedence order of its parents). Taken together, these properties
make it possible to design reliable and extensible classes with multiple inheritance. For more detail, see
https://www.python.org/download/releases/2.3/mro/.
class MappingSubclass(Mapping):
Note that the mangling rules are designed mostly to avoid accidents; it still is possible to access or modify a
variable that is considered private. This can even be useful in special circumstances, such as in the debugger.
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Notice that code passed to exec() or eval() does not consider the classname of the invoking class to be the
current class; this is similar to the effect of the global statement, the effect of which is likewise restricted to
code that is byte-compiled together. The same restriction applies to getattr(), setattr() and delattr(),
as well as when referencing __dict__ directly.
class Employee:
pass
A piece of Python code that expects a particular abstract data type can often be passed a class that emulates
the methods of that data type instead. For instance, if you have a function that formats some data from
a file object, you can define a class with methods read() and readline() that get the data from a string
buffer instead, and pass it as an argument.
Instance method objects have attributes, too: m.__self__ is the instance object with the method m(), and
m.__func__ is the function object corresponding to the method.
9.8 Iterators
By now you have probably noticed that most container objects can be looped over using a for statement:
This style of access is clear, concise, and convenient. The use of iterators pervades and unifies Python.
Behind the scenes, the for statement calls iter() on the container object. The function returns an iterator
object that defines the method __next__() which accesses elements in the container one at a time. When
there are no more elements, __next__() raises a StopIteration exception which tells the for loop to
terminate. You can call the __next__() method using the next() built-in function; this example shows how
it all works:
>>> s = 'abc'
>>> it = iter(s)
>>> it
<iterator object at 0x00A1DB50>
>>> next(it)
'a'
>>> next(it)
'b'
>>> next(it)
'c'
>>> next(it)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
next(it)
StopIteration
Having seen the mechanics behind the iterator protocol, it is easy to add iterator behavior to your classes.
Define an __iter__() method which returns an object with a __next__() method. If the class defines
__next__(), then __iter__() can just return self:
class Reverse:
"""Iterator for looping over a sequence backwards."""
def __init__(self, data):
self.data = data
self.index = len(data)
def __iter__(self):
return self
def __next__(self):
if self.index == 0:
raise StopIteration
self.index = self.index - 1
return self.data[self.index]
9.9 Generators
Generators are a simple and powerful tool for creating iterators. They are written like regular functions but
use the yield statement whenever they want to return data. Each time next() is called on it, the generator
resumes where it left off (it remembers all the data values and which statement was last executed). An
example shows that generators can be trivially easy to create:
def reverse(data):
for index in range(len(data)-1, -1, -1):
yield data[index]
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Anything that can be done with generators can also be done with class-based iterators as described in the
previous section. What makes generators so compact is that the __iter__() and __next__() methods are
created automatically.
Another key feature is that the local variables and execution state are automatically saved between calls.
This made the function easier to write and much more clear than an approach using instance variables like
self.index and self.data.
In addition to automatic method creation and saving program state, when generators terminate, they au-
tomatically raise StopIteration. In combination, these features make it easy to create iterators with no
more effort than writing a regular function.
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CHAPTER
TEN
>>> import os
>>> os.getcwd() # Return the current working directory
'C:\\Python36'
>>> os.chdir('/server/accesslogs') # Change current working directory
>>> os.system('mkdir today') # Run the command mkdir in the system shell
0
Be sure to use the import os style instead of from os import *. This will keep os.open() from shadowing
the built-in open() function which operates much differently.
The built-in dir() and help() functions are useful as interactive aids for working with large modules like
os:
>>> import os
>>> dir(os)
<returns a list of all module functions>
>>> help(os)
<returns an extensive manual page created from the module's docstrings>
For daily file and directory management tasks, the shutil module provides a higher level interface that is
easier to use:
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The getopt module processes sys.argv using the conventions of the Unix getopt() function. More powerful
and flexible command line processing is provided by the argparse module.
When only simple capabilities are needed, string methods are preferred because they are easier to read and
debug:
>>> 'tea for too'.replace('too', 'two')
'tea for two'
10.6 Mathematics
The math module gives access to the underlying C library functions for floating point math:
>>> import math
>>> math.cos(math.pi / 4)
0.70710678118654757
>>> math.log(1024, 2)
10.0
The statistics module calculates basic statistical properties (the mean, median, variance, etc.) of numeric
data:
The SciPy project <https://scipy.org> has many other modules for numerical computations.
tion for output formatting and manipulation. The module also supports objects that are timezone aware.
In contrast to timeit’s fine level of granularity, the profile and pstats modules provide tools for identifying
time critical sections in larger blocks of code.
def average(values):
"""Computes the arithmetic mean of a list of numbers.
import doctest
doctest.testmod() # automatically validate the embedded tests
The unittest module is not as effortless as the doctest module, but it allows a more comprehensive set of
tests to be maintained in a separate file:
import unittest
class TestStatisticalFunctions(unittest.TestCase):
def test_average(self):
self.assertEqual(average([20, 30, 70]), 40.0)
self.assertEqual(round(average([1, 5, 7]), 1), 4.3)
with self.assertRaises(ZeroDivisionError):
average([])
with self.assertRaises(TypeError):
average(20, 30, 70)
• The sqlite3 module is a wrapper for the SQLite database library, providing a persistent database
that can be updated and accessed using slightly nonstandard SQL syntax.
• Internationalization is supported by a number of modules including gettext, locale, and the codecs
package.
ELEVEN
This second tour covers more advanced modules that support professional programming needs. These mod-
ules rarely occur in small scripts.
The pprint module offers more sophisticated control over printing both built-in and user defined objects in
a way that is readable by the interpreter. When the result is longer than one line, the “pretty printer” adds
line breaks and indentation to more clearly reveal data structure:
The locale module accesses a database of culture specific data formats. The grouping attribute of locale’s
format function provides a direct way of formatting numbers with group separators:
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11.2 Templating
The string module includes a versatile Template class with a simplified syntax suitable for editing by
end-users. This allows users to customize their applications without having to alter the application.
The format uses placeholder names formed by $ with valid Python identifiers (alphanumeric characters and
underscores). Surrounding the placeholder with braces allows it to be followed by more alphanumeric letters
with no intervening spaces. Writing $$ creates a single escaped $:
The substitute() method raises a KeyError when a placeholder is not supplied in a dictionary or a
keyword argument. For mail-merge style applications, user supplied data may be incomplete and the
safe_substitute() method may be more appropriate — it will leave placeholders unchanged if data is
missing:
Template subclasses can specify a custom delimiter. For example, a batch renaming utility for a photo
browser may elect to use percent signs for placeholders such as the current date, image sequence number, or
file format:
>>> t = BatchRename(fmt)
>>> date = time.strftime('%d%b%y')
>>> for i, filename in enumerate(photofiles):
... base, ext = os.path.splitext(filename)
... newname = t.substitute(d=date, n=i, f=ext)
Another application for templating is separating program logic from the details of multiple output formats.
This makes it possible to substitute custom templates for XML files, plain text reports, and HTML web
reports.
import struct
start = 0
for i in range(3): # show the first 3 file headers
start += 14
fields = struct.unpack('<IIIHH', data[start:start+16])
crc32, comp_size, uncomp_size, filenamesize, extra_size = fields
start += 16
filename = data[start:start+filenamesize]
start += filenamesize
extra = data[start:start+extra_size]
print(filename, hex(crc32), comp_size, uncomp_size)
11.4 Multi-threading
Threading is a technique for decoupling tasks which are not sequentially dependent. Threads can be used to
improve the responsiveness of applications that accept user input while other tasks run in the background.
A related use case is running I/O in parallel with computations in another thread.
The following code shows how the high level threading module can run tasks in background while the main
program continues to run:
class AsyncZip(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, infile, outfile):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
self.infile = infile
self.outfile = outfile
def run(self):
f = zipfile.ZipFile(self.outfile, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
f.write(self.infile)
f.close()
print('Finished background zip of:', self.infile)
The principal challenge of multi-threaded applications is coordinating threads that share data or other
resources. To that end, the threading module provides a number of synchronization primitives including
locks, events, condition variables, and semaphores.
While those tools are powerful, minor design errors can result in problems that are difficult to reproduce.
So, the preferred approach to task coordination is to concentrate all access to a resource in a single thread
and then use the queue module to feed that thread with requests from other threads. Applications using
Queue objects for inter-thread communication and coordination are easier to design, more readable, and
more reliable.
