Python Essential Reference

by Beazley, David M.

• ISBN13: 9780672328626
• ISBN10: 0672328623
• Edition: 3rd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-01-01
• Publisher: Sams

Summary

Python Essential Reference, 3rd Edition,is a comprehensive reference to the Python programming language. The focus of this latest edition is to add coverage of significant new features and new library modules added to the language over the past five years. Clearly written with concise organization, the new features covered include new style classes, unification of types and classes, xmlrpclip, intertools, bz2 and optparse, making it the most up-to-date Python book on the market.

Table of Contents

Introduction	1	(4)
I. The Python Language
A Tutorial Introduction	5	(14)
Running Python	5	(1)
Variables and Arithmetic Expressions	6	(1)
Conditionals	7	(1)
File Input and Output	8	(1)
Strings	9	(1)
Lists	10	(1)
Tuples	11	(1)
Sets	12	(1)
Dictionaries	12	(1)
Iteration and Looping	13	(1)
Functions	14	(1)
Classes	15	(1)
Exceptions	16	(1)
Modules	17	(1)
Getting Help	18	(1)
Lexical Conventions and Syntax	19	(8)
Line Structure and Indentation	19	(1)
Identifiers and Reserved Words	20	(1)
Literals	21	(2)
Operators, Delimiters, and Special Symbols	23	(1)
Documentation Strings	24	(1)
Decorators	24	(1)
Source Code Encoding	24	(3)
Types and Objects	27	(30)
Terminology	27	(1)
Object Identity and Type	27	(1)
Reference Counting and Garbage Collection	28	(1)
References and Copies	29	(1)
Built-in Types	30	(15)
The None Type	31	(1)
Numeric Types	32	(1)
Sequence Types	32	(4)
Mapping Types	36	(2)
Set Types	38	(1)
Callable Types	39	(2)
Classes and Types	41	(1)
Modules	41	(1)
Files	42	(1)
Internal Types	42	(2)
Classic Classes	44	(1)
Special Methods	45	(9)
Object Creation, Destruction, and Representation	46	(1)
Attribute Access	47	(2)
Sequence and Mapping Methods	49	(1)
Iteration	50	(1)
Mathematical Operations	51	(2)
Comparison Operations	53	(1)
Callable Objects	54	(1)
Performance Considerations	54	(3)
Operators and Expressions	57	(14)
Operations on Numbers	57	(2)
Operations on Sequences	59	(4)
Operations on Dictionaries	63	(1)
Operations on Sets	63	(1)
Augmented Assignment	64	(1)
The Attribute (.) Operator	64	(1)
Type Conversion	64	(1)
Unicode Strings	65	(3)
Boolean Expressions and Truth Values	68	(1)
Object Equality and Identity	68	(1)
Order of Evaluation	68	(3)
Control Flow	71	(8)
Conditionals	71	(1)
Loops and Iteration	71	(2)
Exceptions	73	(3)
Defining New Exceptions	76	(1)
Assertions and __debug__	77	(2)
Functions and Functional Programming	79	(12)
Functions	79	(2)
Parameter Passing and Return Values	81	(1)
Scoping Rules	82	(1)
Functions as Objects	83	(1)
Recursion	83	(1)
The apply () Function	83	(1)
The lambda Operator	84	(1)
map(), zip(), reduce(), and filter()	84	(1)
List Comprehensions	85	(1)
Generators and yield	86	(1)
Generator Expressions	87	(1)
Function Decorators	88	(1)
eval (), exec, execfile(), and compile()	89	(2)
Classes and Object-Oriented Programming	91	(12)
The class Statement	91	(2)
Class Instances	93	(1)
Reference Counting and Instance Destruction	94	(1)
Inheritance	94	(2)
Polymorphism	96	(1)
Information Hiding	97	(1)
Operator Overloading	97	(1)
Types and Class Membership Tests	98	(1)
Classic Classes	99	(1)
Metaclasses	99	(4)
Modules and Packages	103	(8)
Modules	103	(2)
The Module Search Path	105	(1)
Module Loading and Compilation	105	(1)
Module Reloading	106	(1)
Packages	107	(4)
Input and Output	111	(12)
Reading Options and Environment Variables	111	(1)
Files and File Objects	112	(2)
Standard Input, Output, and Error	114	(1)
The print Statement	115	(1)
Persistence	116	(1)
Unicode I/O	117	(6)
Execution Environment	123	(8)
Interpreter Options and Environment	123	(2)
Interactive Sessions	125	(1)
Launching Python Applications	126	(1)
Site Configuration Files	126	(1)
