Python Programming

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Python Programming/Print version

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
Python is a general purpose programming language.
Note: current version of this book can be found at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Python_Programming
Table of contents
Introduction
Overview
Getting Python
Interactive mode
Learning to program in Python

Creating Python programs
Using variables and math
Strings and arrays
Python concepts
Basic syntax
Data types
Numbers
Strings
Lists
Tuples
Dictionaries
Sets
Operators
Flow control
Python Programming/Print version - Wikibooks, collection of open-conte... http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Python_Programming/Print_version
Functions
Scoping
Exceptions
Input and output
Modules
Classes
MetaClasses
Rocking the Python (Modules)

Regular Expression
Graphical User Interfaces in Python
Python Programming/Game Programming in Python
Socket programming
Files (I/O)
Databases
Extracting info from web pages
Threading
Extending with C
Extending with C++
WSGI web programming
References
Authors
Authors
License
Overview
Python is a high-level, structured, open-source programming language that can be used for a wide variety of
programming tasks. It is good for simple quick-and-dirty scripts, as well as complex and intricate applications.
It is an interpreted programming language that is automatically compiled into bytecode before execution (the
bytecode is then normally saved to disk, just as automatically, so that compilation need not happen again until
and unless the source gets changed). It is also a dynamically typed language that includes (but does not require
one to use) object oriented features and constructs.
The most unusual aspect of Python is that whitespace is significant; instead of block delimiters (braces → "{}"
in the C family of languages), indentation is used to indicate where blocks begin and end.
For example, the following Python code can be interactively typed at an interpreter prompt, to display the
beginning values in the Fibonacci series:
>>> a,b = 0,1

>>> print b
1
>>> while b < 100:
... a,b = b,(a+b)
... print b,
...
1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144
Another interesting aspect in Python is reflection. The dir() function returns the list of the names of objects in
the current scope. However, dir(object) will return the names of the attributes of the specified object. The
locals() routine returns a dictionary in which the names in the local namespace are the keys and their values
are the objects to which the names refer. Combined with the interactive interpreter, this provides a useful
environment for exploration and prototyping.
Python provides a powerful assortment of built-in types (e.g., lists, dictionaries and strings), a number of
built-in functions, and a few constructs, mostly statements. For example, loop constructs that can iterate over
items in a collection instead of being limited to a simple range of integer values. Python also comes with a
powerful standard library, which includes hundreds of modules to provide routines for a wide variety of
services including regular expressions and TCP/IP sessions.
Python is used and supported by a large Python Community (http://www.python.org/community/index.html)

that exists on the Internet. The mailing lists and news groups (http://www.python.org/community/lists.html)
like the tutor list (http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/tutor) actively support and help new python
programmers. While they discourage doing homework for you, they are quite helpful and are populated by the
authors of many of the Python textbooks currently available on the market.
Index Next: Getting Python
Getting Python
In order to program in Python you need the Python software.
Installing Python in Windows

Go to http://www.python.org/download/ or the ActiveState website[1] (http://activestate.com) and get the
proper version for your platform. Download it, read the instructions and get it installed.
In order to run Python from the command line, you will need to have the python directory in your PATH.
Alternatively, you could use an Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Python like DrPython[2]
(http://drpython.sourceforge.net/) , eric[3] (http://www.die-offenbachs.de/detlev/eric3.html) , or PyScripter[4]
(http://mmm-experts.com/Products.aspx?ProductID=4) .
Installing Python in Unix

Python is standard equipment in many Unix-like operating systems; just type which python to check for it. If
present, it may not be the latest, but it should be enough to get you started.
If it's not installed, check your operating system's web page for the proper package. Failing that, you will need
to download the appropriate file from http://www.python.org/download or the ActiveState website[5]
(http://activestate.com) .
If you decide to compile Python from source, make sure you compile in the tk extension if you want to use
IDLE.
On Debian based Linux systems, you can download it by starting the command line, changing to the superuser
mode using su - and then by typing apt-get install python.
Previous: Overview Index Next: Setting it up
Interactive mode
Python has two basic modes: The normal "mode" is the mode where the scripted and finished .py files are run
in the python interpreter. Interactive mode is a command line shell which gives immediate feedback for each
statement, while running previously fed statements in active memory. As new lines are fed into the interpreter,
the fed program is evaluated both in part and in whole.
To get into interactive mode, simply type "python" without any arguments. This is a good way to play around
and try variations on syntax. Python should print something like this:
$ python
Python 2.3.4 (#2, Aug 29 2004, 02:04:10)
[GCC 3.3.4 (Debian 1:3.3.4-9)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>
(If Python wouldn't run, make sure your path is set correctly. See Getting Python.)
The >>> is Python's way of telling you that you are in interactive mode. In interactive mode what you type is
immediately run. Try typing 1+1 in. Python will respond with 2. Interactive mode allows you to test out and see
what Python will do. If you ever feel the need to play with new Python statements, go into interactive mode and
try them out.
A sample interactive session:
>>> 5
5
>>> print 5*7
35
>>> "hello" * 4
'hellohellohellohello'
>>> "hello".__class__
<type 'str'>
However, you need to be careful in the interactive environment. If you aren't careful, confusion may ensue. For
example, the following is a valid Python script:
if 1:
print "True"
print "Done"
If you try to enter this, as written in the interactive environment, you might be surprised by the result:
>>> if 1:
... print "True"
... print "Done"
File "<stdin>", line 3
print "Done"
^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
What the interpreter is saying is that the indentation of the second print was unexpected. What you should have
entered was a blank line, to end the first (i.e., "if") statement, before you started writing the next print statement.
For example, you should have entered the statements as though they were written:
if 1:
print "True"
print "Done"
Which would have resulted in the following:
>>> if 1:
... print "True"
...
True
>>> print "Done"
Done
>>>
Previous: Setting it up Index Next: Creating Python programs
Creating Python programs

*
Python programs are nothing more than text files, and they may be edited with standard text editors.
In Windows, notepad will be sufficient for a little while, but you will soon find that a more powerful editor,
such as vim (http://www.vim.org) , emacs (http://www.emacs.org) , or python's built-in IDE, IDLE makes
editing much easier.
In Unix, nano or pico are respectable beginners' editors, while vim and emacs are used when more power is
needed.
Additional editors (http://www.python.org/moin/PythonEditors) exist that are Python friendly (e.g., use Python
syntax highlighting).
Let's create the first program. It is listed as follows; create a file containing it with the name hello.py in your
preferred text editor:
#!/usr/bin/python
print "Hello, world!"
In Windows
Open your text editor.

Type in the program.
Create a temporary directory, such as C:\pythonpractice, and save the program in it, with the name
hello.py.
Open the MS-DOS prompt. (Or Start > Run > command > enter)
In the MS-DOS prompt, go into the directory you just created, then run the program.
C:\> cd \pythonpractice
C:\pythonpractice> python hello.py
If it didn't work, make sure your PATH contains the python directory. See Getting Python.
In Unix
Make a directory for Python practice, and cd into it:
$ mkdir ~/pythonpractice
$ cd ~/pythonpractice
Open the editor and type in the program, then save it as hello.py.
Make it executable, and run it:
$ chmod +x hello.py
$ ./hello.py
Result
The program should print Hello, world!. Congratulations! You're well on your way to becoming a Python
programmer.
Interactive mode
Instead of python exiting when the program is finished, you can use the -i flag to start an interactive session.
This can be very useful for debugging and prototyping.
python -i hello.py
Exercises
Modify the hello.py program to say hello to a historical political leader (or to Ada Lovelace).
Change the program so that after the greeting, it asks, "How did you get here?".
Solutions
*
Sometimes, Python programs are distributed in compiled form. We won't have to worry about that for quite a
while.
Previous: Interactive mode Index Next: Using variables and math
Using variables and math
Using a variable
A variable is something with a value that may change. In Python, variables are strongly typed, meaning that if a
variable has a number, it can't be treated as a string, or vice versa. Here is a program that uses a variable:
#!/usr/bin/python
name = 'Ada Lovelace'

print "Goodbye, " + name + '!'
(Oops! I used single quotes for Ada's name, then double quotes around Goodbye. That's OK, however, because
these two quotes do exactly the same thing in Python. The only thing you can't do is mix them and try to make a
string like this: "will not work'.)
This program isn't much use, of course. But what about variables that the program truly can't guess about?
raw_input()
#!/usr/bin/python
print 'Please enter your name.'

name = raw_input()
print 'How are you, ' + name + '?'
(What's raw_input() doing? Evidently, it's getting input from you. See Input and output.)
Of course, with the power of Python at hand, the urge to determine one's mass in stone is nearly irresistible. A
concise program can make short work of this task. Since a stone is 14 pounds, and there are about 2.2 pounds in
a kilogram, the following formula should do the trick:
Simple math
#!/usr/bin/python
print "What is your mass in kilograms?",

mass_kg = int(raw_input())
mass_stone = mass_kg * 2.2 / 14
print "You weigh " + str(mass_stone) + " stone."
Run this program and get your weight in stone!
This program is starting to get a little bit cluttered. That's because, in addition to all the math, I snuck in some
new features.
When the previous program asked for your name, you were typing below the question. This time, you're
typing at the end of the line that asks, "What is your mass in kilograms?". What's happening here is
that, normally, the print statement will add a newline to the end of what you're printing. That's why the
cursor went to the next line in the previous program. But in this program, I added a little comma to the
end. That makes print omit the newline.
int() - this handy function takes a string, and returns an integer. Remember when you read that Python is
strongly typed? Python won't allow us to do math on a string. Whatever you type is a string, even if it
consists of digits. But int() will recognize a string made of digits and return an integer.
The str(mass_stone) in the print statement. It turns out that you can't add together strings and numbers;
"You weigh " + mass_stone just wouldn't work. So, we have to take the number and turn it into a string.
Incidentally, ` would do the same thing as the str() function, but that is deprecated.
Formatting output
In the previous program, we used this line of code to print the result:
print "You weigh " + str(mass_stone) + " stone."
There are a couple of problems with this. First, it mixes up operators and quotes, and can be a little tough to
read. Second, the number won't be printed very nicely, as the following example illustrates:
$ ./kg2stone
What is your mass in kilograms? 65

You weigh 10.214285714285714 stone.
Not only is that much accuracy unjustified, it doesn't look nice. Python's % operator comes to the rescue. It
allows printf-like formatting, in the form:
STRING % (arg1, arg2, ...)
The string contains one format code for each argument. There are several types of format codes; see the strings
section for a complete list.
To improve our program, we just need the %f format code:
print "You weigh %.1f stone." % (mass_stone)
The %.1f format code causes a floating point number to be printed, with exactly one digit after the decimal. This
produces much nicer output:
$ ./kg2stone
What is your mass in kilograms? 65

You weigh 10.2 stone.
Previous: Creating Python programs Index Next: Strings and arrays
Strings and arrays
Strings
Strings are groups of character data enclosed in quotes. You can express strings in double quotes (“string”) or
you can express strings in single quotes (‘string’). Let's do an example:
#!/usr/bin/python
#filename: string.py
print 'I am enclosed in single quotes'

print "I am enclosed in double quotes"
Not only can you create strings, but you can also operate on them (such as concatenation). For example:
#!/usr/bin/python
print 'Spam' + 'Eggs'