11.5 Logging
The logging module offers a full featured and flexible logging system. At its simplest, log messages are sent
to a file or to sys.stderr:
import logging
logging.debug('Debugging information')
logging.info('Informational message')
logging.warning('Warning:config file %s not found', 'server.conf')
logging.error('Error occurred')
logging.critical('Critical error -- shutting down')
By default, informational and debugging messages are suppressed and the output is sent to standard er-
ror. Other output options include routing messages through email, datagrams, sockets, or to an HTTP
Server. New filters can select different routing based on message priority: DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, and
CRITICAL.
The logging system can be configured directly from Python or can be loaded from a user editable configuration
file for customized logging without altering the application.
Python does automatic memory management (reference counting for most objects and garbage collection to
eliminate cycles). The memory is freed shortly after the last reference to it has been eliminated.
This approach works fine for most applications but occasionally there is a need to track objects only as long
as they are being used by something else. Unfortunately, just tracking them creates a reference that makes
them permanent. The weakref module provides tools for tracking objects without creating a reference.
When the object is no longer needed, it is automatically removed from a weakref table and a callback is
triggered for weakref objects. Typical applications include caching objects that are expensive to create:
The collections module provides a deque() object that is like a list with faster appends and pops from
the left side but slower lookups in the middle. These objects are well suited for implementing queues and
breadth first tree searches:
unsearched = deque([starting_node])
def breadth_first_search(unsearched):
node = unsearched.popleft()
for m in gen_moves(node):
if is_goal(m):
return m
unsearched.append(m)
In addition to alternative list implementations, the library also offers other tools such as the bisect module
with functions for manipulating sorted lists:
The heapq module provides functions for implementing heaps based on regular lists. The lowest valued entry
is always kept at position zero. This is useful for applications which repeatedly access the smallest element
but do not want to run a full list sort:
The Decimal result keeps a trailing zero, automatically inferring four place significance from multiplicands
with two place significance. Decimal reproduces mathematics as done by hand and avoids issues that can
arise when binary floating point cannot exactly represent decimal quantities.
Exact representation enables the Decimal class to perform modulo calculations and equality tests that are
unsuitable for binary floating point:
>>> getcontext().prec = 36
>>> Decimal(1) / Decimal(7)
Decimal('0.142857142857142857142857142857142857')
TWELVE
12.1 Introduction
Python applications will often use packages and modules that don’t come as part of the standard library.
Applications will sometimes need a specific version of a library, because the application may require that a
particular bug has been fixed or the application may be written using an obsolete version of the library’s
interface.
This means it may not be possible for one Python installation to meet the requirements of every application.
If application A needs version 1.0 of a particular module but application B needs version 2.0, then the
requirements are in conflict and installing either version 1.0 or 2.0 will leave one application unable to run.
The solution for this problem is to create a virtual environment, a self-contained directory tree that contains
a Python installation for a particular version of Python, plus a number of additional packages.
Different applications can then use different virtual environments. To resolve the earlier example of conflicting
requirements, application A can have its own virtual environment with version 1.0 installed while application
B has another virtual environment with version 2.0. If application B requires a library be upgraded to version
3.0, this will not affect application A’s environment.
This will create the tutorial-env directory if it doesn’t exist, and also create directories inside it containing
a copy of the Python interpreter, the standard library, and various supporting files.
Once you’ve created a virtual environment, you may activate it.
On Windows, run:
tutorial-env\Scripts\activate.bat
source tutorial-env/bin/activate
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(This script is written for the bash shell. If you use the csh or fish shells, there are alternate activate.csh
and activate.fish scripts you should use instead.)
Activating the virtual environment will change your shell’s prompt to show what virtual environment you’re
using, and modify the environment so that running python will get you that particular version and instal-
lation of Python. For example:
$ source ~/envs/tutorial-env/bin/activate
(tutorial-env) $ python
Python 3.5.1 (default, May 6 2016, 10:59:36)
...
>>> import sys
>>> sys.path
['', '/usr/local/lib/python35.zip', ...,
'~/envs/tutorial-env/lib/python3.5/site-packages']
>>>
pip has a number of subcommands: “search”, “install”, “uninstall”, “freeze”, etc. (Consult the installing-
index guide for complete documentation for pip.)
You can install the latest version of a package by specifying a package’s name:
You can also install a specific version of a package by giving the package name followed by == and the version
number:
If you re-run this command, pip will notice that the requested version is already installed and do nothing.
You can supply a different version number to get that version, or you can run pip install --upgrade to
upgrade the package to the latest version:
pip uninstall followed by one or more package names will remove the packages from the virtual environ-
ment.
pip show will display information about a particular package:
pip list will display all of the packages installed in the virtual environment:
pip freeze will produce a similar list of the installed packages, but the output uses the format that pip
install expects. A common convention is to put this list in a requirements.txt file:
The requirements.txt can then be committed to version control and shipped as part of an application.
Users can then install all the necessary packages with install -r:
pip has many more options. Consult the installing-index guide for complete documentation for pip. When
you’ve written a package and want to make it available on the Python Package Index, consult the distributing-
index guide.
THIRTEEN
WHAT NOW?
Reading this tutorial has probably reinforced your interest in using Python — you should be eager to apply
Python to solving your real-world problems. Where should you go to learn more?
This tutorial is part of Python’s documentation set. Some other documents in the set are:
• library-index:
You should browse through this manual, which gives complete (though terse) reference material about
types, functions, and the modules in the standard library. The standard Python distribution includes
a lot of additional code. There are modules to read Unix mailboxes, retrieve documents via HTTP,
generate random numbers, parse command-line options, write CGI programs, compress data, and many
other tasks. Skimming through the Library Reference will give you an idea of what’s available.
• installing-index explains how to install additional modules written by other Python users.
• reference-index: A detailed explanation of Python’s syntax and semantics. It’s heavy reading, but is
useful as a complete guide to the language itself.
More Python resources:
• https://www.python.org: The major Python Web site. It contains code, documentation, and pointers
to Python-related pages around the Web. This Web site is mirrored in various places around the world,
such as Europe, Japan, and Australia; a mirror may be faster than the main site, depending on your
geographical location.
• https://docs.python.org: Fast access to Python’s documentation.
• https://pypi.python.org/pypi: The Python Package Index, previously also nicknamed the Cheese Shop,
is an index of user-created Python modules that are available for download. Once you begin releasing
code, you can register it here so that others can find it.
• https://code.activestate.com/recipes/langs/python/: The Python Cookbook is a sizable collection of
code examples, larger modules, and useful scripts. Particularly notable contributions are collected in
a book also titled Python Cookbook (O’Reilly & Associates, ISBN 0-596-00797-3.)
• http://www.pyvideo.org collects links to Python-related videos from conferences and user-group meet-
ings.
• https://scipy.org: The Scientific Python project includes modules for fast array computations and
manipulations plus a host of packages for such things as linear algebra, Fourier transforms, non-linear
solvers, random number distributions, statistical analysis and the like.
For Python-related questions and problem reports, you can post to the newsgroup comp.lang.python, or
send them to the mailing list at [email protected]. The newsgroup and mailing list are gatewayed,
so messages posted to one will automatically be forwarded to the other. There are hundreds of postings a
day, asking (and answering) questions, suggesting new features, and announcing new modules. Mailing list
archives are available at https://mail.python.org/pipermail/.
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Before posting, be sure to check the list of Frequently Asked Questions (also called the FAQ). The FAQ
answers many of the questions that come up again and again, and may already contain the solution for your
problem.
FOURTEEN
Some versions of the Python interpreter support editing of the current input line and history substitution,
similar to facilities found in the Korn shell and the GNU Bash shell. This is implemented using the GNU
Readline library, which supports various styles of editing. This library has its own documentation which we
won’t duplicate here.
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FIFTEEN
Floating-point numbers are represented in computer hardware as base 2 (binary) fractions. For example,
the decimal fraction
0.125
has value 1/10 + 2/100 + 5/1000, and in the same way the binary fraction
0.001
has value 0/2 + 0/4 + 1/8. These two fractions have identical values, the only real difference being that the
first is written in base 10 fractional notation, and the second in base 2.
Unfortunately, most decimal fractions cannot be represented exactly as binary fractions. A consequence is
that, in general, the decimal floating-point numbers you enter are only approximated by the binary floating-
point numbers actually stored in the machine.