Enabling Future Features	126	(1)
Program Termination	126	(5)
II. The Python Library
Introduction to the Python Standard Library	131	(4)
Library Overview	132	(1)
Preview	132	(3)
Built-in Functions and Exceptions	135	(14)
Built in Functions	135	(9)
Built-in Exceptions	144	(5)
Python Runtime Services	149	(32)
atexit	149	(1)
code	149	(2)
copy	151	(1)
copy_reg	152	(1)
__future__	153	(1)
gc	154	(1)
inspect	155	(4)
marshal	159	(1)
new	160	(1)
operator	161	(1)
pickle and cPickle	162	(3)
site	165	(1)
sys	166	(4)
traceback	170	(2)
types	172	(2)
warnings	174	(2)
weakref	176	(2)
UserDict, UserList, and UserString	178	(3)
Mathematics	181	(14)
cmath	181	(1)
decimal	182	(8)
math	190	(1)
random	191	(4)
Data Structures and Algorithms	195	(8)
array	195	(2)
bisect	197	(1)
collections	197	(1)
heapq	198	(1)
itertools	199	(4)
String and Text Handling	203	(34)
codecs	203	(8)
difflib	211	(2)
gettext	213	(4)
re	217	(7)
string	224	(3)
StringIO and cStringIO	227	(1)
struct	228	(2)
textwrap	230	(1)
unicodedata	231	(6)
Data Management and Object Persistence	237	(8)
Introduction	237	(1)
anydbm	238	(1)
bsddb	238	(1)
dbhash	239	(1)
dbm	240	(1)
dumbdbm	240	(1)
gdbm	241	(1)
shelve	242	(1)
whichdb	243	(2)
File Handling	245	(20)
bz2	245	(1)
csv	246	(3)
filecmp	249	(2)
fileinput	251	(1)
fnmatch	252	(1)
glob	253	(1)
gzip	253	(1)
tarfile	254	(4)
zipfile	258	(3)
zlib	261	(4)
Operating System Services	265	(90)
commands	265	(1)
crypt	266	(1)
datetime	267	(6)
dl	273	(2)
errno	275	(5)
fcntl	280	(2)
getopt	282	(1)
getpass	283	(1)
grp	283	(1)
locale	284	(3)
logging	287	(11)
mmap	298	(3)
msvcrt	301	(1)
optparse	302	(6)
os	308	(18)
os.path	326	(3)
platform	329	(2)
popen2	331	(1)
pwd	332	(1)
resource	333	(2)
shutil	335	(1)
signal	336	(2)
stat	338	(1)
statvfs	339	(1)
subprocess	340	(2)
tempfile	342	(2)
termios	344	(4)
time	348	(3)
tty	351	(1)
__winreg	351	(4)
Threads	355	(10)
Thread Basics	355	(1)
Python Threads	355	(1)
thread	356	(2)
threading	358	(5)
Queue	363	(2)
Network Programming	365	(28)
Introduction	365	(3)
asynchat	368	(2)
asyncore	370	(4)
select	374	(1)
socket	375	(13)
SocketServer	388	(5)
Internet Application Protocols	393	(52)
BaseHTTPServer	393	(3)
cgi	396	(5)
cgitb	401	(1)
CGIHTTPServer	402	(1)
Cookie	402	(3)
cookielib	405	(5)
DocXMLRPCServer	410	(1)
encodings.idna	411	(1)
ftplib	412	(3)
httplib	415	(7)
imaplib	422	(1)
nntplib	422	(4)
poplib	426
robotparser	128	(300)
SimpleHTTPServer	428	(1)
SimpleXMLRPCServer	429	(3)
smtplib	432	(1)
urllib	433	(2)
urllib2	435	(5)
urlparse	440	(1)
webbrowser	441	(1)
xmlrpclib	442	(3)
Internet Data Handling and Encoding	445	(50)
base64	445	(2)
binascii	447	(2)
binhex	449	(1)
email	449	(12)
HTMLParser	461	(2)
mailcap	463	(1)
mimetypes	464	(5)
quopri	469	(1)
rfc822	470	(3)
uu	473	(1)
xdrlib	473	(4)
xml	477	(1)
xml.dom	477	(4)
xml.dom.minidom	481	(6)
xml.sax	487	(6)
xml.sax.saxutils	493	(2)
Cryptographic Services	495	(4)
hmac	495	(1)
md5	496	(1)
sha	497	(2)
Miscellaneous Modules	499	(4)
Python Services	499	(1)
String Processing	500	(1)
Operating System Modules	500	(1)
Network	500	(1)
Internet Data Handling	501	(1)
Multimedia Services	501	(1)
Miscellaneous	502	(1)
Debugging, Profiling, and Testing	503	(16)
doctest	503	(2)
hotshot	505	(1)
pdb	506	(4)
profile	510	(1)
pstats	511	(1)
timeit	512	(1)
unittest	513	(6)
III. Extending and Embedding
Extending and Embedding Python	519	(30)
Extension Module Example	519	(2)
Compilation of Extensions	521	(2)
Converting Data from Python to C	523	(3)
Converting Data from C to Python	526	(2)
Error Handling	528	(3)
Reference Counting	531	(1)
Calling Python from C	532	(1)
Abstract Object Layer	533	(4)
Low-level Functions on Built-in Types	537	(6)
Threads	543	(1)
Embedding	544	(2)
Defining New Python Types	546	(1)
Extension Building Tools	546	(3)
Index	549

Excerpts

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