print 'Ni!' * 10
This will print out SpamEggs on one line and Ni!Ni!Ni!Ni!Ni!Ni!Ni!Ni!Ni!Ni! on the next.
[Incomplete] (see Strings, Lists, and Tuples for now)
Previous: Using variables and math Index Next: Decision Control
Basic syntax
Previous: Strings and arrays Index Next: Data types
There are four fundamental concepts in Python.
Case Sensitivity
All variables are case-sensitive. Python treats 'number' and 'Number' as seperate, unrelated entities.
Spaces and tabs don't mix
Because whitespace is significant, remember that spaces and tabs don't mix, so use only one or the other when
indenting your programs. A common error is to mix them. While they may look the same in editor the
interpreter will read them differently and it will result in either an error or unexpected behavior. However, tabs
advance to the next multiple of 8 columns, so changing your tab width to 8 (in other words, a tab "stop" on
every 8th column) in your editor helps if you find yourself frequently making this mistake.
Objects
In Python, like all object oriented languages, there are aggregations of code and data called Objects, which
typically represent the pieces in a conceptual model of a system.
Objects in Python are created (i.e., instantiated) from templates called Classes (which are covered later, as
much of the language can be used without understanding classes). They have "attributes", which represent the
various pieces of code and data which comprise the object. To access attributes, one writes the name of the
object followed by a period (henceforth called a dot), followed by the name of the attribute.
An example is the 'upper' attribute of strings, which refers to the code that returns a copy of the string in which
all the letters are uppercase. To get to this, it is necessary to have a way to refer to the object (in the following
example, the way is the literal string that constructs the object).
'bob'.upper
Code attributes are called "methods". So in this example, upper is a method of 'bob' (as it is of all strings). To
execute the code in a method, use a matched pair of parentheses surrounding a comma separated list of
whatever arguments the method accepts (upper doesn't accept any arguments). So to find an uppercase version
of the string 'bob', one could use the following:
'bob'.upper()
Scope
In a large system, it is important that one piece of code does not affect another in difficult to predict ways. One
of the simplest ways to further this goal is to prevent one programmer's choice of names from preventing
another from choosing that name. Because of this, the concept of scope was invented. A scope is a "region" of
code in which a name can be used and outside of which the name cannot be easily accessed. There are two ways
of delimiting regions in Python: with functions or with modules. They each have different ways of accessing the
useful data that was produced within the scope from outside the scope. With functions, that way is to return the
data. The way to access names from other modules lead us to another concept.
Namespaces
It would be possible to teach Python without the concept of namespaces because they are so similar to
attributes, which we have already mentioned, but the concept of namespaces is one that transcends any
particular programming language, and so it is important to teach. To begin with, there is a built-in function
dir() that can be used to help one understand the concept of namespaces. When you first start the Python
interpreter (i.e., in interactive mode), you can list the objects in the current (or default) namespace using this
function.
Python 2.3.4 (#53, Oct 18 2004, 20:35:07) [MSC v.1200 32 bit (Intel)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> dir()
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__']
This function can also be used to show the names available within a module namespace. To demonstrate this,
first we can use the type() function to show what __builtins__ is:
>>> type(__builtins__)
<type 'module'>
Since it is a module, we can list the names within the __builtins__ namespace, again using the dir() function
(note the complete list of names has been abbreviated):
>>> dir(__builtins__)
['ArithmeticError', ... 'copyright', 'credits', ... 'help', ... 'license', ... 'zip']
>>>
Namespaces are a simple concept. A namespace is a place in which a name resides. Each name within a
namespace is distinct from names outside of the namespace. This layering of namespaces is called scope. A
name is placed within a namespace when that name is given a value. For example:
>>> dir()
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__']
>>> name = "Bob"
>>> import math
>>> dir()
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', 'math', 'name']
Note that I was able to add the "name" variable to the namespace using a simple assignment statement. The
import statement was used to add the "math" name to the current namespace. To see what math is, we can
simply:
>>> math
<module 'math' (built-in)>
Since it is a module, it also has a namespace. To display the names within this namespace, we:
>>> dir(math)
['__doc__', '__name__', 'acos', 'asin', 'atan', 'atan2', 'ceil', 'cos', 'cosh', 'degrees', 'e',
'exp', 'fabs', 'floor', 'fmod', 'frexp', 'hypot', 'ldexp', 'log', 'log10', 'modf', 'pi', 'pow',
'radians', 'sin', 'sinh', 'sqrt', 'tan', 'tanh']
>>>
If you look closely, you will notice that both the default namespace, and the math module namespace have a
'__name__' object. The fact that each layer can contain an object with the same name is what scope is all about.
To access objects inside a namespace, simply use the name of the module, followed by a dot, followed by the
name of the object. This allow us to differentiate between the __name__ object within the current namespace, and
that of the object with the same name within the math module. For example:
>>> print __name__

__main__
>>> print math.__name__
math
>>> print math.__doc__
This module is always available. It provides access to the
mathematical functions defined by the C standard.
>>> math.pi
3.1415926535897931
Previous: Strings and arrays Index Next: Data types

Data types
Previous: Basic syntax Index Next: Numbers
Data types determine whether an object can do something, or whether it just would not make sense. Other
programming languages often determine whether an operation makes sense for an object by making sure the
object can never be stored somewhere where the operation will be performed on the object (this type system is
called static typing). Python does not do that. Instead it stores the type of an object with the object, and checks
when the operation is performed whether that operation makes sense for that object (this is called dynamic
typing).
Python's basic datatypes are:
Integers, equivalent to C longs

Floating-Point numbers, equivalant to C doubles
Long integers of non-limited length
Complex Numbers.
Strings
Some others, such as type and function
Python's composite datatypes are:
lists
tuples
dictionaries, also called dicts, hashmaps, or associative arrays
Literal integers can be entered as in C:
decimal numbers can be entered directly

octal numbers can be entered by prepending a 0 (0732 is octal 732, for example)
hexadecimal numbers can be entered by prepending a 0x (0xff is hex FF, or 255 in decimal)
Floating point numbers can be entered directly.
Long integers are entered either directly (1234567891011121314151617181920 is a long integer) or by

appending an L (0L is a long integer). Computations involving short integers that overflow are automatically
turned into long integers.
Complex numbers are entered by adding a real number and an imaginary one, which is entered by appending a j
(i.e. 10+5j is a complex number. So is 10j). Note that j by itself does not constitute a number. If this is desired,
use 1j.
Strings can be either single or triple quoted strings. The difference is in the starting and ending delimiters, and
in that single quoted strings cannot span more than one line. Single quoted strings are entered by entering either
a single quote (') or a double quote (") followed by its match. So therefore
'foo' works, and

"moo" works as well,
but
'bar" does not work, and
"baz' does not work either.
"quux'' is right out.
Triple quoted strings are like single quoted strings, but can span more than one line. Their starting and ending
delimiters must also match. They are entered with three consecutive single or double quotes, so
'''foo''' works, and

"""moo""" works as well,
but
'"'bar'"' does not work, and
"""baz''' does not work either.
'"'quux"'" is right out.
Tuples are entered in parenthesis, with commas between the entries:
(10, 'Mary had a little lamb')
Also, the parenthesis can be left out when it's not ambigouous to do so:
10, 'whose fleece was as white as snow'
Note that one-element tuples can be entered by surrounding the entry with parentheses and adding a comma like
so:
('this is a stupid tuple',)
Lists are similar, but with brackets:
['abc', 1,2,3]
Dicts are created by surrounding with curly braces a list of key,value pairs separated from each other by a colon
and from the other entries with commas:
{ 'hello': 'world', 'weight': 'African or European?' }
Any of these composite types can contain any other, to any depth:
((((((((('bob',),['Mary', 'had', 'a', 'little', 'lamb']), { 'hello' : 'world' } ),),),),),),)
Numbers
Previous: Data types Index Next: Strings
Python supports 4 types of Numbers, the int, the long, the float and the complex. You don’t have to specify
what type of variable you want; Python does that automatically.
Int: This is the basic integer type in python, it is equivilant to the hardware 'c long' for the platform you
are using.
Long: This is a integer number that's length is non-limited. In python 2.2 and later, Ints are automatically
turned into long ints when they overflow.
Float: This is a binary floating point number. Longs and Ints are automatically converted to floats when a
float is used in an expression, and with the true-division / operator.
Complex: This is a complex number consisting of two floats. It is in engineering style notation.
In general, the number types are automatically 'up cast' in this order:
Int --> Long --> Float --> Complex. the farther to the right you go, the higher the precedence.
>>> x = 5
>>> type(x)
<type 'int'>
>>> x = 187687654564658970978909869576453
>>> type(x)
<type 'long'>
>>> x = 1.34763
>>> type(x)
<type 'float'>
>>> x = 5 + 2j
>>> type(x)
<type 'complex'>
However, some expressions may be confusing since in the current version of python, using the / operator on
two integers will return another integer, using floor division. For example, 5/2 will give you 2. You have to
specify one of the operands as a float to get true division, e.g. 5/2. or 5./2 (the dot specifies you want to work
with float) to have 2.5. This behavior is deprecated and will disappear in a future python release as shown from
the from __future__ import.
>>> 5/2
2
>>>5/2.
2.5
>>>5./2
2.5
>>> from __future__ import division
>>> 5/2
2.5
>>> 5//2
2
Strings
Previous: Numbers Index Next: Lists
String manipulation
String operations
Equality
Two strings are equal if and only if they have exactly the same contents, meaning that they are both the same
length and each character has a one-to-one positional correspondence. Many other languages test strings only
for identity; that is, they only test whether two strings occupy the same space in memory. This latter operation
is possible in Python using the operator is.
Example:
>>> a = 'hello'; b = 'hello' # Assign 'hello' to a and b.

>>> print a == b # True
True
>>> print a == 'hello' #
True
>>> print a == "hello" # (choice of delimiter is unimportant)
True
>>> print a == 'hello ' # (extra space)
False
>>> print a == 'Hello' # (wrong case)
False
Numerical
There are two quasi-numerical operations which can be done on strings -- addition and multiplication. String
addition is just another name for concatenation. String multiplication is repetitive addition, or concatenation.
So:
>>> c = 'a'
>>> c + 'b'
'ab'
>>> c * 5
'aaaaa'
Containment
There is a simple operator 'in' that returns True if the first operand is contained in the second. This also works
on substrings
>>> x = 'hello'
>>> y = 'll'
>>> x in y
False
>>> y in x
True
Note that 'print x in y' would have also returned the same value.
Indexing and Slicing
Much like arrays in other languages, the individual characters in a string can be accessed by an integer
representing its position in the string. The first character in string s would be s[0] and the nth character would
be at s[n-1].
>>> s = “Xanadu”
>>> s[1]
‘a’
Unlike arrays in other languages, Python also indexes the arrays backwards, using negative numbers. The last
character has index -1, the second to last character has index -2, and so on.
>>> s[-4]
‘n’
We can also use “slices” to access a substring of s. s[a:b] will give us a string starting with s[a] and ending with
s[b-1].
>>> s[1:4]
‘ana’
Neither of these is assignable.
>>> print s
>>> s[0] = 'J'
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “<stdin>”, line 1, in ?
TypeError: object does not support item assignment
>>> s[1:3] = “up”
File “<stdin>”, line 1, in ?
TypeError: object does not support slice assignment
>>> print s
Outputs (assuming the errors were suppressed):
Xanadu
Xanadu
Another feature of slices is that if the beginning or end is left empty, it will default to the first or last index,
depending on context:
>>> s[2:]
‘nadu’
>>> s[:3]
‘Xan’
>>> s[:]
‘Xanadu’
You can also use negative numbers in slices:

>>> print s[-2:]

‘du’
To understand slices, it’s easiest not to count the elements themselves. It is a bit like counting not on your
fingers, but in the spaces between them. The list is indexed like this:
Element: 1 2 3 4
Index: 0 1 2 3 4
-4 -3 -2 -1
So, when we ask for the [1:3] slice, that means we start at index 1, and end at index 3, and take everything in
between them. If you are used to indexes in C or Java, this can be a bit disconcerting until you get used to it.
String constants
String constants can be found in the standard string module. Either single or double quotes may be used to
delimit string constants.
String methods
There are a number of methods of built-in string functions:
capitalize
center
count
decode
encode
endswith
expandtabs
find
index
isalnum
isalpha
isdigit
islower
isspace
istitle
isupper
join
ljust
lower
lstrip
replace
rfind
rindex
rjust
rstrip
split
splitlines
startswith
strip
swapcase
title
translate
upper
zfill
Only emphasized items will be covered.
is*
isalnum(), isalpha(), isdigit(), islower(), isupper(), isspace(), and istitle() fit into this category.
The length of the string object being compared must be at least 1, or the is* methods will return False. In other
words, a string object of len(string) == 0, is considered "empty", or False.
isalnum returns True if the string is entirely composed of alphabetic or numeric characters (i.e. no
punctuation).
isalpha and isdigit work similarly for alphabetic characters or numeric characters only.
isspace returns True if the string is composed entirely of whitespace.
islower, isupper, and istitle return True if the string is in lowercase, uppercase, or titlecase respectively.
Uncased characters are "allowed", such as digits, but there must be at least one cased character in the
string object in order to return True. Titlecase means the first cased character of each word is uppercase,
and any immediately following cased characters are lowercase. Curiously, 'Y2K'.istitle() returns True.
That is because uppercase characters can only follow uncased characters. Likewise, lowercase characters
can only follow uppercase characters. Hint: whitespace is uncased.
Example:
>>> '2YK'.istitle()
False
>>> '2Yk'.istitle()
True
>>> '2Y K'.istitle()
True
title, upper, lower, swapcase, capitalize
Returns the string converted to title case, upper case, lower case, inverts case, or capitalizes, respectively.
The title method capitalizes the first letter of each word in the string (and makes the rest lower case). Words are
identified as substrings of alphabetic characters that are separated by non-alphabetic characters, such as digits,
or whitespace. This can lead to some unexpected behavior. For example, the string "x1x" will be converted to
"X1X" instead of "X1x".
The swapcase method makes all uppercase letters lowercase and vice versa.
The capitalize method is like title except that it considers the entire string to be a word. (i.e. it makes the first
character upper case and the rest lower case)
Example:
>>> s = 'Hello, wOrLD'

>>> s
'Hello, wOrLD'
>>> s.title()
'Hello, World'
>>> s.upper()
'HELLO, WORLD'
>>> s.lower()
'hello, world'
>>> s.swapcase()
'hELLO, WoRld'
>>> s.capitalize()
'Hello, world'
count
Returns the number of the specified substrings in the string. i.e.
>>> s = 'Hello, world'