The problem is easier to understand at first in base 10. Consider the fraction 1/3. You can approximate
that as a base 10 fraction:
0.3
or, better,
0.33
or, better,
0.333
and so on. No matter how many digits you’re willing to write down, the result will never be exactly 1/3,
but will be an increasingly better approximation of 1/3.
In the same way, no matter how many base 2 digits you’re willing to use, the decimal value 0.1 cannot be
represented exactly as a base 2 fraction. In base 2, 1/10 is the infinitely repeating fraction
0.0001100110011001100110011001100110011001100110011...
Stop at any finite number of bits, and you get an approximation. On most machines today, floats are
approximated using a binary fraction with the numerator using the first 53 bits starting with the most
significant bit and with the denominator as a power of two. In the case of 1/10, the binary fraction is
3602879701896397 / 2 ** 55 which is close to but not exactly equal to the true value of 1/10.
Many users are not aware of the approximation because of the way values are displayed. Python only prints
a decimal approximation to the true decimal value of the binary approximation stored by the machine. On
most machines, if Python were to print the true decimal value of the binary approximation stored for 0.1, it
would have to display
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>>> 0.1
0.1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015625
That is more digits than most people find useful, so Python keeps the number of digits manageable by
displaying a rounded value instead
>>> 1 / 10
0.1
Just remember, even though the printed result looks like the exact value of 1/10, the actual stored value is
the nearest representable binary fraction.
Interestingly, there are many different decimal numbers that share the same nearest ap-
proximate binary fraction. For example, the numbers 0.1 and 0.10000000000000001 and
0.1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015625 are all approximated by
3602879701896397 / 2 ** 55. Since all of these decimal values share the same approximation,
any one of them could be displayed while still preserving the invariant eval(repr(x)) == x.
Historically, the Python prompt and built-in repr() function would choose the one with 17 significant
digits, 0.10000000000000001. Starting with Python 3.1, Python (on most systems) is now able to choose
the shortest of these and simply display 0.1.
Note that this is in the very nature of binary floating-point: this is not a bug in Python, and it is not a
bug in your code either. You’ll see the same kind of thing in all languages that support your hardware’s
floating-point arithmetic (although some languages may not display the difference by default, or in all output
modes).
For more pleasant output, you may wish to use string formatting to produce a limited number of significant
digits:
>>> repr(math.pi)
'3.141592653589793'
It’s important to realize that this is, in a real sense, an illusion: you’re simply rounding the display of the
true machine value.
One illusion may beget another. For example, since 0.1 is not exactly 1/10, summing three values of 0.1 may
not yield exactly 0.3, either:
>>> .1 + .1 + .1 == .3
False
Also, since the 0.1 cannot get any closer to the exact value of 1/10 and 0.3 cannot get any closer to the exact
value of 3/10, then pre-rounding with round() function cannot help:
Though the numbers cannot be made closer to their intended exact values, the round() function can be
useful for post-rounding so that results with inexact values become comparable to one another:
Binary floating-point arithmetic holds many surprises like this. The problem with “0.1” is explained in
precise detail below, in the “Representation Error” section. See The Perils of Floating Point for a more
complete account of other common surprises.
As that says near the end, “there are no easy answers.” Still, don’t be unduly wary of floating-point! The
errors in Python float operations are inherited from the floating-point hardware, and on most machines are
on the order of no more than 1 part in 2**53 per operation. That’s more than adequate for most tasks, but
you do need to keep in mind that it’s not decimal arithmetic and that every float operation can suffer a new
rounding error.
While pathological cases do exist, for most casual use of floating-point arithmetic you’ll see the result you
expect in the end if you simply round the display of your final results to the number of decimal digits you
expect. str() usually suffices, and for finer control see the str.format() method’s format specifiers in
formatstrings.
For use cases which require exact decimal representation, try using the decimal module which implements
decimal arithmetic suitable for accounting applications and high-precision applications.
Another form of exact arithmetic is supported by the fractions module which implements arithmetic based
on rational numbers (so the numbers like 1/3 can be represented exactly).
If you are a heavy user of floating point operations you should take a look at the Numerical Python package
and many other packages for mathematical and statistical operations supplied by the SciPy project. See
<https://scipy.org>.
Python provides tools that may help on those rare occasions when you really do want to know the exact
value of a float. The float.as_integer_ratio() method expresses the value of a float as a fraction:
>>> x = 3.14159
>>> x.as_integer_ratio()
(3537115888337719, 1125899906842624)
Since the ratio is exact, it can be used to losslessly recreate the original value:
The float.hex() method expresses a float in hexadecimal (base 16), again giving the exact value stored by
your computer:
>>> x.hex()
'0x1.921f9f01b866ep+1'
This precise hexadecimal representation can be used to reconstruct the float value exactly:
>>> x == float.fromhex('0x1.921f9f01b866ep+1')
True
Since the representation is exact, it is useful for reliably porting values across different versions of Python
(platform independence) and exchanging data with other languages that support the same format (such as
Java and C99).
Another helpful tool is the math.fsum() function which helps mitigate loss-of-precision during summation.
It tracks “lost digits” as values are added onto a running total. That can make a difference in overall accuracy
so that the errors do not accumulate to the point where they affect the final total:
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1 / 10 ~= J / (2**N)
as
J ~= 2**N / 10
and recalling that J has exactly 53 bits (is >= 2**52 but < 2**53), the best value for N is 56:
That is, 56 is the only value for N that leaves J with exactly 53 bits. The best possible value for J is then
that quotient rounded:
Since the remainder is more than half of 10, the best approximation is obtained by rounding up:
>>> q+1
7205759403792794
Therefore the best possible approximation to 1/10 in 754 double precision is:
7205759403792794 / 2 ** 56
Dividing both the numerator and denominator by two reduces the fraction to:
3602879701896397 / 2 ** 55
Note that since we rounded up, this is actually a little bit larger than 1/10; if we had not rounded up, the
quotient would have been a little bit smaller than 1/10. But in no case can it be exactly 1/10!
So the computer never “sees” 1/10: what it sees is the exact fraction given above, the best 754 double
approximation it can get:
>>> 0.1 * 2 ** 55
3602879701896397.0
If we multiply that fraction by 10**55, we can see the value out to 55 decimal digits:
>>> 3602879701896397 * 10 ** 55 // 2 ** 55
1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015625
meaning that the exact number stored in the computer is equal to the decimal value
0.1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015625. Instead of displaying the full decimal
value, many languages (including older versions of Python), round the result to 17 significant digits:
>>> Fraction.from_float(0.1)
Fraction(3602879701896397, 36028797018963968)
>>> (0.1).as_integer_ratio()
(3602879701896397, 36028797018963968)
>>> Decimal.from_float(0.1)
Decimal('0.1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015625')
SIXTEEN
APPENDIX
#!/usr/bin/env python3.5
(assuming that the interpreter is on the user’s PATH) at the beginning of the script and giving the file an
executable mode. The #! must be the first two characters of the file. On some platforms, this first line
must end with a Unix-style line ending ('\n'), not a Windows ('\r\n') line ending. Note that the hash, or
pound, character, '#', is used to start a comment in Python.
The script can be given an executable mode, or permission, using the chmod command.
$ chmod +x myscript.py
On Windows systems, there is no notion of an “executable mode”. The Python installer automatically
associates .py files with python.exe so that a double-click on a Python file will run it as a script. The
extension can also be .pyw, in that case, the console window that normally appears is suppressed.
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to the name of a file containing your start-up commands. This is similar to the .profile feature of the Unix
shells.
This file is only read in interactive sessions, not when Python reads commands from a script, and not when
/dev/tty is given as the explicit source of commands (which otherwise behaves like an interactive session). It
is executed in the same namespace where interactive commands are executed, so that objects that it defines
or imports can be used without qualification in the interactive session. You can also change the prompts
sys.ps1 and sys.ps2 in this file.
If you want to read an additional start-up file from the current directory, you can program this in the
global start-up file using code like if os.path.isfile('.pythonrc.py'): exec(open('.pythonrc.py').
read()). If you want to use the startup file in a script, you must do this explicitly in the script:
import os
filename = os.environ.get('PYTHONSTARTUP')
if filename and os.path.isfile(filename):
with open(filename) as fobj:
startup_file = fobj.read()
exec(startup_file)
Now you can create a file named usercustomize.py in that directory and put anything you want in it. It
will affect every invocation of Python, unless it is started with the -s option to disable the automatic import.
sitecustomize works in the same way, but is typically created by an administrator of the computer in the
global site-packages directory, and is imported before usercustomize. See the documentation of the site
module for more details.
GLOSSARY
>>> The default Python prompt of the interactive shell. Often seen for code examples which can be executed
interactively in the interpreter.
... The default Python prompt of the interactive shell when entering code for an indented code block or
within a pair of matching left and right delimiters (parentheses, square brackets or curly braces).
2to3 A tool that tries to convert Python 2.x code to Python 3.x code by handling most of the incompati-
bilities which can be detected by parsing the source and traversing the parse tree.
2to3 is available in the standard library as lib2to3; a standalone entry point is provided as Tools/
scripts/2to3. See 2to3-reference.
abstract base class Abstract base classes complement duck-typing by providing a way to define interfaces
when other techniques like hasattr() would be clumsy or subtly wrong (for example with magic
methods). ABCs introduce virtual subclasses, which are classes that don’t inherit from a class but
are still recognized by isinstance() and issubclass(); see the abc module documentation. Python
comes with many built-in ABCs for data structures (in the collections.abc module), numbers (in
the numbers module), streams (in the io module), import finders and loaders (in the importlib.abc
module). You can create your own ABCs with the abc module.
argument A value passed to a function (or method) when calling the function. There are two kinds of
argument:
• keyword argument: an argument preceded by an identifier (e.g. name=) in a function call or passed
as a value in a dictionary preceded by **. For example, 3 and 5 are both keyword arguments in
the following calls to complex():
complex(real=3, imag=5)
complex(**{'real': 3, 'imag': 5})
• positional argument: an argument that is not a keyword argument. Positional arguments can
appear at the beginning of an argument list and/or be passed as elements of an iterable preceded
by *. For example, 3 and 5 are both positional arguments in the following calls:
complex(3, 5)
complex(*(3, 5))
Arguments are assigned to the named local variables in a function body. See the calls section for the
rules governing this assignment. Syntactically, any expression can be used to represent an argument;
the evaluated value is assigned to the local variable.
See also the parameter glossary entry, the FAQ question on the difference between arguments and
parameters, and PEP 362.
asynchronous context manager An object which controls the environment seen in an async with
statement by defining __aenter__() and __aexit__() methods. Introduced by PEP 492.
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asynchronous generator A function which returns an asynchronous generator iterator. It looks like a
coroutine function defined with async def except that it contains yield expressions for producing a
series of values usable in an async for loop.
Usually refers to a asynchronous generator function, but may refer to an asynchronous generator
iterator in some contexts. In cases where the intended meaning isn’t clear, using the full terms avoids
ambiguity.
An asynchronous generator function may contain await expressions as well as async for, and async
with statements.
asynchronous generator iterator An object created by a asynchronous generator function.
This is an asynchronous iterator which when called using the __anext__() method returns an awaitable
object which will execute that the body of the asynchronous generator function until the next yield
expression.
Each yield temporarily suspends processing, remembering the location execution state (including local
variables and pending try-statements). When the asynchronous generator iterator effectively resumes
with another awaitable returned by __anext__(), it picks-up where it left-off. See PEP 492 and PEP
525.
asynchronous iterable An object, that can be used in an async for statement. Must return an asyn-
chronous iterator from its __aiter__() method. Introduced by PEP 492.
asynchronous iterator An object that implements __aiter__() and __anext__() methods. __anext__
must return an awaitable object. async for resolves awaitable returned from asynchronous iterator’s
__anext__() method until it raises StopAsyncIteration exception. Introduced by PEP 492.
attribute A value associated with an object which is referenced by name using dotted expressions. For
example, if an object o has an attribute a it would be referenced as o.a.
awaitable An object that can be used in an await expression. Can be a coroutine or an object with an
__await__() method. See also PEP 492.
BDFL Benevolent Dictator For Life, a.k.a. Guido van Rossum, Python’s creator.
binary file A file object able to read and write bytes-like objects. Examples of binary files are files opened
in binary mode ('rb', 'wb' or 'rb+'), sys.stdin.buffer, sys.stdout.buffer, and instances of
io.BytesIO and gzip.GzipFile.
See also:
A text file reads and writes str objects.
bytes-like object An object that supports the bufferobjects and can export a C-contiguous buffer. This
includes all bytes, bytearray, and array.array objects, as well as many common memoryview ob-
jects. Bytes-like objects can be used for various operations that work with binary data; these include
compression, saving to a binary file, and sending over a socket.
Some operations need the binary data to be mutable. The documentation often refers to these as “read-
write bytes-like objects”. Example mutable buffer objects include bytearray and a memoryview of a
bytearray. Other operations require the binary data to be stored in immutable objects (“read-only
bytes-like objects”); examples of these include bytes and a memoryview of a bytes object.
bytecode Python source code is compiled into bytecode, the internal representation of a Python program
in the CPython interpreter. The bytecode is also cached in .pyc files so that executing the same file
is faster the second time (recompilation from source to bytecode can be avoided). This “intermediate
language” is said to run on a virtual machine that executes the machine code corresponding to each
bytecode. Do note that bytecodes are not expected to work between different Python virtual machines,
nor to be stable between Python releases.
A list of bytecode instructions can be found in the documentation for the dis module.
class A template for creating user-defined objects. Class definitions normally contain method definitions
which operate on instances of the class.
coercion The implicit conversion of an instance of one type to another during an operation which involves
two arguments of the same type. For example, int(3.15) converts the floating point number to the
integer 3, but in 3+4.5, each argument is of a different type (one int, one float), and both must be
converted to the same type before they can be added or it will raise a TypeError. Without coercion, all
arguments of even compatible types would have to be normalized to the same value by the programmer,
e.g., float(3)+4.5 rather than just 3+4.5.
complex number An extension of the familiar real number system in which all numbers are expressed as
a sum of a real part and an imaginary part. Imaginary numbers are real multiples of the imaginary
unit (the square root of -1), often written i in mathematics or j in engineering. Python has built-in
support for complex numbers, which are written with this latter notation; the imaginary part is written
with a j suffix, e.g., 3+1j. To get access to complex equivalents of the math module, use cmath. Use
of complex numbers is a fairly advanced mathematical feature. If you’re not aware of a need for them,
it’s almost certain you can safely ignore them.
context manager An object which controls the environment seen in a with statement by defining
__enter__() and __exit__() methods. See PEP 343.
contiguous A buffer is considered contiguous exactly if it is either C-contiguous or Fortran contiguous.
Zero-dimensional buffers are C and Fortran contiguous. In one-dimensional arrays, the items must
be laid out in memory next to each other, in order of increasing indexes starting from zero. In
multidimensional C-contiguous arrays, the last index varies the fastest when visiting items in order of
memory address. However, in Fortran contiguous arrays, the first index varies the fastest.
coroutine Coroutines is a more generalized form of subroutines. Subroutines are entered at one point and
exited at another point. Coroutines can be entered, exited, and resumed at many different points.
They can be implemented with the async def statement. See also PEP 492.
coroutine function A function which returns a coroutine object. A coroutine function may be defined
with the async def statement, and may contain await, async for, and async with keywords. These
were introduced by PEP 492.
CPython The canonical implementation of the Python programming language, as distributed on
python.org. The term “CPython” is used when necessary to distinguish this implementation from
others such as Jython or IronPython.
decorator A function returning another function, usually applied as a function transformation using the
@wrapper syntax. Common examples for decorators are classmethod() and staticmethod().
The decorator syntax is merely syntactic sugar, the following two function definitions are semantically
equivalent:
def f(...):
...
f = staticmethod(f)
@staticmethod
def f(...):
...
The same concept exists for classes, but is less commonly used there. See the documentation for
function definitions and class definitions for more about decorators.
descriptor Any object which defines the methods __get__(), __set__(), or __delete__(). When a class
attribute is a descriptor, its special binding behavior is triggered upon attribute lookup. Normally,
using a.b to get, set or delete an attribute looks up the object named b in the class dictionary for a, but
if b is a descriptor, the respective descriptor method gets called. Understanding descriptors is a key
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to a deep understanding of Python because they are the basis for many features including functions,
methods, properties, class methods, static methods, and reference to super classes.