>>> s.count('l') # print the number of 'l's in 'Hello, World' (3)
3
strip, rstrip, lstrip
Returns a copy of the string with the leading (lstrip) and trailing (rstrip) whitespace removed. strip removes
both.
>>> s = '\t Hello, world\n\t '

>>> print s
Hello, world
>>> print s.strip()

Hello, world
>>> print s.lstrip()
Hello, world
# ends here
>>> print s.rstrip()
Hello, world
Note the leading and trailing tabs and newlines.
Strip methods can also be used to remove other types of characters.
import string
s = 'www.wikibooks.org'
print s
print s.strip('w') # Removes all w's from outside
print s.strip(string.lowercase) # Removes all lowercase letters from outside
print s.strip(string.printable) # Removes all printable characters
Outputs:
www.wikibooks.org
.wikibooks.org
.wikibooks.
Note that string.lowercase and string.printable require an import string statement
ljust, rjust, center
left, right or center justifies a string into a given field size (the rest is padded with spaces).
>>> s = 'foo'
>>> s
'foo'
>>> s.ljust(7)
'foo '
>>> s.rjust(7)
' foo'
>>> s.center(7)
' foo '
join
Joins together the given sequence with the string as separator:
>>> seq = ['1', '2', '3', '4', '5']

>>> ' '.join(seq)
'1 2 3 4 5'
>>> '+'.join(seq)
'1+2+3+4+5'
map may be helpful here: (it converts numbers in seq into strings)
>>> seq = [1,2,3,4,5]

>>> ' '.join(map(str, seq))
'1 2 3 4 5'
now arbitrary objects may be in seq instead of just strings.

find, index, rfind, rindex
The find and index functions returns the index of the first found occurrence of the given subsequence. If it is not
found, find returns -1 but index raises a ValueError. rfind and rindex are the same as find and index except that
they search through the string from right to left (i.e. they find the last occurance)

>>> s.find('l')
2
>>> s[s.index('l'):]
'llo, world'
>>> s.rfind('l')
10
>>> s[:s.rindex('l')]
'Hello, wor'
>>> s[s.index('l'):s.rindex('l')]
'llo, wor'
Because Python strings accept negative subscripts, index is probably better used in situations like the one shown
because using find instead would yield an incorrect value.
replace
Replace works just like it sounds. It returns a copy of the string with all occurrences of the first parameter
replaced with the second parameter.
>>> 'Hello, world'.replace('o', 'X')

'HellX, wXrld'
Or, using variable assignment:
string = 'Hello, world'

newString = string.replace('o', 'X')
print string
print newString
Outputs:
'Hello, world'
'HellX, wXrld'
Notice, the original variable (string) remains unchanged after the call to replace.
expandtabs
Replaces tabs with the apropriate number of spaces. (default number of spaces per tab = 8; this can be changed
by passing the tab size as an argument)
s = 'abcdefg\tabc\ta'
print s
print len(s)
t = s.expandtabs()
print t
print len(t)
abcdefg abc a
13
abcdefg abc a
17
Notice how (although these both look the same) the second string (t) has a different length because each tab is
represented by spaces not tab characters.
To use a a tab size of 4 instead of 8:
v = s.expandtabs(4)
print v
print len(s)
Outputs:
abcdefg abc a
13
split, splitlines
The split method returns a list of the words in the string. It can take a separator argument to use instead of
whitespace.

>>> s.split()
['Hello, ', 'world']
>>> s.split('l')
['He', '', 'o, wor', 'd']
Note that in neither case is the separator included in the split strings, but empty strings are allowed.
The splitlines method breaks a multiline string into many single line strings. It is analogous to split('\n') (but
accepts '\r' and '\r\n' as delimiters as well) except that if the string ends in a newline character, splitlines ignores
that final character (see example).
>>> s = """
... One line
... Two lines
... Red lines
... Blue lines
... Green lines
... """
>>> s.split('\n')
['', 'One line', 'Two lines', 'Red lines', 'Blue lines', 'Green lines', '']
>>> s.splitlines()
['', 'One line', 'Two lines', 'Red lines', 'Blue lines', 'Green lines']
Lists
Previous: Strings Index Next: Tuples
About lists in Python
A list in Python is an ordered group of items (or elements). It is a very general structure, and list elements don't
have to be of the same type. For instance, you could put numbers, letters, strings and donkeys all on the same
list.
If you are using a modern version of Python (and you should be), there is a class called 'list'. If you wish, you
can make your own subclass of it, and determine list behaviour which is different than the default standard. But
first, you should be familiar with the current behaviour of lists.
List notation
There are two different ways to make a list in python. The first is through assignment ("statically"), the second
is using list comprehensions("actively").
To make a static list of items, write them between square brackets. For example:
[ 1,2,3,"This is a list",'c',Donkey("kong") ]
A couple of things to look at.
1. There are different data types here. Lists in python may contain more than one data type.
2. Objects can be created 'on the fly' and added to lists. The last item is a new kind of Donkey.
Writing lists this way is very quick (and obvious). However, it does not take into account the current state of
anything else. The other way to make a list is to form it using list comprehension. That means you actually
describe the process. To do that, the list is broken into two pieces. The first is a picture of what each element
will look like, and the second is what you do to get it.
For instance, lets say we have a list of words:
listOfWords = ["this","is","a","list","of","words"]
We will take the first letter of each word and make a list out of it.
>>> listOfWords = ["this","is","a","list","of","words"]

>>> items = [ word[0] for word in listOfWords ]
>>> print items
['t', 'i', 'a', 'l', 'o', 'w']
List comprehension allows you to use more than one for statement. It will evaluate the items in all of the objects
sequentially and will loop over the shorter objects if one object is longer than the rest.
>>> item = [x+y for x in 'flower' for y in 'pot']

>>> print item
['fp', 'fo', 'ft', 'lp', 'lo', 'lt', 'op', 'oo', 'ot', 'wp', 'wo', 'wt', 'ep', 'eo', 'et', 'rp', 'ro', 'rt']
Python's list comprehension does not define a scope. Any variables that are bound in an evaluation remain
bound to whatever they were last bound to when the evaluation was completed:
>>> print x, y
r t
This is exactly the same as if the comprehension had been expanded into an explicitly-nested group of one or
more 'for' statements and 0 or more 'if' statements.
List creation shortcuts
Python provides a shortcut to initialize a list to a particular size and with an initial value for each element:
>>> zeros=[0]*5
>>> print zeros
[0, 0, 0, 0, 0]
This works for any data type:
>>> foos=['foo']*8
>>> print foos
['foo', 'foo', 'foo', 'foo', 'foo', 'foo', 'foo', 'foo']
with a caveat. When building a new list by multiplying, Python copies each item by reference. This poses a
problem for mutable items, for instance in a multidimensional array where each element is itself a list. You'd
guess that the easy way to generate a two dimensional array would be:
listoflists=[ [0]*4 ] *5
and this works, but probably doesn't do what you expect:
>>> listoflists=[ [0]*4 ] *5

>>> print listoflists
[[0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0]]
>>> listoflists[0][2]=1
[[0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1, 0]]
What's happening here is that Python is using the same reference to the inner list as the elements of the outer
list. Another way of looking at this issue is to examine how Python sees the above definition:
>>> innerlist=[0]*4
>>> listoflists=[innerlist]*5
[[0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0]]
>>> innerlist[2]=1
[[0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 1, 0]]
Assuming the above effect is not what you intend, one way around this issue is to use list comprehensions:
>>> listoflists=[[0]*4 for i in range(5)]

[[0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0]]
>>> listoflists[0][2]=1
[[0, 0, 1, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0], [0, 0, 0, 0]]
Operations on lists
List Attributes
Length:
To find the length of a list use the built in len() method.

>>> len([1,2,3])
3
>>> a = [1,2,3,4]
>>> len( a )
4
Combining lists
Lists can be combined in several ways. The easiest is just to 'add' them. For instance:
>>> [1,2] + [3,4]

[1, 2, 3, 4]
Another way to combine lists is with extend. If you need to combine lists inside of a lamda, extend is the way
to go.
>>> a = [1,2,3]
>>> b = [4,5,6]
>>> a.extend(b)
>>> print a
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
The other way to append a value to a list is to use append. For example:
>>> p=[1,2]
>>> p.append([3,4])
>>> p
[1, 2, [3, 4]]
>>> # or
>>> print p
[1, 2, [3, 4]]
Getting pieces of lists (slices)
Like strings, lists can be indexed and sliced.
>>> list = [2, 4, “usurp”, 9.0,”n”]

>>> list[2]
‘usurp’
>>> list[3:]
[9.0, ‘n’]
Much like the slice of a string is a substring, the slice of a list is a list. However, lists differ from strings in that
we can assign new values to the items in a list.
>>> list[1] = 17
>>> list
[2, 17, ‘usurp’, 9.0,’n’]
We can even assign new values to slices of the lists, which don’t even have to be the same length
>>> list[1:4] = [“opportunistic”, “elk”]

>>> list
[2, ‘opportunistic’, ‘elk’, ‘n’]
It’s even possible to append things onto the end of lists by assigning to an empty slice:
>>> list[:0] = [3.14,2.71]

>>> list
[3.14, 2.71, 2, ‘opportunistic’, ‘elk’, ‘n’]
Comparing lists
Lists can be compared for equality.
>>> [1,2] == [1,2]

True
>>> [1,2] == [3,4]
False
Sorting lists
Sorting lists is easy with a sort method.

>>> list = [2, 3, 1, 'a', 'b']

>>> list.sort()
>>> list
[1, 2, 3, 'a', 'b']
Note that the list is sorted in place, and the sort() method returns None to emphasize this side effect.
If you use Python 2.4 or higher there are some more sort parameters:
sort(cmp,key,reverse)
cmp : method to be used for sorting
key : function to be executed with key element. List is sorted by return-value of the function
reverse : sort ascending y/n
List methods
append(x)
Add item x onto the end of the list.
>>> list = [1, 2, 3]

>>> list.append(4)
>>> list
[1, 2, 3, 4]
See pop(i)
pop(i)
Remove the item in the list at the index i and return it. If i is not given, remove the the last item in the list and
return it.
>>> list = [1, 2, 3, 4]

>>> a = list.pop(0)
>>> list
[2, 3, 4]
>>> a
1
>>> b = list.pop()
>>>list
[2, 3]
>>> b
4}}
Dictionaries
Previous: Tuples Index Next: Sets
About dictionaries in Python

A dictionary in python is a collection of unordered values which are accessed by key.
Dictionary notation
Dictionaries may be created directly or converted from sequences. Dictionaries are enclosed in curly braces, {}
>>> d = {'city':'Paris', 'age':38, (102,1650,1601):'A matrix coordinate'}

>>> seq = [('city','Paris'), ('age', 38), ((102,1650,1601),'A matrix coordinate')]
>>> d
{'city': 'Paris', 'age': 38, (102, 1650, 1601): 'A matrix coordinate'}
>>> dict(seq)
{'city': 'Paris', 'age': 38, (102, 1650, 1601): 'A matrix coordinate'}
>>> d == dict(seq)
True
Also, dictionaries can be easily created by zipping two sequences.
>>> seq1 = ('a','b','c','d')

>>> seq2 = [1,2,3,4]
>>> d = dict(zip(seq1,seq2))
>>> d
{'a': 1, 'c': 3, 'b': 2, 'd': 4}
Operations on Dictionaries
The operations on dictionaries are somewhat unique. Slicing is not supported, since the items have no intrinsic
order.
>>> d = {'a':1,'b':2, 'cat':'Fluffers'}

>>> d.keys()
['a', 'b', 'cat']
>>> d.values()
[1, 2, 'Fluffers']
>>> d['a']
1
>>> d['cat'] = 'Mr. Whiskers'
>>> d['cat']
'Mr. Whiskers'
>>> d.has_key('cat')
True
>>> d.has_key('dog')
False
>>> 'cat' in d
True
Combining two Dictionaries
You can combine two dictionaries by using the update method of the primary dictionary. Note that the update
method will merge existing elements if they conflict.
>>> d = {'apples': 1, 'oranges': 3, 'pears': 2}

>>> ud = {'pears': 4, 'grapes': 5, 'lemons': 6}
>>> d.update(ud)
>>> d
{'grapes': 5, 'pears': 4, 'lemons': 6, 'apples': 1, 'oranges': 3}
>>>
Deleting from dictionary
del dictionaryName[membername]
Sets
Previous: Dictionaries Index Next: Operators
Python also has an implementation of the mathematical set. Unlike sequence objects such as lists and tuples, in
which each element is indexed, a set is an unordered collection of objects. Sets also cannot have duplicate
members - a given object appears in a set 0 or 1 times. For more information on sets, see the Set Theory
wikibook.
Constructing Sets
One way to construct sets is by passing any sequential object to the "set" constructor.
>>> set([0, 1, 2, 3])

set([0, 1, 2, 3])
>>> set("obtuse")
set(['b', 'e', 'o', 's', 'u', 't'])
We can also add elements to sets one by one, using the "add" function.
>>> s = set([12, 26, 54])

>>> s.add(32)
>>> s
set([32, 26, 12, 54])
Note that since a set does not contain duplicate elements, if we add one of the members of s to s again, the add
function will have no effect. This same behavior occurs in the "update" function, which adds a group of
elements to a set.
>>> s.update([26, 12, 9, 14])

>>> s
set([32, 9, 12, 14, 54, 26])
Note that you can give any type of sequential structure, or even another set, to the update function, regardless of
what structure was used to initialize the set.
The set function also provides a copy constructor. However, remember that the copy constructor will copy the
set, but not the individual elements.
>>> s2 = s.copy()
>>> s2
set([32, 9, 12, 14, 54, 26])
Membership Testing
We can check if an object is in the set using the same "in" operator as with sequential data types.
>>> 32 in s
True
>>> 6 in s
False
>>> 6 not in s
True
We can also test the membership of entire sets. Given two sets S and S , we check if S is a subset or a
1 2 1
superset of S .
2
>>> s.issubset(set([32, 8, 9, 12, 14, -4, 54, 26, 19]))

True
>>> s.issuperset(set([9, 12]))
True
Note that "issubset" and "issuperset" can also accept sequential data types as arguments
>>> s.issuperset([32, 9])

True
Note that the <= and >= operators also express the issubset and issuperset functions respectively.
>>> set([4, 5, 7]) <= set([4, 5, 7, 9])

True
>>> set([9, 12, 15]) >= set([9, 12])
True
Like lists, tuples, and string, we can use the "len" function to find the number of items in a set.
Removing Items
There are three functions which remove individual items from a set, called pop, remove, and discard. The first,
pop, simply removes an item from the set. Note that there is no defined behavior as to which element it chooses
to remove.
>>> s = set([1,2,3,4,5,6])
>>> s.pop()
1
>>> s
set([2,3,4,5,6])
We also have the "remove" function to remove a specified element.
>>> s.remove(3)
>>> s
set([2,4,5,6])
However, removing a item which isn't in the set causes an error.
>>> s.remove(9)
File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
KeyError: 9
If you wish to avoid this error, use "discard." It has the same functionality as remove, but will simply do
nothing if the element isn't in the set
We also have another operation for removing elements from a set, clear, which simply removes all elements
from the set.
>>> s.clear()
>>> s
set([])
Iteration Over Sets
We can also have a loop move over each of the items in a set. However, since sets are unordered, it is undefined
which order the iteration will follow.
>>> s = set("blerg")
>>> for n in s:
... print n,
...
r b e l g
Set Operations
Python allows us to perform all the standard mathematical set operations, using members of set. Note that each
of these set operations has several forms. One of these forms, s1.function(s2) will return another set which is
created by "function" applied to S and S . The other form, s1.function_update(s2), will change S to be the set
1 2 1
created by "function" of S and S . Finally, some functions have equivalent special operators. For example, s1
1 2
& s2 is equivalent to s1.intersection(s2)
Union
The union is the merger of two sets. Any element in S or S will appear in their union.
1 2
>>> s1 = set([4, 6, 9])

>>> s2 = set([1, 6, 8])
>>> s1.union(s2)
set([1, 4, 6, 8, 9])
>>> s1 | s2
set([1, 4, 6, 8, 9])
Note that union's update function is simply "update" above.
Intersection
Any element which is in both S and S will appear in their intersection.

1 2
>>> s1 = set([4, 6, 9])

>>> s2 = set([1, 6, 8])
>>> s1.intersection(s2)
set([6])
>>> s1 & s2
set([6])
>>> s1.intersection_update(s2)
>>> s1
set([6])
Symmetric Difference
The symmetric difference of two sets is the set of elements which are in one of either set, but not in both.
>>> s1 = set([4, 6, 9])

>>> s2 = set([1, 6, 8])
>>> s1.symmetric_difference(s2)
set([8, 1, 4, 9])
>>> s1 ^ s2
set([8, 1, 4, 9])
>>> s1.symmetric_difference_update(s2)
>>> s1
set([8, 1, 4, 9])
Set Difference
Python can also find the set difference of S and S , which is the elements that are in S but not in S .
1 2 1 2
>>> s1 = set([4, 6, 9])

>>> s2 = set([1, 6, 8])
>>> s1.difference(s2)
set([9, 4])
>>> s1 - s2
set([9, 4])
>>> s1.difference_update(s2)
>>> s1
set([9, 4])
Reference
Python Library Reference on Set Types (http://python.org/doc/2.4.1/lib/types-set.html)
Operators
Previous: Sets Index Next: Flow control
Basics
Python math works like you would expect.
>>> x = 2
>>> y = 3
>>> z = 5
>>> x * y
6
>>> x + y
5
>>> x * y + z
11
>>> (x + y) * z
25
Note that Python adheres to the PEMDAS order of operations.
Powers
There is a builtin exponentiation operator '**', which can take either integers, floating point or complex
numbers. This occupies its proper place in the order of operations.
Division and Type Conversion

Dividing two integers uses integer division, also known as floor division. Using division this way is deprecated
because it is intended to change in the future. Instead, if you want floor division, use '//'.
Dividing by or into a floating point number (there are no fractional types in Python) will cause Python to use
true division. To coerce an integer to become a float, 'float()' with the integer as a parameter
>>> x = 5
>>> float(x)
5.0
This can be generalized for other numeric types: int(), complex(), long().
Modulo
The modulus (remainder of the division of the two operands, rather than the quotient) can be found using the %
operator, or by the divmod builtin function. The divmod function returns a tuple containing the quotient and
remainder.
Negation
Unlike some other languages, variables can be negated directly:
>>> x = 5
>>> -x
-5
Augmented Assignment
There is shorthand for assigning the output of an operation to one of the inputs:
>>> x = 2
>>> x # 2
2
>>> x *= 3
>>> x # 2 * 3
6
>>> x += 4
>>> x # 2 * 3 + 4
10
>>> x /= 5
>>> x # (2 * 3 + 4) / 5
2
>>> x **= 2
>>> x # ((2 * 3 + 4) / 5) ** 2
4
>>> x %= 3
>>> x # ((2 * 3 + 4) / 5) ** 2 % 3
1
>>> x = 'repeat this '

>>> x # repeat this
repeat this
>>> x *= 3 # fill with x repeated three times
>>> x
repeat this repeat this repeat this
Boolean
or:
if a or b:
do_this
else:
do_this
and:
if a and b:
do_this
else:
do_this
Flow control
Previous: Operators Index Next: Functions
As with most imperative languages, there are three main categories of program flow control:
loops
branches
function calls
Function calls are covered in a later section.
Generators might arguably be considered an advanced form of program flow control, but they are not covered
here.
Loops
In Python, there are two kinds of loops, 'for' loops and 'while' loops.
For loops
A for loop iterates over elements of a sequence (tuple or list). A variable is created to represent the object in the
sequence. For example,
l = [100,200,300]
for i in l:
print i
This will output
100
200
300
The for loop loops over each of the elements of a list or iterator, assigning the current element to the variable
name given. In the first example above, each of the elements in l is assigned to i.
A builtin function called range exists to make creating sequential lists such as the one above easier. The loop
above is equivalent to either:
l = range(1, 6)
for i in l:
print i
or
for i in range(10, 0, -1):

print i
This will output
10
9
8
7
6
5
4
3
2
1
or

print i
This will output
10
8
6
4
2
or

print i,
This will output
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
or
for i in range(1, 6):

print i
for loops can have names for each element of a tuple, if it loops over a sequence of tuples. For instance
l = [(1, 1), (2, 4), (3, 9), (4, 16), (5, 25)]
for x, xsquared in l:
print x, ':', xsquared
will output
1 : 1
2 : 4
3 : 9
4 : 16
5 : 25
While loops
A while loop repeats a sequence of statements until some condition becomes false. For example:
x = 5
while x > 0:
print x
x = x - 1
will output
5
4
3
2
1
Python's while loops can also have an 'else' clause, which is a block of statements that is executed (once) when
the statement starts out false. For example:
x = 5
y = x
while y > 0:
print y
y = y - 1
else:
print x
this will output

5
4
3
2
1
5
Unlike some languages, there is no postcondition loop.
Breaking, continuing and the else clause of loops
Python includes statements to exit a loop (either a for loop or a while loop) prematurely. To exit a loop, use the
break statement
x = 5
while x > 0:
print x
break
x -= 1
print x
this will output
The statement to begin the next iteration of the loop without waiting for the end of the current loop is 'continue'.
l = [5,6,7]
for x in l:
continue
print x
This will not produce any output.
The else clause of loops will be executed if no break statements are met in the loop.
l = range(1,100)
for x in l:
if x == 100:
print x
break
else:
print "100 not found in range"
Branches
There is basically only one kind of branch in Python, the 'if' statement. The simplest form of the if statement
simple executes a block of code only if a given predicate is true, and skips over it if the predicate is false
For instance,
>>> x = 10
>>> if x > 0:
... print "Positive"
...
Positive
>>> if x < 0:
... print "Negative"
...
You can also add "elif" (short for "else if") branches onto the if statement. If the predicate on the first “if” is
false, it will test the predicate on the first elif, and run that branch if it’s true. If the first elif is false, it tries the
second one, and so on. Note, however, that it will stop checking branches as soon as it finds a true predicate,
and skip the rest of the if statement. You can also end your if statements with an "else" branch. If none of the
other branches are executed, then python will run this branch.
>>> x = -6
>>> if x > 0:
... print "Positive"
... elif x == 0:
... print "Zero"
... else:
... print "Negative"
...
'Negative'
Conclusion
Any of these loops, branches, and function calls can be nested in any way desired. A loop can loop over a loop,
a branch can branch again, and a function can call other functions, or even call itself.
Functions
Previous: Flow control Index Next: Scoping
Function calls
A callable object is an object that can accept some arguments (also called parameters) and possibly return an
object (often a tuple containing multiple objects).
A function is the simplest callable object in Python, but there are others, such as classes or certain class
instances.
Defining functions
A function is defined in Python by the following format:

def functionname(arg1, arg2, ...):

statement1
statement2
...
>>> def functionname(arg1,arg2):

... return arg1+arg2
...
>>> t = functionname(24,24) # Result: 48
If a function takes no arguments, it must still include the parentheses, but without anything in them.
The arguments in the function definition bind the arguments passed at function invocation (i.e. when the
function is called), which are called actual parameters, to the names given when the function is defined, which
are called formal parameters. The interior of the function has no knowledge of the names given to the actual
parameters; the names of the actual parameters may not even be accessible (they could be inside another
function).
A function can 'return' a value, like so
def square(x):
return x*x
A function can define variables within the function body, which are considered 'local' to the function. The locals
together with the arguments comprise all the variables within the scope of the function. Any names within the
function are unbound when the function returns or reaches the end of the function body.
Declaring Arguments
Default Argument Values
If any of the formal parameters in the function definition are declared with the format "arg = value," then you
will have the option of not specifying a value for those arguments when calling the function. If you do not
specify a value, then that parameter will have the default value given when the function executes.
>>> def display_message(message, truncate_after = 4):

... print message[:truncate_after]
...
>>> display_message("message")
mess
>>> display_message("messsage", 6)
messag
Variable-Length Argument Lists
Python allows you to declare two special arguments which allow you to create arbitrary-length argument lists.
This means that each time you call the function, you can specify any number of arguments above a certain
number.
def function(first,second,*remaining):
statement1
statement2
...
When calling the above function, you must provide value for each of the first two arguments. However, since
the third parameter is marked with an asterisk, any actual parameters after the first two will be packed into a
tuple and bound to "remaining."
>>> def print_tail(first,*tail):

... print tail
...
>>> print_tail(1, 5, 2, "omega")
(5, 2, 'omega')
If we declare a formal parameter prefixed with two asterisks, then it will be bound to a dictionary containing
any keyword arguments in the actual parameters which do not correspond to any formal parameters. For
example, consider the function:
def make_dictionary(max_length = 10, **entries):

return dict([(key, entries[key]) for i, key in enumerate(entries.keys()) if i < max_length])
If we call this function with any keyword arguments other than max_length, they will be placed in the
dictionary "entries." If we include the keyword argument of max_length, it will be bound to the formal
parameter max_length, as usual.
>>> make_dictionary(max_length = 2, key1 = 5, key2 = 7, key3 = 9)

{'key3': 9, 'key2': 7}
Calling functions
A function can be called by appending the arguments in parentheses to the function name, or an empty matched
set of parentheses if the function takes no arguments.
foo()
square(3)
bar(5, x)
A function's return value can be used by assigning it to a variable, like so:
x = foo()
y = bar(5,x)
Lambda Forms
Besides assigning the return value of a function to a variable, we can also create variables that contain
functions. Python provides the “lambda” keyword for defining unnamed functions which can be assigned to
variables. You place the arguments before the colon, and the return value of the lambda after. If this is assigned
to a variable, you can then use that variable as if it were a function with the same parameters and return value as
the lambda.
>>> square = lambda x: x*x