For more information about descriptors’ methods, see descriptors.
dictionary An associative array, where arbitrary keys are mapped to values. The keys can be any object
with __hash__() and __eq__() methods. Called a hash in Perl.
dictionary view The objects returned from dict.keys(), dict.values(), and dict.items() are called
dictionary views. They provide a dynamic view on the dictionary’s entries, which means that when
the dictionary changes, the view reflects these changes. To force the dictionary view to become a full
list use list(dictview). See dict-views.
docstring A string literal which appears as the first expression in a class, function or module. While
ignored when the suite is executed, it is recognized by the compiler and put into the __doc__ attribute
of the enclosing class, function or module. Since it is available via introspection, it is the canonical
place for documentation of the object.
duck-typing A programming style which does not look at an object’s type to determine if it has the right
interface; instead, the method or attribute is simply called or used (“If it looks like a duck and quacks
like a duck, it must be a duck.”) By emphasizing interfaces rather than specific types, well-designed
code improves its flexibility by allowing polymorphic substitution. Duck-typing avoids tests using
type() or isinstance(). (Note, however, that duck-typing can be complemented with abstract base
classes.) Instead, it typically employs hasattr() tests or EAFP programming.
EAFP Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. This common Python coding style assumes the
existence of valid keys or attributes and catches exceptions if the assumption proves false. This clean
and fast style is characterized by the presence of many try and except statements. The technique
contrasts with the LBYL style common to many other languages such as C.
expression A piece of syntax which can be evaluated to some value. In other words, an expression is
an accumulation of expression elements like literals, names, attribute access, operators or function
calls which all return a value. In contrast to many other languages, not all language constructs are
expressions. There are also statements which cannot be used as expressions, such as if. Assignments
are also statements, not expressions.
extension module A module written in C or C++, using Python’s C API to interact with the core and
with user code.
f-string String literals prefixed with 'f' or 'F' are commonly called “f-strings” which is short for formatted
string literals. See also PEP 498.
file object An object exposing a file-oriented API (with methods such as read() or write()) to an
underlying resource. Depending on the way it was created, a file object can mediate access to a real
on-disk file or to another type of storage or communication device (for example standard input/output,
in-memory buffers, sockets, pipes, etc.). File objects are also called file-like objects or streams.
There are actually three categories of file objects: raw binary files, buffered binary files and text files.
Their interfaces are defined in the io module. The canonical way to create a file object is by using the
open() function.
file-like object A synonym for file object.
finder An object that tries to find the loader for a module that is being imported.
Since Python 3.3, there are two types of finder: meta path finders for use with sys.meta_path, and
path entry finders for use with sys.path_hooks.
See PEP 302, PEP 420 and PEP 451 for much more detail.
floor division Mathematical division that rounds down to nearest integer. The floor division operator is
//. For example, the expression 11 // 4 evaluates to 2 in contrast to the 2.75 returned by float true
division. Note that (-11) // 4 is -3 because that is -2.75 rounded downward. See PEP 238.
function A series of statements which returns some value to a caller. It can also be passed zero or more
arguments which may be used in the execution of the body. See also parameter, method, and the
function section.
function annotation An arbitrary metadata value associated with a function parameter or return value.
Its syntax is explained in section function. Annotations may be accessed via the __annotations__
special attribute of a function object.
Python itself does not assign any particular meaning to function annotations. They are intended to be
interpreted by third-party libraries or tools. See PEP 3107, which describes some of their potential
uses.
__future__ A pseudo-module which programmers can use to enable new language features which are
not compatible with the current interpreter.
By importing the __future__ module and evaluating its variables, you can see when a new feature
was first added to the language and when it becomes the default:
>>> import __future__
>>> __future__.division
_Feature((2, 2, 0, 'alpha', 2), (3, 0, 0, 'alpha', 0), 8192)
garbage collection The process of freeing memory when it is not used anymore. Python performs garbage
collection via reference counting and a cyclic garbage collector that is able to detect and break reference
cycles. The garbage collector can be controlled using the gc module.
generator A function which returns a generator iterator. It looks like a normal function except that it
contains yield expressions for producing a series of values usable in a for-loop or that can be retrieved
one at a time with the next() function.
Usually refers to a generator function, but may refer to a generator iterator in some contexts. In cases
where the intended meaning isn’t clear, using the full terms avoids ambiguity.
generator iterator An object created by a generator function.
Each yield temporarily suspends processing, remembering the location execution state (including
local variables and pending try-statements). When the generator iterator resumes, it picks-up where
it left-off (in contrast to functions which start fresh on every invocation).
generator expression An expression that returns an iterator. It looks like a normal expression followed
by a for expression defining a loop variable, range, and an optional if expression. The combined
expression generates values for an enclosing function:
>>> sum(i*i for i in range(10)) # sum of squares 0, 1, 4, ... 81
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generic function A function composed of multiple functions implementing the same operation for different
types. Which implementation should be used during a call is determined by the dispatch algorithm.
See also the single dispatch glossary entry, the functools.singledispatch() decorator, and PEP
443.
GIL See global interpreter lock.
global interpreter lock The mechanism used by the CPython interpreter to assure that only one thread
executes Python bytecode at a time. This simplifies the CPython implementation by making the object
model (including critical built-in types such as dict) implicitly safe against concurrent access. Locking
the entire interpreter makes it easier for the interpreter to be multi-threaded, at the expense of much
of the parallelism afforded by multi-processor machines.
However, some extension modules, either standard or third-party, are designed so as to release the GIL
when doing computationally-intensive tasks such as compression or hashing. Also, the GIL is always
released when doing I/O.
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Past efforts to create a “free-threaded” interpreter (one which locks shared data at a much finer
granularity) have not been successful because performance suffered in the common single-processor
case. It is believed that overcoming this performance issue would make the implementation much more
complicated and therefore costlier to maintain.
hashable An object is hashable if it has a hash value which never changes during its lifetime (it needs a
__hash__() method), and can be compared to other objects (it needs an __eq__() method). Hashable
objects which compare equal must have the same hash value.
Hashability makes an object usable as a dictionary key and a set member, because these data structures
use the hash value internally.
All of Python’s immutable built-in objects are hashable; mutable containers (such as lists or dictio-
naries) are not. Objects which are instances of user-defined classes are hashable by default. They all
compare unequal (except with themselves), and their hash value is derived from their id().
IDLE An Integrated Development Environment for Python. IDLE is a basic editor and interpreter envi-
ronment which ships with the standard distribution of Python.
immutable An object with a fixed value. Immutable objects include numbers, strings and tuples. Such
an object cannot be altered. A new object has to be created if a different value has to be stored. They
play an important role in places where a constant hash value is needed, for example as a key in a
dictionary.
import path A list of locations (or path entries) that are searched by the path based finder for modules
to import. During import, this list of locations usually comes from sys.path, but for subpackages it
may also come from the parent package’s __path__ attribute.
importing The process by which Python code in one module is made available to Python code in another
module.
importer An object that both finds and loads a module; both a finder and loader object.
interactive Python has an interactive interpreter which means you can enter statements and expressions
at the interpreter prompt, immediately execute them and see their results. Just launch python with
no arguments (possibly by selecting it from your computer’s main menu). It is a very powerful way to
test out new ideas or inspect modules and packages (remember help(x)).
interpreted Python is an interpreted language, as opposed to a compiled one, though the distinction can
be blurry because of the presence of the bytecode compiler. This means that source files can be run
directly without explicitly creating an executable which is then run. Interpreted languages typically
have a shorter development/debug cycle than compiled ones, though their programs generally also run
more slowly. See also interactive.
interpreter shutdown When asked to shut down, the Python interpreter enters a special phase where it
gradually releases all allocated resources, such as modules and various critical internal structures. It
also makes several calls to the garbage collector. This can trigger the execution of code in user-defined
destructors or weakref callbacks. Code executed during the shutdown phase can encounter various
exceptions as the resources it relies on may not function anymore (common examples are library
modules or the warnings machinery).
The main reason for interpreter shutdown is that the __main__ module or the script being run has
finished executing.
iterable An object capable of returning its members one at a time. Examples of iterables include all
sequence types (such as list, str, and tuple) and some non-sequence types like dict, file objects,
and objects of any classes you define with an __iter__() method or with a __getitem__() method
that implements Sequence semantics.
Iterables can be used in a for loop and in many other places where a sequence is needed (zip(), map(),
…). When an iterable object is passed as an argument to the built-in function iter(), it returns an
iterator for the object. This iterator is good for one pass over the set of values. When using iterables,
it is usually not necessary to call iter() or deal with iterator objects yourself. The for statement
does that automatically for you, creating a temporary unnamed variable to hold the iterator for the
duration of the loop. See also iterator, sequence, and generator.
iterator An object representing a stream of data. Repeated calls to the iterator’s __next__() method
(or passing it to the built-in function next()) return successive items in the stream. When no more
data are available a StopIteration exception is raised instead. At this point, the iterator object is
exhausted and any further calls to its __next__() method just raise StopIteration again. Iterators
are required to have an __iter__() method that returns the iterator object itself so every iterator is
also iterable and may be used in most places where other iterables are accepted. One notable exception
is code which attempts multiple iteration passes. A container object (such as a list) produces a fresh
new iterator each time you pass it to the iter() function or use it in a for loop. Attempting this
with an iterator will just return the same exhausted iterator object used in the previous iteration pass,
making it appear like an empty container.