>>> square(3)
9
You can also use variables other than the parameters in the lambda. However, note that the lambda function will
also use the values of variables from the scope in which it was created, rather than the scope in which it is run
>>> prefix = "Note: "

>>> def return_lambda(prefix):
... return lambda note: prefix + note
...
>>> prefix = "re: "
>>> f = return_lambda("Attn: ")
>>> f("Carnivorous octopi")
'Attn: Carnivorous octopi'
Note that all functions in python can be stored to variables, and are in fact simply variables themselves.
>>> make_note = return_lambda

>>> make_note("See: ")("lambda calculus")
'See: lambda calculus'
Scoping
Previous: Functions Index Next: Exceptions
Variables
Variables in Python are automatically declared by assignment. Variables are always references to objects, and
are never typed. Variables exist only in the current scope or global scope. When they go out of scope, the
variables are destroyed, but the objects to which they refer are not (unless the number of references to the object
drops to zero).
Scope is delineated by function and class blocks. Both functions and their scopes can be nested. So therefore
def foo():
def bar():
x = 5 # x is now in scope
return x + y # y is defined in the enclosing scope later
y = 10
return bar() # now that y is defined, bar's scope includes y
Now when this code is tested,

>>> foo()
15
>>> bar()
File "<pyshell#26>", line 1, in -toplevel-
bar()
NameError: name 'bar' is not defined
The name 'bar' is not found because a higher scope does not have access to the names lower in the hierarchy.
It is a common pitfall to fail to lookup an attribute (such as a method) of an object (such as a container)
referenced by a variable before the variable is assigned the object. In its most common form:
>>> for x in range(10):

y.append(x) # append is an attribute of lists

File "<pyshell#46>", line 2, in -toplevel-
y.append(x)
NameError: name 'y' is not defined
Here, to correct this problem, one must add y = [] before the for loop.
Exceptions
Previous: Scoping Index Next: Input and output
Python handles all errors with exceptions.
An exception is a signal that an error or other unusual condition has occurred. There are a number of built-in
exceptions, which indicate conditions like reading past the end of a file, or dividing by zero. You can also
define your own exceptions.
Raising exceptions
Whenever your program attempts to do something erroneous or meaningless, Python raises exception to such
conduct:
>>> 1 / 0
ZeroDivisionError: integer division or modulo by zero
This traceback indicates that the ZeroDivisionError exception is being raised. This is a built-in exception -- see
below for a list of all the other ones.
Catching exceptions
In order to handle errors, you can set up exception handling blocks in your code. The keywords try and except
are used to catch exceptions. When an error occurs within the try block, Python looks for a matching except
block to handle it. If there is one, execution jumps there.
If you execute this code:
try:
print 1/0
except ZeroDivisionError:
print "You can't divide by zero, you silly."
Then Python will print this:
You can't divide by zero, you silly.
If you don't specify an exception type on the except line, it will cheerfully catch all exceptions. This is generally
a bad idea in production code, since it means your program will blissfully ignore unexpected errors as well as
ones which the except block is actually prepared to handle.
Exceptions can propagate up the call stack:
def f(x):
return g(x) + 1
def g(x):
if x < 0: raise ValueError, "I can't cope with a negative number here."
else: return 5
try:
print f(-6)
except ValueError:
print "That value was invalid."
In this code, the print statement calls the function f. That function calls the function g, which will raise an
exception of type ValueError. Neither f nor g has a try/except block to handle ValueError. So the exception
raised propagates out to the main code, where there is an exception-handling block waiting for it. This code
prints:
That value was invalid.
Sometimes it is useful to find out exactly what went wrong, or to print the python error text yourself. For
example:
try:
theFile = open("the_parrot")
except IOError, (ErrorNumber, ErrorMessage):
if ErrorNumber == 2: # file not found
print "Sorry, 'the_parrot' has apparently joined the choir invisible."
else:
print "Congratulation! you have managed to trip a #%d error" % ErrorNumber # String concatenation is slow, use %
print ErrorMessage
Which of course will print:
Sorry, 'the_parrot' has apparently joined the choir invisible.
Custom Exceptions
Code similar to that seen above can be used to create custom exceptions and pass information along with them.
This can be extremely useful when trying to debug complicated projects. Here is how that code would look;
first creating the custom exception class:
class CustomException(Exception):
def __init__(self,value):
self.parameter=value
def __str__(self):
return repr(self.parameter)
And then using that exception:
try:
raise CustomException("My Useful Error Message")
except CustomException, (instance):
print "Caught: "+instance.parameter
Trying over and over again
Recovering and continuing with finally
Exceptions could lead to a situation where after raising exception, that the code block where exception occurred
might not be revisited. In some cases this might lead to unknown state for external resources used by the
program. finally clause allow programer to close such resource in case of an exception. Between 2.4 and 2.5
version of python there is change of syntax for finally clause.
Python 2.4
try:
result = None
try:
result = x/y
print "division by zero!"
print "result is ", result
finally:
print "executing finally clause"
Python 2.5
try:
result = x / y
print "division by zero!"
else:
print "result is", result
finally:
print "executing finally clause"
Builtin exception classes
All built-in Python exceptions (http://www.python.org/doc/current/lib/module-exceptions.html)
Exotic uses of exceptions
Exceptions are good for more than just error handling. If you have a complicated piece of code to choose which
of several courses of action to take, it can be useful to use exceptions to jump out of the code as soon as the
decision can be made. The Python-based mailing list software Mailman does this in deciding how a message
should be handled. Using exceptions like this may seem like it's a sort of GOTO -- and indeed it is, but a limited
one called an escape continuation. Continuations are a powerful functional-programming tool and it can be
useful to learn them.
Just as a simple example of how exceptions make programming easier, say you want to add items to a list but
you don't want to write clanky if statements to initialize the list; you can do:
for newItem in newItems:

try:
self.items.append(newItem)
except AttributeError:
self.items = [newItem]
This is also much more efficient then an if statement because it assumes the code will succeed. In fact it will
work 99% of the time :) An if statement would continue to get executed even after the array has been initialized.
Input and output

Previous: Exceptions Index Next: Modules
Input
Python has two functions designed for accepting data directly from the user:
input()
raw_input()
There are also very simple ways of reading a file, and for stricter control over input, reading from stdin is
necessary.
raw_input()
raw_input() asks the user for a string of data (ended with a newline), and simply returns the string. It can also
take an argument, which is displayed as a prompt before the user enters the data. E.g.
print raw_input('What is your name?')
prints out
What is your name? <user inputted data here>
input()
input() uses raw_input to read a string of data, and then attempts to evaluate it as if it were a Python program,
and then returns the value that results. So entering
[1,2,3]
would return a list containing those numbers, just as if it were assigned directly in the Python script.
More complicated expressions are possible. For example, if a script says:
x = input('What are the first 10 perfect squares? ')
it is possible for a user to input:
map(lambda x: x*x, range(10))
which yields the correct answer in list form. Note that no inputted statement can span more than one line.
input() should not be used for anything but the most trivial program, turning the strings returned from
raw_input() into python types using an idiom such as:
x = None
while not x:
try:
x = int(raw_input())
except ValueError:
print 'Invalid Number'
is preferable, as input() uses eval() to turn a literal into a python type. This will allow a malicious person to run
arbitrary code from inside your program trivially.
File Input
File Objects
Python includes a built-in file type. Files can be opened by using the file type's constructor:
f = file('test.txt', 'r')
This means f is open for reading. The first argument is the filename and the second parameter is the mode,
which can be 'r', 'w', or 'rw', among some others.
The most common way to read from a file is simply to iterate over the lines of the file:
f = open('test.txt', 'r')
for line in f:
print line[0]
f.close()
This will print the first character of each line. Note that a newline is attached to the end of each line read this
way.
Because files are automatically closed when the file object goes out of scope, there is no real need to close them
explicitly. So, the loop in the previous code can also be written as:
for line in open('test.txt', 'r'):

print line[0]
It is also possible to read limited numbers of characters at a time, like so:
c = f.read(1)
while len(c) > 0:
if len(c.strip()) > 0: print c,
c = f.read(1)
This will read the characters from f one at a time, and then print them if they're not whitespace.
A file object implicitly contains a marker to represent the current position. If the file marker should be moved
back to the beginning, one can either close the file object and reopen it or just move the marker back to the
beginning with:
f.seek(0)
Standard File Objects
Like many other languages, there are built-in file objects representing standard input, output, and error. These
are in the sys module and are called stdin, stdout, and stderr. There are also immutable copies of these in
__stdin__, __stdout__, and __stderr__. This is for IDLE and other tools in which the standard files have been
changed.
You must import the sys module to use the special stdin, stdout, stderr I/O handles.
import sys
For finer control over input, use sys.stdin.read(). In order to implement the UNIX 'cat' program in Python, you
could do something like this:
import sys
for line in sys.stdin:
print line,
Also Important is the sys.argv array. sys.argv is an array that contains the command-line arguments passed to
the program.
python program.py hello there programmer!
This array can be indexed,and the arguments evaluated. In the above example, sys.argv[2] would contain the
string "there", because the name of the program ("program.py") is stored in argv[0]. For more complicated
command-line argument processing, see also( getopt module)
Output
The basic way to do output is the print statement.
print 'Hello, world'
This code ought to be obvious.
In order to print multiple things on the same line, use commas between them, like so:
print 'Hello,', 'World'
This will print out the following:

Hello, World
Note that although neither string contained a space, a space was added by the print statement because of the
comma between the two objects. Arbitrary data types can be printed this way:
print 1,2,0xff,0777,(10+5j),-0.999,map,sys
This will print out:
1 2 255 511 (10+5j) -0.999 <built-in function map> <module 'sys' (built-in)>
Objects can be printed on the same line without needing to be on the same line if one puts a comma at the end
of a print statement:
for i in range(10):
print i,
will output:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
In order to end this line, it may be necessary to add a print statement without any objects.
for i in range(10):
print i,
print
for i in range(10,20):
print i,
will output:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
If the bare print statement were not present, the above output would look like:
0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
If it is not desirable to add spaces between objects, it is necessary to output only one string, by concatenating the
string representations of each object:
print str(1)+str(2)+str(0xff)+str(0777)+str(10+5j)+str(-0.999)+str(map)+str(sys)
will output:
12255511(10+5j)-0.999<built-in function map><module 'sys' (built-in)>

If you want to avoid printing the trailing newline or space (space when you use comma at the end), you can
make a shorthand for sys.stdout.write and use that for output.
import sys
write = sys.stdout.write
write('20')
write('05\n')
will output:
2005
It is also possible to use similar syntax when writing to a file, instead of to standard output, like so:
print >> f, 'Hello, world'
This will print to any object that implements write(), which includes file objects.
Modules
Previous: Input and output Index Next: Classes
Modules are a simple way to structure a program. Mostly, there are modules in the standard library and there
are other Python files, or directories containing python files, in the current directory (each of which constitute a
module). You can also instruct python to search other directories for modules by placing their paths in the
PYTHONPATH environment variable.
Modules in Python are used by importing them. For example,
import math
This imports the math standard module. All of the functions in that module are namespaced by the module
name, i.e.
import math
print math.sqrt(10)
This is often a nuisance, so other syntaxes are available to simplify this,
from string import whitespace

from math import *
from math import sin as SIN
from math import cos as COS
from ftplib import FTP as ftp_connection
print sqrt(10)
The first statement means whitespace is added to the current scope (but nothing else is). The second statement
means that all the elements in the math namespace is added to the current scope.
Modules can be three different kinds of things:
Python files
Shared Objects (under Unix and Linux) with the .so suffix
DLL's (under Windows) with the .pyd suffix
directories
Modules are loaded in the order they're found, which is controlled by sys.path. The current directory is always
on the path.
Directories should include a file in them called __init__.py, which should probably include the other files in the
directory.
Creating a DLL that interfaces with Python is covered in another section.
Classes
Previous: Modules Index Next: MetaClasses
Classes are a way of aggregating similar data and functions. A class is basically a scope inside which various
code (especially function definitions) is executed, and the locals to this scope become attributes of the class, and
of any objects constructed by this class. An object constructed by a class is called an instance of that class.
Defining a Class
To define a class, use the following format:
class ClassName:
...
...
The capitalization in this class definition is the convention, but is not required by the language.
Instance Construction
The class is a callable object that constructs an instance of the class when called. To construct an instance of a
class, "call" the class object:
f = Foo()
This constructs an instance of class Foo and creates a reference to it in f.

Class Members
In order to access the member of an instance of a class, use the syntax <class instance>.<member>. It is also
possible to access the members of the class definition with <class name>.<member>.
Methods
A method is a function within a class. The first argument (methods must always take at least one argument) is
always the instance of the class on which the function is invoked. For example
>>> class Foo:

... def setx(self, x):
... self.x = x
... def bar(self):
... print self.x
If this code were executed, nothing would happen, at least until an instance of Foo were constructed, and then
bar were called on that method.
Invoking Methods
Calling a method is much like calling a function, but instead of passing the instance as the first parameter like
the list of formal parameters suggests, use the function as an attribute of the instance.
>>> f.setx(5)
>>> f.bar()
This will output
It is possible to call the method on an arbitrary object, by using it as an attribute of the defining class instead of
an instance of that class, like so:
>>> Foo.setx(f,5)
>>> Foo.bar(f)
This will have the same output.
Dynamic Class Structure
As shown by the method setx above, the members of a Python class can change during runtime, not just their
values, unlike classes in languages like C or Java. We can even delete f.x after running the code above.
>>> del f.x

>>> f.bar()
File "<stdin>", line 5, in bar
AttributeError: Foo instance has no attribute 'x'
Another effect of this is that we can change the definition of the Foo class during program execution. In the
code below, we create a member of the Foo class definition named y. If we then create a new instance of Foo, it
will now have this new member.
>>> Foo.y = 10
>>> g = Foo()
>>> g.y
10
Viewing Class Dictionaries
At the heart of all this is a dictionary that can be accessed by "vars(ClassName)"
>>> vars(g)
{}
At first, this output makes no sense. We just saw that g had the member y, so why why isn't it in the member
dictionary? If you remember, though, we put y in the class definition, Foo, not g.
>>> vars(Foo)
{'y': 10, 'bar': <function bar at 0x4d6a3c>, '__module__': '__main__',
'setx': <function setx at 0x4d6a04>, '__doc__': None}
And there we have all the members of the Foo class definition. When Python checks for g.member, it first
checks g's vars dictionary for "member," then Foo. If we create a new member of g, it will be added to g's
dictionary, but not Foo's.
>>> g.setx(5)
>>> vars(g)
{'x': 5}
Note that if we now assign a value to g.y, we are not assigning that value to Foo.y. Foo.y will still be 10, but g.y
will now override Foo.y
>>> g.y = 9
>>> vars(g)
{'y': 9, 'x': 5}
>>> vars(Foo)
{'y': 10, 'bar': <function bar at 0x4d6a3c>, '__module__': '__main__',
'setx': <function setx at 0x4d6a04>, '__doc__': None}
Sure enough, if we check the values:

>>> g.y
9
>>> Foo.y
10
Note that f.y will also be 10, as Python won't find 'y' in vars(f), so it will get the value of 'y' from vars(Foo).
Some may have also noticed that the methods in Foo appear in the class dictionary along with the x and y. If
you remember from the section on lambda forms, we can treat functions just like variables. This means that we
can assign methods to a class during runtime in the same way we assigned variables. If you do this, though,
remember that if we call a method of a class instance, the first parameter passed to the method will always be
the class instance itself.
Changing Class Dictionaries
We can also access a the members dictionary of a class using the __dict__ member of the class.
>>> g.__dict__
{'y': 9, 'x': 5}
If we add, remove, or change key-value pairs from g.__dict__, this has the same effect as if we had made those
changes to the members of g.
>>> g.__dict__['z'] = -4
>>> g.z
-4
New Style Classes
New style classes were introduced in python 2.2. A new-style class is a class that has a built-in as it's base, most
commonly object. At a low level, a major difference between old and new classes is their type. Old class
instances were all of type instance. New style class instances will return the same thing as x.__class__ for their
instance. This puts user defined classes on a level playing field with built-ins. Old/Classic classes are slated to
disappear in Python 3000. With this in mind all development should use new style classes. New Style classes
also add constructs like properties and static methods familiar to Java programmers.
Old/Classic Class
>>> class ClassicFoo:

... def __init__(self):
... pass
New Style Class

>>> class NewStyleFoo(object):

... pass
Properties
Properties are attributes with getter and setter methods.
>>> class SpamWithProperties(object):

... self.__egg = "MyEgg"
... def getEgg(self):
... return self.__egg
... def setEgg(self,egg):
... self.__egg = egg
... egg = property(getEgg,setEgg)
>>> sp = SpamWithProperties()
>>> sp.egg
'MyEgg'
>>> sp.egg = "Eggs With Spam"
>>> sp.egg
'Eggs With Spam'
>>>
Static Methods
Static methods in Python are just like their counterparts in C++ or Java. Static methods have no "self" argument
and don't require you to instantiate the class before using them. They are defined using staticmethod()
>>> class StaticSpam(object):

... def StaticNoSpam():
... print "You can't have have the spam, spam, eggs and spam without any spam... that's disgusting"
... NoSpam = staticmethod(StaticNoSpam)
>>> StaticSpam.NoSpam()
'You can't have have the spam, spam, eggs and spam without any spam... that's disgusting'
Inheritance
Like all object oriented languages, Python provides for inheritance. Inheritance is a simple concept by which a
class can extend the facilities of another class, or in Python's case, multiple other classes. Use the following
format for this:
class ClassName(superclass1,superclass2,superclass3,...):
...
The subclass will then have all the members of its superclasses. If a method is defined in the subclass and in the
superclass, the member in the subclass will override the one in the superclass. In order to use the method
defined in the superclass, it is necessary to call the method as an attribute on the defining class, as in
Foo.setx(f,5) above:
>>> class Foo:

... def bar(self):
... print "I'm doing Foo.bar()."
... x = 10
...
>>> class Bar(Foo):
... def bar(self):
... print "I'm doing Bar.bar()."
... Foo.bar(self)
... y = 9
...
>>> g = Bar()
>>> Bar.bar(g)
I'm doing Bar.bar()
I'm doing Foo.bar()
>>> g.y
9
>>> g.x
10
Once again, we can see what's going on under the hood by looking at the class dictionaries.
>>> vars(g)
{}
>>> vars(Bar)
{'y': 9, '__module__': '__main__', 'bar': <function bar at 0x4d6a04>,
'__doc__': None}
>>> vars(Foo)
{'x': 10, '__module__': '__main__', 'bar': <function bar at 0x4d6994>,
'__doc__': None}
When we call g.x, it first looks in the vars(g) dictionary, as usual. Also as above, it checks vars(Bar) next, since
g is an instance of Bar. However, thanks to inheritance, Python will check vars(Foo) if it doesn't find x in
vars(Bar).
Special Methods
There are a number of methods which have reserved names which are used for special purposes like mimicking
numerical or container operations, among other things. All of these names begin and end with two underscores.
It is convention that methods beginning with a single underscore are 'private' to the scope they are introduced
within.
Initialization
__init__
One of these purposes is constructing an instance, and the special name for this is '__init__'. __init__() is called
before an instance is returned (it is not necessary to return the instance manually). As an example,
class A:
def __init__(self):
print 'A.__init__()'
a = A()
outputs
A.__init__()
__init__() can take arguments, in which case it is necessary to pass arguments to the class in order to create an
instance. For example,
class Foo:
def __init__ (self, printme):
print printme
foo = Foo('Hi!')
outputs
Hi!
Here is an example showing the difference between using __init__() and not using __init__():
class Foo:
def __init__ (self, x):
print x
foo = Foo('Hi!')
class Foo2:
def setx(self, x):
print x
f = Foo2()
Foo2.setx(f,'Hi!')
outputs
Hi!
Hi!
Representation
__str__
Converting an object to a string, as with the print statement or with the str() conversion function, can be
overridden by overriding __str__. Usually, __str__ returns a formatted version of the objects content. This will
NOT usually be something that can be executed.
For example:
class Bar:
def __init__ (self, iamthis):
self.iamthis = iamthis
def __str__ (self):
return self.iamthis
bar = Bar('apple')
print bar
outputs
apple
__repr__
This function is much like __str__(). If __str__ is not present but this one is, this function's output is used
instead for printing. __repr__ is used to return a representation of the object in string form. In general, it can be
executed to get back the original object.
For example:
class Bar:
def __init__ (self, iamthis):
self.iamthis = iamthis
def __repr__(self):
return "Bar('%s')" % self.iamthis
bar = Bar('apple')
bar
outputs (note the difference: now is not necessary to put it inside a print)
Bar('apple')
Attributes
__setattr__
This is the function which is in charge of setting attributes of a class. It is provided with the name and value of
the variables being assigned. Each class, of course, comes with a default __setattr__ which simply sets the value
of the variable, but we can override it.
>>> class Unchangable:

... def __setattr__(self, name, value):
... print "Nice try"
...
>>> u = Unchangable()
>>> u.x = 9
Nice try
>>> u.x
AttributeError: Unchangable instance has no attribute 'x'
__getattr___
Similar to __setattr__, except this function is called when we try to access a class member, and the default
simply returns the value.
>>> class HiddenMembers:

... def __getattr__(self, name):
... return "You don't get to see " + name
...
>>> h = HiddenMembers()
>>> h.anything
"You don't get to see anything"
__delattr__
This function is called to delete an attribute.
>>> class Permanent:

... def __delattr__(self, name):
... print name, "cannot be deleted"
...
>>> p = Permanent()
>>> p.x = 9
>>> del p.x
x cannot be deleted
>>> p.x
9
Operator Overloading
Operator overloading allows us to use the built-in Python syntax and operators to call functions which we
define.
Binary Operators
Binary Operator Override

If a class has the __add__ function, we can use the '+' operator to add instances of Functions
the class. This will call __add__ with the two instances of the class passed as
parameters, and the return value will be the result of the addition. Function Operator
>>> class FakeNumber: ... n = 5 ... def __add__(A,B): ... return A.n + B.n ... >>> c __add__ A+B
= FakeNumber() >>> d = FakeNumber() >>> d.n = 7 >>> c + d 12
__sub__ A-B
To override the augmented assignment operators, merely add 'i' in front of the __mul__ A*B
normal binary operator, i.e. for '+=' use '__iadd__' instead of '__add__'. The
function will be given one argument, which will be the object on the right side of __div__ A/B
the augmented assignment operator. The returned value of the function will then __floordiv__ A // B
be assigned to the object on the left of the operator.
__mod__ A%B
>>> c.__imul__ = lambda B: B.n - 6 >>> c *= d >>> c 1
__pow__ A ** B
It is important to note that the augmented assignment operators will also use the __and__ A&B
normal operator functions if the augmented operator function hasn't been set
directly. This will work as expected, with "__add__" being called for "+=" and so __or__ B
on. __xor__ A^B
>>> c = FakeNumber() >>> c += d >>> c 12 __eq__ A == B
__ne__ A != B
__gt__ A>B
__lt__ A<B
__ge__ A >= B
__le__ A <= B
__lshift__ A << B
__rshift__ A >> B
A in B
__contains__ A not in
B
Unary Operators
Unary Operator Override

Unary operators will be passed simply the instance of the class that they are called Functions
on.
Function Operator
>>> FakeNumber.__neg__ = lambda A : A.n + 6 >>> -d 13
__pos__ +A
__neg__ -A
__inv__ ~A
__abs__ abs(A)
__len__ len(A)
Item Operators
Item Operator Override

It is also possible in Python to override the indexing and slicing operators. This Functions
allows us to use the class[i] and class[a:b] syntax on our own objects.
Function Operator
The simplest form of item operator is __getitem__. This takes as a parameter the
instance of the class, then the value of the index. __getitem__ C[i]
>>> class FakeList: ... def __getitem__(self,index): ... return index * 2 ... >>> f = __setitem__ C[i] = v
FakeList() >>> f['a'] 'aa' __delitem__ del C[i]
We can also define a function for the syntax associated with assigning a value to __getslice__ C[s:e]
an item. The parameters for this function include the value being assigned, in __setslice__ C[s:e] = v
addition to the parameters from __getitem__
__delslice__ del C[s:e]
>>> class FakeList: ... def __setitem__(self,index,value): ... self.string = index + "
is now " + value ... >>> f = FakeList() >>> f['a'] = 'gone' >>> f.string 'a is now
gone'
We can do the same thing with slices. Once again, each syntax has a different
parameter list associated with it.
>>> class FakeList: ... def __getslice___(self,start,end): ... return str(start) + " to "
+ str(end) ... >>> f = FakeList() >>> f[1:4] '1 to 4'
Keep in mind that one or both of the start and end parameters can be blank in slice
syntax. Here, Python has default value for both the start and the end, as show
below.
>> f[:] '0 to 2147483647'
Note that the default value for the end of the slice shown here is simply the largest
possible signed integer on a 32-bit system, and may vary depending on your
system and C compiler.
__setslice__ has the parameters (self,start,end,value)
We also have operators for deleting items and slices.
__delitem__ has the parameters (self,index)

__delslice__ has the parameters (self,start,end)
Note that these are the same as __getitem__ and __getslice__.
Programming Practices
The flexibility of python classes means that classes can adopt a very varied set of behaviors. For the sake of
understandability, however, it's best to use many of Python's tools sparingly. Try to declare all methods in the
class definition, and use always use the <class>.<member> syntax instead of __dict__ whenever possible. Look
at classes in C++ and Java to see what most programmers will expect from a class.
Encapsulation
Since all python members of a python class are accessible by functions and methods outside the class, there is
no way to enforce encapsulation short of overriding __getattr__, __setattr__ and __delattr__. General practice,
however, is for the creator of a class or module to simply trust that users will use only the intended interface and
avoid limiting access to the workings of the module for the sake of users who do need to access it. When using
parts of a class or module other than the intended interface, keep in mind that the those parts may change in
later versions of the module, and you may even cause errors or undefined behaviors in the module.
Doc Strings
When defining a class, it is convention to document the class using a string literal at the start of the class
definition. This string will then be placed in the __doc__ attribute of the class definition.
>>> class Documented:

... """This is a docstring"""
... def explode(self):
... """
... This method is documented, too! The coder is really serious about
... making this class usable by others who don't know the code as well
... as he does.
...
... """
... print "boom"
>>> d = Documented()
>>> d.__doc__
'This is a docstring'
Docstrings are a very useful way to document your code. Even if you never write a single piece of separate
documentation (and let's admit it, doing so is the lowest priority for many coders), including informative
docstrings in your classes will go a long way toward making them usable.
Several tools exist for turning the docstrings in Python code into readable API documentation, e.g., EpyDoc
(http://epydoc.sourceforge.net/using.html) .
Don't just stop at documenting the class definition, either. Each method in the class should have its own
docstring as well. Note that the docstring for the method explode in the example class Documented above has a
fairly lengthy docstring that spans several lines. Its formatting is in accordance with the style suggestions of
Python's creator, Guido Van Rossom.
MetaClasses
Previous: Classes Index
In python, classes are themselves objects. Just as other objects are instances of a particular class, classes
themselves are instances of a metaclass.
Class Factories
The simplest use of python metaclasses is a class factory. This concept makes use of the fact that class
definitions in python are first-class objects. Such a function can create or modify a class definition, using the
same syntax one would normally use in declaring a class definition. Once again, it is useful to use the model of
classes as dictionaries. First, let's look a basic class factory:
>>> def StringContainer():

... # define a class
... class String:
... content_string = ""
... def len(self):
... return len(self.content_string)
... # return the class definition
... return String
...
>>> # create the class definition
... container_class = StringContainer()
>>>
>>> # create an instance of the class
... wrapped_string = container_class()
>>>
>>> # take it for a test drive
... wrapped_string.content_string = 'emu emissary'
>>> wrapped_string.len()
12
Of course, just like any other data in python, class definitions can also be modified. Any modifications to
attributes in a class definition will be seen in any instances of that definition, so long as that instance hasn't
overriden the attribute that you're modifying.
>>> def DeAbbreviate(sequence_container):

... setattr(sequence_container, 'length', sequence_container.len)
... delattr(sequence_container, 'len')
...
>>> DeAbbreviate(container_class)
>>> wrapped_string.length()
12
>>> wrapped_string.len()
AttributeError: String instance has no attribute 'len'
You can also delete class definitions, but that will not affect instances of the class.
>>> del container_class

>>> wrapped_string2 = container_class()
NameError: name 'container_class' is not defined
>>> wrapped_string.length()
12
The type Metaclass
The metaclass for all standard python types is the "type" object.
>>> type(object)
<type 'type'>
>>> type(int)
<type 'type'>
>>> type(list)
<type 'type'>
Just like list, int and object, "type" is itself a normal python object, and is itself an instance of a class. In this
case, it is in fact an instance of itself.
>>> type(type)
<type 'type'>
It can be instantiated to create new class objects similarly to the class factory example above by passing the
name of the new class, the base classes to inherit from, and a dictionary defining the namespace to use.
For instance, the code:
>>> class MyClass(BaseClass):

... attribute = 42
Could also be written as:
>>> MyClass = type("MyClass", (BaseClass,), {'attribute' : 42})
Metaclasses
It is possible to create a class with a different metaclass than type by setting its __metaclass__ attribute when
defining. When this is done, the class, and its subclass will be created using your custom metaclass. For
example
class CustomMetaclass(type):
def __init__(cls, name, bases, dct):
print "Creating class %s using CustomMetaclass" % name
super(CustomMetaclass, cls).__init__(name, bases, dct)
class BaseClass(object):
__metaclass__ = CustomMetaclass
class Subclass1(BaseClass):
pass
This will print
Creating class BaseClass using CustomMetaclass

Creating class Subclass1 using CustomMetaclass
By creating a custom metaclass in this way, it is possible to change how the class is constructed. This allows
you to add or remove attributes and methods, register creation of classes and subclasses creation and various
other manipluations when the class is created.
Aspect Oriented Programming
Wikipedia article on Aspect Oriented Programming [6]

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspect-oriented_programming)
More resources
Unifying types and classes in Python 2.2 [7] (http://www.python.org/2.2/descrintro.html) O'Reilly Article on
Python Metaclasses [8] (http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/python/2003/04/17/metaclasses.html)
[Incomplete] (see Putting Metaclasses to Work, Ira R. Forman, Scott H. Danforth?)
Regular Expression
Metacharacters
. : matches any character except a newline.

^ : matches the beginning of a line.
$ : matches the end of a line.
* : matches any number of repetitions of the previous group (including zero repetitions).
+ : matches one or more repetitions of the previous group.
? : match zero or one repetitions of the previous expression.
{ } : matches some specified number of repetitions. Examples: a{3} would match 'aaa', while a{3,5} would match 'aaa'
[ ] : define a set of characters to match against.
\ : the escape character, which says to treat the following character or group of characters specially.
( ) : grouping.
| : separator for two regular expressions, where either can be matched. Example: (cat|dog|chinchilla) will match 'cat'
sets of characters
\d : Matches any decimal digit; this is equivalent to the class [0-9].

\D : Matches any non-digit character; this is equivalent to the class [^0-9].
\s : Matches any whitespace character; this is equivalent to the class [ \t\n\r\f\v].
\S : Matches any non-whitespace character; this is equivalent to the class [^ \t\n\r\f\v].
\w : Matches any alphanumeric character; this is equivalent to the class [a-zA-Z0-9_].
\W : Matches any non-alphanumeric character; this is equivalent to the class [^a-zA-Z0-9_].
Strictly speaking, these are not true. If you are dealing with Unicode or locales, the necessary characters will be
added to the proper categories. For example, if you are working with Chinese, an ideograph would be matched
by \w.
How to Use
There are two main functions to work with regexes. First, import the re module:
import re
This module contains two main functions, sub and match. The syntax for sub is as follows:
def sub(pattern, replacement, string, count=0):
If count is left at 0, all occurrences are replaced. Otherwise, only that number is changed.
string contains the string for the transformation to be applied to. Unlike Perl, for example, this string is not
modified...you need to assign the result to the string again.
pattern contains the pattern to apply. You should use a literal string to prefix it, otherwise you will have to
backslash all of your backslashes. Compare these two lines:
pattern = '\$\\w\\s+\$'
pattern = r$\w\s+$
replacement contains the string to replace occurrences of pattern with. \1, \2, etc., match the first, second (up to
ninth) backreferences.
The other function is match. This one finds a match of pattern in string. Additional calls return further
occurrences--in other words, calling it again will return the next instance, and so on. Its syntax is as follows:
def match(pattern, string):
It returns a match object, which is primarily used to find groups. For example,
matchobject.group(0)
would return the entire string matched, and
matchobject.group(1)
would return the first group.
GUI Programming
There are various GUI toolkits to start with.
Tkinter
Tkinter, a Python wrapper for Tcl/Tk, comes bundled with Python (at least on Win32 platform though it can be
installed on Unix/Linux and Mac machines) and provides a cross-platform GUI. It is a relatively simple to learn
yet powerful toolkit that provides what appears to be a modest set of widgets. However, because the Tkinter
widgets are extensible, many compound widgets can be created rather easily (i.e. combo-box, scrolled panes).
Because of its maturity and extensive documentation Tkinter has been designated as the de facto GUI for
Python.
To create a very simple Tkinter window frame one only needs the following lines of code:
import Tkinter
root = Tkinter.Tk()
root.mainloop()
gfd From an object-oriented perspective one can do the following:

import Tkinter
class App:
def __init__(self, master):
button = Tkinter.Button(master, text="I'm a Button.")
button.pack()
if __name__ == '__main__':
root = Tkinter.Tk()
app = App(root)
root.mainloop()
To learn more about Tkinter visit the following links:
http://www.astro.washington.edu/owen/TkinterSummary.html <- A summary

http://infohost.nmt.edu/tcc/help/lang/python/tkinter.html <- A tutorial
http://www.pythonware.com/library/tkinter/introduction/ <- A reference
PyGTK
PyGTK (http://www.pygtk.org/) provides a convenient wrapper for the GTK+ (http://www.gtk.org) library for
use in Python programs, taking care of many of the boring details such as managing memory and type casting.
The bare GTK+ toolkit runs on Linux, Windows, and Mac OS X (port in progress), but the more extensive
features — when combined with PyORBit and gnome-python — require a GNOME (http://www.gnome.org)
install, and can be used to write full featured GNOME applications.
Home Page (http://www.pygtk.org/)
PyQt
Bindings for the popular Unix/Linux and Windows toolkit. PyKDE can be used to write KDE-based
applications.
PyQt (http://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/pyqt/)
wxPython
Bindings for the cross platform toolkit wxWidgets (http://www.wxwidgets.org/) . WxWidgets is available on
Windows, Macintosh, and Unix/Linux.
import wx
class test(wx.App):
def __init__(self):
wx.App.__init__(self, redirect=False)
def OnInit(self):
frame = wx.Frame(None, -1,
"Test",
pos=(50,50), size=(100,40),
style=wx.DEFAULT_FRAME_STYLE)
button = wx.Button(frame, -1, "Hello World!", (20, 20))
self.frame = frame
self.frame.Show()
return True
if __name__ == '__main__':
app = test()
app.MainLoop()
wxPython (http://wxpython.org/)
pyFltk
pyFltk is a Python wrapper for the FLTK, a lightweight cross-platform GUI toolkit. It is very simple to learn
and allows for compact user interfaces.
The "Hello World" example in pyFltk looks like:
from fltk import *
window = Fl_Window(100, 100, 200, 90)

button = Fl_Button(9,20,180,50)
button.label("Hello World")
window.end()
window.show()
Fl.run()
pyFltk (http://pyfltk.sourceforge.net/)
Other Toolkits
PyKDE - Part of the kdebindings package, it provides a python wrapper for the KDE libraries.
PyXPCOM (http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/PyXPCOM) provides a wrapper around the Mozilla
XPCOM (http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XPCOM) component architecture, thereby enabling the
use of standalone XUL (http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XUL) applications in Python. The XUL
toolkit has traditionally been wrapped up in various other parts of XPCOM, but with the advent of libxul
and XULRunner (http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/XULRunner) this should become more feasible.
Game Programming in Python

3D Game Programming
Base techniques
Sockets
Because 3D programms written fully in python are slower than programs written fully in C++, an often used
technique is to use a combination of C++ and Python code together. One layer of 3D graphics is implemented in
C++ (for example it can be one standard open source engine), which communicate with Python code client
through TCP sockets. In this case, all that a developer needs to do in C++, is to create a server, that can
communicate with a client and control the 3D scene drawing. A client on the other hand, has control only over
other elements.
3D Game Engine with a Python binding
Irrlicht Engine[9] (http://irrlicht.sourceforge.net/) (Binding is no longer maintained and seriously out of

date)
Ogre Engine [10] (http://www.ogre3d.org/)
Both are very good free open source C++ 3D game Engine with a Python binding. However the Python binding
is an afterthought so most often late versus the C++ engine when usable at all. Python bindings are very
inefficient and limited.
3D Game Engines written for Python
Engines designed for Python from scratch.
Blender (http://www.blender.org/) is a 3d game engine that uses python to make 3d games

Soya (http://www.soya3d.org/) is a 3d game engine with an easy to understand design. It's written in
w:Pyrex programming language and uses Cal3d for animation and ODE for physics. Soya is available
under the GNU GPL license.
Panda3D (http://www.panda3d.org/) is a 3D game engine. It's a library written in C++ with Python
bindings. Panda3D is designed in order to support a short learning curve and rapid develpement. This
software is available for free donwload with source code under Panda3D Public License v2.0. The
development was started by [Disney]. Now it exists a lot of project made with Panda3D like ToonTown
(http://www.toontown.com/) , Building Virtual World (http://www.etc.cmu.edu/bvw) , Schell Games
(http://www.schellgames.com) and many others. Panda3D supports a lot of features: Procedural
Geometry, Animated Texture, Render to texture, Track motion, fog, particle system, and many others.
2D Game Programming
Pygame is a cross platform Python library which wraps SDL. It provides many features like Sprite
groups and sound/image loading and easy changing of an objects position. It also provides the
programmer access to key and mouse events.
Sockets
HTTP Client
Make a very simple HTTP client
import socket
s = socket.socket()
s.connect(('localhost', 80))
s.send('GET / HTTP/1.1\nHost:localhost\n\n')
s.recv(40000) # receive 40000 bytes
NTP/Sockets
Connecting to and reading an NTP time server, returning the time as follows
ntpps picoseconds portion of time

ntps seconds portion of time
ntpms miliseconds portion of time
ntpt 64-bit ntp time, seconds in upper 32-bits, picoseconds in lower 32-bits
import socket
BLOCKING = 1 # 0 = non blocking, 1 = blocking