More information can be found in typeiter.
key function A key function or collation function is a callable that returns a value used for sorting or
ordering. For example, locale.strxfrm() is used to produce a sort key that is aware of locale specific
sort conventions.
A number of tools in Python accept key functions to control how elements are ordered or grouped.
They include min(), max(), sorted(), list.sort(), heapq.merge(), heapq.nsmallest(), heapq.
nlargest(), and itertools.groupby().
There are several ways to create a key function. For example. the str.lower() method can serve
as a key function for case insensitive sorts. Alternatively, a key function can be built from a lambda
expression such as lambda r: (r[0], r[2]). Also, the operator module provides three key function
constructors: attrgetter(), itemgetter(), and methodcaller(). See the Sorting HOW TO for
examples of how to create and use key functions.
keyword argument See argument.
lambda An anonymous inline function consisting of a single expression which is evaluated when the function
is called. The syntax to create a lambda function is lambda [arguments]: expression
LBYL Look before you leap. This coding style explicitly tests for pre-conditions before making calls or
lookups. This style contrasts with the EAFP approach and is characterized by the presence of many
if statements.
In a multi-threaded environment, the LBYL approach can risk introducing a race condition between
“the looking” and “the leaping”. For example, the code, if key in mapping: return mapping[key]
can fail if another thread removes key from mapping after the test, but before the lookup. This issue
can be solved with locks or by using the EAFP approach.
list A built-in Python sequence. Despite its name it is more akin to an array in other languages than to a
linked list since access to elements are O(1).
list comprehension A compact way to process all or part of the elements in a sequence and return a
list with the results. result = ['{:#04x}'.format(x) for x in range(256) if x % 2 == 0]
generates a list of strings containing even hex numbers (0x..) in the range from 0 to 255. The if clause
is optional. If omitted, all elements in range(256) are processed.
loader An object that loads a module. It must define a method named load_module(). A loader is
typically returned by a finder. See PEP 302 for details and importlib.abc.Loader for an abstract
base class.
mapping A container object that supports arbitrary key lookups and implements the methods specified
in the Mapping or MutableMapping abstract base classes. Examples include dict, collections.
defaultdict, collections.OrderedDict and collections.Counter.
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meta path finder A finder returned by a search of sys.meta_path. Meta path finders are related to, but
different from path entry finders.
See importlib.abc.MetaPathFinder for the methods that meta path finders implement.
metaclass The class of a class. Class definitions create a class name, a class dictionary, and a list of base
classes. The metaclass is responsible for taking those three arguments and creating the class. Most
object oriented programming languages provide a default implementation. What makes Python special
is that it is possible to create custom metaclasses. Most users never need this tool, but when the need
arises, metaclasses can provide powerful, elegant solutions. They have been used for logging attribute
access, adding thread-safety, tracking object creation, implementing singletons, and many other tasks.
More information can be found in metaclasses.
method A function which is defined inside a class body. If called as an attribute of an instance of that
class, the method will get the instance object as its first argument (which is usually called self). See
function and nested scope.
method resolution order Method Resolution Order is the order in which base classes are searched for
a member during lookup. See The Python 2.3 Method Resolution Order for details of the algorithm
used by the Python interpreter since the 2.3 release.
module An object that serves as an organizational unit of Python code. Modules have a namespace
containing arbitrary Python objects. Modules are loaded into Python by the process of importing.
See also package.
module spec A namespace containing the import-related information used to load a module. An instance
of importlib.machinery.ModuleSpec.
MRO See method resolution order.
mutable Mutable objects can change their value but keep their id(). See also immutable.
named tuple Any tuple-like class whose indexable elements are also accessible using named attributes
(for example, time.localtime() returns a tuple-like object where the year is accessible either with an
index such as t[0] or with a named attribute like t.tm_year).
A named tuple can be a built-in type such as time.struct_time, or it can be created with a regular
class definition. A full featured named tuple can also be created with the factory function collections.
namedtuple(). The latter approach automatically provides extra features such as a self-documenting
representation like Employee(name='jones', title='programmer').
namespace The place where a variable is stored. Namespaces are implemented as dictionaries. There
are the local, global and built-in namespaces as well as nested namespaces in objects (in methods).
Namespaces support modularity by preventing naming conflicts. For instance, the functions builtins.
open and os.open() are distinguished by their namespaces. Namespaces also aid readability and
maintainability by making it clear which module implements a function. For instance, writing random.
seed() or itertools.islice() makes it clear that those functions are implemented by the random
and itertools modules, respectively.
namespace package A PEP 420 package which serves only as a container for subpackages. Namespace
packages may have no physical representation, and specifically are not like a regular package because
they have no __init__.py file.
See also module.
nested scope The ability to refer to a variable in an enclosing definition. For instance, a function defined
inside another function can refer to variables in the outer function. Note that nested scopes by default
work only for reference and not for assignment. Local variables both read and write in the innermost
scope. Likewise, global variables read and write to the global namespace. The nonlocal allows writing
to outer scopes.
new-style class Old name for the flavor of classes now used for all class objects. In earlier Python
versions, only new-style classes could use Python’s newer, versatile features like __slots__, descriptors,
properties, __getattribute__(), class methods, and static methods.
object Any data with state (attributes or value) and defined behavior (methods). Also the ultimate base
class of any new-style class.
package A Python module which can contain submodules or recursively, subpackages. Technically, a
package is a Python module with an __path__ attribute.
See also regular package and namespace package.
parameter A named entity in a function (or method) definition that specifies an argument (or in some
cases, arguments) that the function can accept. There are five kinds of parameter:
• positional-or-keyword: specifies an argument that can be passed either positionally or as a keyword
argument. This is the default kind of parameter, for example foo and bar in the following:
• positional-only: specifies an argument that can be supplied only by position. Python has no
syntax for defining positional-only parameters. However, some built-in functions have positional-
only parameters (e.g. abs()).
• keyword-only: specifies an argument that can be supplied only by keyword. Keyword-only pa-
rameters can be defined by including a single var-positional parameter or bare * in the parameter
list of the function definition before them, for example kw_only1 and kw_only2 in the following:
• var-positional: specifies that an arbitrary sequence of positional arguments can be provided (in
addition to any positional arguments already accepted by other parameters). Such a parameter
can be defined by prepending the parameter name with *, for example args in the following:
• var-keyword: specifies that arbitrarily many keyword arguments can be provided (in addition to
any keyword arguments already accepted by other parameters). Such a parameter can be defined
by prepending the parameter name with **, for example kwargs in the example above.
Parameters can specify both optional and required arguments, as well as default values for some
optional arguments.
See also the argument glossary entry, the FAQ question on the difference between arguments and
parameters, the inspect.Parameter class, the function section, and PEP 362.
path entry A single location on the import path which the path based finder consults to find modules for
importing.
path entry finder A finder returned by a callable on sys.path_hooks (i.e. a path entry hook) which
knows how to locate modules given a path entry.
See importlib.abc.PathEntryFinder for the methods that path entry finders implement.
path entry hook A callable on the sys.path_hook list which returns a path entry finder if it knows how
to find modules on a specific path entry.
path based finder One of the default meta path finders which searches an import path for modules.
path-like object An object representing a file system path. A path-like object is either a str or bytes
object representing a path, or an object implementing the os.PathLike protocol. An object that
supports the os.PathLike protocol can be converted to a str or bytes file system path by calling the
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os.fspath() function; os.fsdecode() and os.fsencode() can be used to guarantee a str or bytes
result instead, respectively. Introduced by PEP 519.
portion A set of files in a single directory (possibly stored in a zip file) that contribute to a namespace
package, as defined in PEP 420.
positional argument See argument.
provisional API A provisional API is one which has been deliberately excluded from the standard library’s
backwards compatibility guarantees. While major changes to such interfaces are not expected, as long
as they are marked provisional, backwards incompatible changes (up to and including removal of
the interface) may occur if deemed necessary by core developers. Such changes will not be made
gratuitously – they will occur only if serious fundamental flaws are uncovered that were missed prior
to the inclusion of the API.
Even for provisional APIs, backwards incompatible changes are seen as a “solution of last resort” -
every attempt will still be made to find a backwards compatible resolution to any identified problems.
This process allows the standard library to continue to evolve over time, without locking in problematic
design errors for extended periods of time. See PEP 411 for more details.
provisional package See provisional API .
Python 3000 Nickname for the Python 3.x release line (coined long ago when the release of version 3 was
something in the distant future.) This is also abbreviated “Py3k”.
Pythonic An idea or piece of code which closely follows the most common idioms of the Python language,
rather than implementing code using concepts common to other languages. For example, a common
idiom in Python is to loop over all elements of an iterable using a for statement. Many other languages
don’t have this type of construct, so people unfamiliar with Python sometimes use a numerical counter
instead:
for i in range(len(food)):
print(food[i])
qualified name A dotted name showing the “path” from a module’s global scope to a class, function or
method defined in that module, as defined in PEP 3155. For top-level functions and classes, the
qualified name is the same as the object’s name:
>>> class C:
... class D:
... def meth(self):
... pass
...
>>> C.__qualname__
'C'
>>> C.D.__qualname__
'C.D'
>>> C.D.meth.__qualname__
'C.D.meth'
When used to refer to modules, the fully qualified name means the entire dotted path to the module,
including any parent packages, e.g. email.mime.text:
reference count The number of references to an object. When the reference count of an object drops
to zero, it is deallocated. Reference counting is generally not visible to Python code, but it is a key
element of the CPython implementation. The sys module defines a getrefcount() function that
programmers can call to return the reference count for a particular object.
regular package A traditional package, such as a directory containing an __init__.py file.
See also namespace package.
__slots__ A declaration inside a class that saves memory by pre-declaring space for instance attributes
and eliminating instance dictionaries. Though popular, the technique is somewhat tricky to get right
and is best reserved for rare cases where there are large numbers of instances in a memory-critical
application.
sequence An iterable which supports efficient element access using integer indices via the __getitem__()
special method and defines a __len__() method that returns the length of the sequence. Some built-in
sequence types are list, str, tuple, and bytes. Note that dict also supports __getitem__() and
__len__(), but is considered a mapping rather than a sequence because the lookups use arbitrary
immutable keys rather than integers.
The collections.abc.Sequence abstract base class defines a much richer interface that goes
beyond just __getitem__() and __len__(), adding count(), index(), __contains__(), and
__reversed__(). Types that implement this expanded interface can be registered explicitly using
register().
single dispatch A form of generic function dispatch where the implementation is chosen based on the
type of a single argument.
slice An object usually containing a portion of a sequence. A slice is created using the subscript notation,
[] with colons between numbers when several are given, such as in variable_name[1:3:5]. The
bracket (subscript) notation uses slice objects internally.
special method A method that is called implicitly by Python to execute a certain operation on a type,
such as addition. Such methods have names starting and ending with double underscores. Special
methods are documented in specialnames.
statement A statement is part of a suite (a “block” of code). A statement is either an expression or one
of several constructs with a keyword, such as if, while or for.
struct sequence A tuple with named elements. Struct sequences expose an interface similar to named
tuple in that elements can either be accessed either by index or as an attribute. However, they do
not have any of the named tuple methods like _make() or _asdict(). Examples of struct sequences
include sys.float_info and the return value of os.stat().
text encoding A codec which encodes Unicode strings to bytes.
text file A file object able to read and write str objects. Often, a text file actually accesses a byte-oriented
datastream and handles the text encoding automatically. Examples of text files are files opened in text
mode ('r' or 'w'), sys.stdin, sys.stdout, and instances of io.StringIO.
See also:
A binary file reads and write bytes objects.
triple-quoted string A string which is bound by three instances of either a quotation mark (“) or an
apostrophe (‘). While they don’t provide any functionality not available with single-quoted strings,
they are useful for a number of reasons. They allow you to include unescaped single and double quotes
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within a string and they can span multiple lines without the use of the continuation character, making
them especially useful when writing docstrings.
type The type of a Python object determines what kind of object it is; every object has a type. An object’s
type is accessible as its __class__ attribute or can be retrieved with type(obj).
universal newlines A manner of interpreting text streams in which all of the following are recognized
as ending a line: the Unix end-of-line convention '\n', the Windows convention '\r\n', and the old
Macintosh convention '\r'. See PEP 278 and PEP 3116, as well as bytes.splitlines() for an
additional use.
variable annotation A type metadata value associated with a module global variable or a class attribute.
Its syntax is explained in section annassign. Annotations are stored in the __annotations__ special
attribute of a class or module object and can be accessed using typing.get_type_hints().
Python itself does not assign any particular meaning to variable annotations. They are intended to be
interpreted by third-party libraries or type checking tools. See PEP 526, PEP 484 which describe
some of their potential uses.
virtual environment A cooperatively isolated runtime environment that allows Python users and appli-
cations to install and upgrade Python distribution packages without interfering with the behaviour of
other Python applications running on the same system.
See also venv.
virtual machine A computer defined entirely in software. Python’s virtual machine executes the bytecode
emitted by the bytecode compiler.
Zen of Python Listing of Python design principles and philosophies that are helpful in understanding and
using the language. The listing can be found by typing “import this” at the interactive prompt.
These documents are generated from reStructuredText sources by Sphinx, a document processor specifically
written for the Python documentation.
Development of the documentation and its toolchain is an entirely volunteer effort, just like Python itself. If
you want to contribute, please take a look at the reporting-bugs page for information on how to do so. New
volunteers are always welcome!
Many thanks go to:
• Fred L. Drake, Jr., the creator of the original Python documentation toolset and writer of much of the
content;
• the Docutils project for creating reStructuredText and the Docutils suite;
• Fredrik Lundh for his Alternative Python Reference project from which Sphinx got many good ideas.
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Python was created in the early 1990s by Guido van Rossum at Stichting Mathematisch Centrum (CWI, see
https://www.cwi.nl/) in the Netherlands as a successor of a language called ABC. Guido remains Python’s
principal author, although it includes many contributions from others.
In 1995, Guido continued his work on Python at the Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI,
see https://www.cnri.reston.va.us/) in Reston, Virginia where he released several versions of the software.
In May 2000, Guido and the Python core development team moved to BeOpen.com to form the BeOpen
PythonLabs team. In October of the same year, the PythonLabs team moved to Digital Creations (now
Zope Corporation; see http://www.zope.com/). In 2001, the Python Software Foundation (PSF, see https:
//www.python.org/psf/) was formed, a non-profit organization created specifically to own Python-related
Intellectual Property. Zope Corporation is a sponsoring member of the PSF.
All Python releases are Open Source (see https://opensource.org/ for the Open Source Definition). Histor-
ically, most, but not all, Python releases have also been GPL-compatible; the table below summarizes the
various releases.
Note: GPL-compatible doesn’t mean that we’re distributing Python under the GPL. All Python licenses,
unlike the GPL, let you distribute a modified version without making your changes open source. The GPL-
compatible licenses make it possible to combine Python with other software that is released under the GPL;
the others don’t.
Thanks to the many outside volunteers who have worked under Guido’s direction to make these releases
possible.
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Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
2. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License Agreement, PSF hereby
grants Licensee a nonexclusive, royalty-free, world-wide license to reproduce,
analyze, test, perform and/or display publicly, prepare derivative works,
distribute, and otherwise use Python 3.6.4 alone or in any derivative
version, provided, however, that PSF's License Agreement and PSF's notice of
copyright, i.e., "Copyright © 2001-2018 Python Software Foundation; All Rights
Reserved" are retained in Python 3.6.4 alone or in any derivative version
prepared by Licensee.
5. PSF SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO LICENSEE OR ANY OTHER USERS OF PYTHON 3.6.4
FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR LOSS AS A RESULT OF
MODIFYING, DISTRIBUTING, OR OTHERWISE USING PYTHON 3.6.4, OR ANY DERIVATIVE
THEREOF, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF.
2. Subject to the terms and conditions of this BeOpen Python License Agreement,
BeOpen hereby grants Licensee a non-exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide license
to reproduce, analyze, test, perform and/or display publicly, prepare derivative
works, distribute, and otherwise use the Software alone or in any derivative
version, provided, however, that the BeOpen Python License is retained in the
Software, alone or in any derivative version prepared by Licensee.