NONBLOCKING = 0 # 0 = non blocking, 1 = blocking
TIME1970 = 2208988800L # Thanks to F.Lundh
NTPPORT = 123
MAXLEN = 1024
NTPSERVER = ('time.apple.com')
SKTRDRETRYCOUNT = 2
SKTRDRETRYDLY = 0.01
#***************************************************
## opensocket(servername, port, blocking) \n
# opens a socket at ip address "servername"
# \arg servername = ip address to open a socket to
# \arg port = port number to use
# ntp uses dgram sockets instead of stream
def opensocket(ipaddr, port, mode):
# create the socket
skt = socket.socket(socket.AF_INET, socket.SOCK_DGRAM)
# open the socket

try:
skt.connect((ipaddr, port))
except socket.error, e:
print "Failed to connect to server %s %d %d" % (ipaddr, port, mode)
print "Error %s" % (e.args[0])
print "Goodbye..."
sys.exit()
# set the blocking mode (0=nonblocking, 1=blocking)

try:
skt.setblocking(mode)
print "Failed to set socket blocking mode for %s %d %d" %(ipaddr, port, mode)
print "Error %s" % (e.args[0])
print "Goodbye..."
sys.exit()
return(skt)
#***************************************************
##
# we should get 12 long words back in network order \n
# the 10th word is the transmit time (seconds since UT 1900-Jan-01 \n
# I = unsigned long integer \n
# ! = network (big endian) ordering
# \arg \c \b ntpsocket, the socket handle to connect to
# \arg \c \b msg, the message to send to the ntp server
def getntptime(ntpsocket, msg, servername):
ntpsocket.send(msg)
rtrycnt = 0
data = 0
while (data == 0) & (rtrycnt < SKTRDRETRYCOUNT):
try:
data = ntpsocket.recv(MAXLEN)
rtrycnt += 1
print "Error reading non-blocking socket, retrys = %s, server = %s" %(rtrycnt, servername)
time.sleep(SKTRDRETRYDLY) # don't retry too often
# check and see if we got valid data back

if data:
ntps = unpack('!12I', data)[10]
ntpps = unpack('!12I', data)[11]
if ntps == 0:
print "Error: NTP, invalid response, goodbye..."
sys.exit()
else:
print "Error: NTP, do data returned, goodbye..."
sys.exit()
ntpms = ntpps/5000000L # 1ms/200ps, we want ms

ntpt = (ntps << 32) + ntpps
return (ntpsocket, ntps, ntpps, ntpms, ntpt)
Files
File I/O
Read entire file:
inputFileText = open("testit.txt", "r").read()

print inputFileText
Read one line at a time:
for line in open("testit.txt", "r").readlines():

print line
Write to a file:
outputFileText = "Here's some text to save in a file"

open("testit.txt", "w").write(outputFileText)
Append to a file:
outputFileText = "Here's some text to add to the existing file."

open("testit.txt", "a").write(outputFileText)
Note that this does not add a line break between the existing file content and the string to be added.
Testing Files
Determine whether path exists:
import os
os.path.exists('<path string>')
When working on systems such as Microsoft Windows(tm), the directory separators will conflict with the path
string. To get around this, do the following:
import os
os.path.exists(r'C:\windows\example\path')
Common File Operations

To copy or move a file, use the shutil library.
import shutil
shutil.move("originallocation.txt","newlocation.txt")
shutil.copy("original.txt","copy.txt")
Previous: Modules and how to use

Index Next: Text
them
Database Programming
Postgres connection in Python
import psycopg2
conn = psycopg2.connect("dbname=test")
cursor = conn.cursor()
cursor.execute("select * from test");
for i in cursor.next():
print i
conn.close()
External links
SQLAlchemy (http://www.sqlalchemy.org/)
SQLObject (http://www.sqlobject.org/)
PEP 249 (http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0249/) - Python Database API Specification v2.0
Database Topic Guide (http://www.python.org/doc/topics/database/) on python.org
Web Page Harvesting

Python Programming/Web Page Harvesting
Threading
a minimal example
#!/usr/bin/env python
import threading
import time
class MyThread(threading.Thread):
def run(self):
print "%s started!" % self.getName()
time.sleep(1)
print "%s finished!" % self.getName()
if __name__ == '__main__':
for x in range(4):
mythread = MyThread(name = "Thread-%d" % x)
MyThread().start()
time.sleep(.2)
This should output:
Thread-1 started!
Thread-2 started!
Thread-3 started!
Thread-4 started!
Thread-1 finished!
Thread-2 finished!
Thread-3 finished!
Thread-4 finished!
a minimal example with function call

Make a thread that prints numbers from 1-10, waits for 1 sec between:
import thread, time
def loop1_10():
for i in range(1,10):
time.sleep(1); print i
thread.start_new_thread(loop1_10, ())
Extending with C
This gives a minimal Example on how to Extend Python with C. Linux is used for building (feel free to extend
it for other Platforms). If you have any problems, please report them (e.g. on the dicussion page), I will check
back in a while and try to sort them out.
Using the Python/C API

http://docs.python.org/ext/ext.html
http://docs.python.org/api/api.html
A minimal example
The minimal example we will create now is very similar in behaviour to the following python snippet.
def say_hello(name):
"Greet somebody."
print "Hello %s!" % name
The C source code (hellomodule.c)
#include <Python.h>
static PyObject* say_hello(PyObject* self, PyObject* args)

{
const char* name;
if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "s", &name))

return NULL;
printf("Hello %s!\n", name);
Py_RETURN_NONE;
}
static PyMethodDef HelloMethods[] =

{
{"say_hello", say_hello, METH_VARARGS, "Greet somebody."},
{NULL, NULL, 0, NULL}
};
PyMODINIT_FUNC
inithello(void)
{
(void) Py_InitModule("hello", HelloMethods);
}
Building the extension module on Linux
To build our extension module we create the file setup.py like:

from distutils.core import setup, Extension
module1 = Extension('hello', sources = ['hellomodule.c'])
setup (name = 'PackageName',

version = '1.0',
description = 'This is a demo package',
ext_modules = [module1])
Now we can build our module with
python setup.py build
The module `hello.so` will end up in e.g `build/lib.linux-i686-2.4`.
Building the extension module on Windows
With VC8 distutils is broken. We will use cl.exe from a command prompt instead:
cl /LD hellomodule.c /Ic:\Python24\include c:\Python24\libs\python24.lib /link/out:hello.dll
Using the extension module
Change to the subdirectory where the file `hello.so` resists. In an interactive python session you can use the
module as follows.
>>> import hello

>>> hello.say_hello("World")
Hello World!
A module for calculating fibonacci numbers
The C source code (fibmodule.c)

#include <Python.h>
int _fib(int n)
{
if (n < 2)
return n;
else
return _fib(n-1) + _fib(n-2);
}
static PyObject* fib(PyObject* self, PyObject* args)

{
const char *command;
int n;
if (!PyArg_ParseTuple(args, "i", &n))

return NULL;
return Py_BuildValue("i", _fib(n));

}
static PyMethodDef FibMethods[] = {

{"fib", fib, METH_VARARGS, "Calculate the Fibonacci numbers."},
{NULL, NULL, 0, NULL}
};
PyMODINIT_FUNC
initfib(void)
{
(void) Py_InitModule("fib", FibMethods);
}
The build script (setup.py)
from distutils.core import setup, Extension
module1 = Extension('fib', sources = ['fibmodule.c'])
setup (name = 'PackageName',

version = '1.0',
description = 'This is a demo package',
ext_modules = [module1])
How to use it?
>>> import fib

>>> fib.fib(10)
55
Using SWIG
Creating the previous example using SWIG is much more straight forward. To follow this path you need to get
SWIG (http://www.swig.org/) up and running first. After that create two files.
/*hellomodule.c*/
#include <stdio.h>
void say_hello(const char* name) {

printf("Hello %s!\n", name);
}
/*hello.i*/
%module hello
extern void say_hello(const char* name);
Now comes the more difficult part, gluing it all together.
First we need to let SWIG do its work.
swig -python hello.i
This gives us the files `hello.py` and `hello_wrap.c`.
The next step is compiling (subtitute /usr/include/python2.4/ with the correct path for your setup!).
gcc -fpic -c hellomodule.c hello_wrap.c -I/usr/include/python2.4/
Now linking and we are done:)
gcc -shared hellomodule.o hello_wrap.o -o _hello.so
The module is used in the following way.
>>> import hello

Hello World!
Extending with C++

Boost.Python (http://www.boost.org/libs/python/doc/) is the de facto standard for writing C++ extension
modules. Boost.Python comes bundled with the Boost C++ Libraries (http://www.boost.org/) .
The C++ source code (hellomodule.cpp)

#include <iostream>
using namespace std;
void say_hello(const char* name) {

cout << "Hello " << name << "!\n";
}
#include <boost/python/module.hpp>
#include <boost/python/def.hpp>
using namespace boost::python;
BOOST_PYTHON_MODULE(hello)
{
def("say_hello", say_hello);
}
setup.py
#!/usr/bin/env python
from distutils.core import setup

from distutils.extension import Extension
setup(name="blah",
ext_modules=[
Extension("hello", ["hellomodule.cpp"],
libraries = ["boost_python"])
])
Now we can build our module with
python setup.py build
The module `hello.so` will end up in e.g `build/lib.linux-i686-2.4`.
Using the extension module
Change to the subdirectory where the file `hello.so` resists. In an interactive python session you can use the
module as follows.
>>> import hello

Hello World!
WSGI web programming

Python Programming/WSGI web programming
References
Language reference
The latest documentation for the standard python libraries and modules can always be found at The Python.org
documents section (http://www.python.org/doc/)
External links
Python books available for free download (http://www.techbooksforfree.com/perlpython.shtml)
Non-programmers python tutorial (http://www.honors.montana.edu/~jjc/easytut/easytut/) donated to this
project. Wiki version
Dive into Python (http://www.diveintopython.org/)
How to think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python (http://www.ibiblio.org/obp/thinkCSpy/)
A Byte of Python (http://www.byteofpython.info/)
ActiveState Python Cookbook (http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Python/Cookbook/)
Text Processing in Python (http://gnosis.cx/TPiP/)
Dev Shed's Python Tutorials (http://www.devshed.com/c/b/Python/)
MakeBot (http://stratolab.com/misc/makebot) - Simple Python IDE designed for teaching game
programming to kids.
SPE - Stani's Python Editor (http://pythonide.stani.be)
Authors
Authors of Python textbook
License
GNU Free Documentation License

Version 1.2, November 2002
Copyright (C) 2000,2001,2002 Free Software Foundation, Inc.

51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301 USA
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.
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What are some of the main features of Python?

What are some of the main features of Python?

What are some examples of data types in Python?

What are some examples of data types in Python?

Python Programming/Print version - Wikibooks, collection of open-conte... http://en.wikibooks.

Python Programming/Print version

Python is a general purpose programming language.

Note: current version of this book can be found at http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Python_Programming

Learning to program in Python

Rocking the Python (Modules)

>>> a,b = 0,1

Python is used and supported by a large Python Community (http://www.python.org/community/index.html)

Index Next: Getting Python

Installing Python in Windows

Installing Python in Unix

Previous: Overview Index Next: Setting it up

A sample interactive session:

Which would have resulted in the following:

Previous: Setting it up Index Next: Creating Python programs

Creating Python programs

print "Hello, world!"

Open your text editor.

Make a directory for Python practice, and cd into it:

Previous: Interactive mode Index Next: Using variables and math

Using variables and math

name = 'Ada Lovelace'

string like this: "will not work'.)

print 'Please enter your name.'

print "What is your mass in kilograms?",

Run this program and get your weight in stone!

print "You weigh " + str(mass_stone) + " stone."

What is your mass in kilograms? 65

STRING % (arg1, arg2, ...)

To improve our program, we just need the %f format code:

print "You weigh %.1f stone." % (mass_stone)

What is your mass in kilograms? 65

Previous: Creating Python programs Index Next: Strings and arrays

Strings and arrays

print 'I am enclosed in single quotes'

print 'Spam' + 'Eggs'

[Incomplete] (see Strings, Lists, and Tuples for now)

Previous: Using variables and math Index Next: Decision Control

There are four fundamental concepts in Python.

Spaces and tabs don't mix

>>> print __name__

Previous: Strings and arrays Index Next: Data types

Python's basic datatypes are:

Integers, equivalent to C longs

Python's composite datatypes are:

Literal integers can be entered as in C:

decimal numbers can be entered directly

Floating point numbers can be entered directly.

Long integers are entered either directly (1234567891011121314151617181920 is a long integer) or by

'foo' works, and

'''foo''' works, and

Tuples are entered in parenthesis, with commas between the entries:

(10, 'Mary had a little lamb')

10, 'whose fleece was as white as snow'

('this is a stupid tuple',)

>>> print name

>>> listoflists=[ [0]4 ] 5