4. BEOPEN SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO LICENSEE OR ANY OTHER USERS OF THE SOFTWARE FOR
ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR LOSS AS A RESULT OF USING,
MODIFYING OR DISTRIBUTING THE SOFTWARE, OR ANY DERIVATIVE THEREOF, EVEN IF
ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF.
2. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License Agreement, CNRI hereby
grants Licensee a nonexclusive, royalty-free, world-wide license to reproduce,
analyze, test, perform and/or display publicly, prepare derivative works,
distribute, and otherwise use Python 1.6.1 alone or in any derivative version,
provided, however, that CNRI's License Agreement and CNRI's notice of copyright,
i.e., "Copyright © 1995-2001 Corporation for National Research Initiatives; All
Rights Reserved" are retained in Python 1.6.1 alone or in any derivative version
prepared by Licensee. Alternately, in lieu of CNRI's License Agreement,
Licensee may substitute the following text (omitting the quotes): "Python 1.6.1
is made available subject to the terms and conditions in CNRI's License
Agreement. This Agreement together with Python 1.6.1 may be located on the
Internet using the following unique, persistent identifier (known as a handle):
C.2. Terms and conditions for accessing or otherwise using Python 127
Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
1895.22/1013. This Agreement may also be obtained from a proxy server on the
Internet using the following URL: http://hdl.handle.net/1895.22/1013."
4. CNRI is making Python 1.6.1 available to Licensee on an "AS IS" basis. CNRI
MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE,
BUT NOT LIMITATION, CNRI MAKES NO AND DISCLAIMS ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY
OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF
PYTHON 1.6.1 WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY RIGHTS.
5. CNRI SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO LICENSEE OR ANY OTHER USERS OF PYTHON 1.6.1 FOR
ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR LOSS AS A RESULT OF
MODIFYING, DISTRIBUTING, OR OTHERWISE USING PYTHON 1.6.1, OR ANY DERIVATIVE
THEREOF, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that
the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that copyright
notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation, and that
the name of Stichting Mathematisch Centrum or CWI not be used in advertising or
publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written
prior permission.
EVENT SHALL STICHTING MATHEMATISCH CENTRUM BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT
OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE,
DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS
ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS
SOFTWARE.
http://www.math.sci.hiroshima-u.ac.jp/~m-mat/MT/emt.html
email: m-mat @ math.sci.hiroshima-u.ac.jp (remove space)
C.3.2 Sockets
The socket module uses the functions, getaddrinfo(), and getnameinfo(), which are coded in separate
source files from the WIDE Project, http://www.wide.ad.jp/.
Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997, and 1998 WIDE Project.
All rights reserved.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE PROJECT AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE PROJECT OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.
| DISCLAIMER |
| |
| This software was prepared as an account of work sponsored by an |
| agency of the United States Government. Neither the United States |
| Government nor the University of California nor any of their em- |
| ployees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any |
| liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or |
| usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process |
| disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe |
| privately-owned rights. Reference herein to any specific commer- |
| cial products, process, or service by trade name, trademark, |
| manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or |
| imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United |
| States Government or the University of California. The views and |
| opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or |
| reflect those of the United States Government or the University |
| of California, and shall not be used for advertising or product |
\ endorsement purposes. /
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this Python software and
its associated documentation for any purpose without fee is hereby
granted, provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies,
and that both that copyright notice and this permission notice appear in
supporting documentation, and that the name of neither Automatrix,
Bioreason or Mojam Media be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to
distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission.
SECRET LABS AB AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD
TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT-
ABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL SECRET LABS AB OR THE AUTHOR
BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY
DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS
ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE
OF THIS SOFTWARE.
C.3.9 test_epoll
The test_epoll module contains the following notice:
Copyright (c) 2000 Doug White, 2006 James Knight, 2007 Christian Heimes
All rights reserved.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.
C.3.11 SipHash24
The file Python/pyhash.c contains Marek Majkowski’ implementation of Dan Bernstein’s SipHash24 algo-
rithm. The contains the following note:
<MIT License>
Copyright (c) 2013 Marek Majkowski <[email protected]>
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
</MIT License>
Original location:
https://github.com/majek/csiphash/
/****************************************************************
*
* The author of this software is David M. Gay.
*
* Copyright (c) 1991, 2000, 2001 by Lucent Technologies.
*
* Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
* purpose without fee is hereby granted, provided that this entire notice
* is included in all copies of any software which is or includes a copy
* or modification of this software and in all copies of the supporting
* documentation for such software.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS BEING PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
* WARRANTY. IN PARTICULAR, NEITHER THE AUTHOR NOR LUCENT MAKES ANY
* REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF ANY KIND CONCERNING THE MERCHANTABILITY
* OF THIS SOFTWARE OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE.
*
***************************************************************/
C.3.13 OpenSSL
The modules hashlib, posix, ssl, crypt use the OpenSSL library for added performance if made available
by the operating system. Additionally, the Windows and Mac OS X installers for Python may include a
copy of the OpenSSL libraries, so we include a copy of the OpenSSL license here:
LICENSE ISSUES
==============
The OpenSSL toolkit stays under a dual license, i.e. both the conditions of
the OpenSSL License and the original SSLeay license apply to the toolkit.
See below for the actual license texts. Actually both licenses are BSD-style
Open Source licenses. In case of any license issues related to OpenSSL
please contact [email protected].
OpenSSL License
---------------
/* ====================================================================
* Copyright (c) 1998-2008 The OpenSSL Project. All rights reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
* are met:
*
* 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
*
* 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in
* the documentation and/or other materials provided with the
* distribution.
*
* 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this
* software must display the following acknowledgment:
* "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project
* for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit. (http://www.openssl.org/)"
*
* 4. The names "OpenSSL Toolkit" and "OpenSSL Project" must not be used to
* endorse or promote products derived from this software without
* prior written permission. For written permission, please contact
* [email protected].
*
* 5. Products derived from this software may not be called "OpenSSL"
* nor may "OpenSSL" appear in their names without prior written
* permission of the OpenSSL Project.
*
* 6. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the following
* acknowledgment:
* "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL Project
* for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit (http://www.openssl.org/)"
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE OpenSSL PROJECT ``AS IS'' AND ANY
* EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
* IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR
* PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE OpenSSL PROJECT OR
* ITS CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
* SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
* NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES;
* LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
* HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT,
* STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
* ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED
* OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
* ====================================================================
*
* This product includes cryptographic software written by Eric Young
* ([email protected]). This product includes software written by Tim
* Hudson ([email protected]).
*
*/
C.3.14 expat
The pyexpat extension is built using an included copy of the expat sources unless the build is configured
--with-system-expat:
Copyright (c) 1998, 1999, 2000 Thai Open Source Software Center Ltd
and Clark Cooper
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
C.3.15 libffi
The _ctypes extension is built using an included copy of the libffi sources unless the build is configured
--with-system-libffi:
Copyright (c) 1996-2008 Red Hat, Inc and others.
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
C.3.16 zlib
The zlib extension is built using an included copy of the zlib sources if the zlib version found on the system
is too old to be used for the build:
Copyright (C) 1995-2011 Jean-loup Gailly and Mark Adler
1. The origin of this software must not be misrepresented; you must not
claim that you wrote the original software. If you use this software
in a product, an acknowledgment in the product documentation would be
appreciated but is not required.
2. Altered source versions must be plainly marked as such, and must not be
misrepresented as being the original software.
3. This notice may not be removed or altered from any source distribution.
C.3.17 cfuhash
The implementation of the hash table used by the tracemalloc is based on the cfuhash project:
Copyright (c) 2005 Don Owens
All rights reserved.
C.3.18 libmpdec
The _decimal module is built using an included copy of the libmpdec library unless the build is configured
--with-system-libmpdec:
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND
ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
SUCH DAMAGE.
COPYRIGHT
See History and License for complete license and permissions information.
141
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143
Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
144 Index
Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Pythonic, 120
PYTHONPATH, 45, 46
PYTHONSTARTUP, 109
Q
qualified name, 120
R
reference count, 121
regular package, 121
S
search
path, module, 45
sequence, 121
single dispatch, 121
slice, 121
special method, 121
statement, 121
*, 26
**, 27
for, 19
strings, documentation, 22, 28
struct sequence, 121
style
coding, 29
sys
module, 46
T
text encoding, 121
text file, 121
triple-quoted string, 121
type, 122
U
universal newlines, 122
V
variable annotation, 122
virtual environment, 122
virtual machine, 122
Z
Zen of Python, 122
Index 145