Python (programming language) - Wikipedia 3/25/23, 2:19 AM

Python (programming language)

Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming

language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability Python
with the use of significant indentation.[33]

Python is dynamically typed and garbage-collected. It supports

multiple programming paradigms, including structured
(particularly procedural), object-oriented and functional
programming. It is often described as a "batteries included"
language due to its comprehensive standard library.[34][35]
Paradigm Multi-paradigm:
Guido van Rossum began working on Python in the late 1980s
object-oriented,[1]
as a successor to the ABC programming language and first
released it in 1991 as Python 0.9.0.[36] Python 2.0 was released procedural
in 2000. Python  3.0, released in 2008, was a major revision (imperative),
not completely backward-compatible with earlier versions. functional,
Python  2.7.18, released in 2020, was the last release of structured,
Python 2.[37] reflective
Designed by Guido van
Python consistently ranks as one of the most popular
Rossum
programming languages.[38][39][40][41]
Developer Python Software
Foundation
History
First appeared 20 February
1991[2]
Python was conceived in the late 1980s[42] by Guido van
Rossum at Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica (CWI) in the Stable release 3.11.2[3]  / 8
Netherlands as a successor to the ABC programming language, February 2023
which was inspired by SETL,[43] capable of exception handling Preview release 3.12.0a6[4]  / 7
and interfacing with the Amoeba operating system.[13] Its March 2023
implementation began in December  1989.[44] Van Rossum
Typing Duck, dynamic,
shouldered sole responsibility for the project, as the lead
discipline strong typing;[5]
developer, until 12 July 2018, when he announced his
"permanent vacation" from his responsibilities as Python's gradual (since
"benevolent dictator for life", a title the Python community 3.5, but ignored in
bestowed upon him to reflect his long-term commitment as the CPython)[6]
OS Windows,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language) Page 1 of 38
Python (programming language) - Wikipedia 3/25/23, 2:19 AM

project's chief decision-maker.[45] In January  2019, active macOS,

Python core developers elected a five-member Steering Council Linux/UNIX,
to lead the project.[46][47] Android[7][8] and
more[9]
Python 2.0 was released on 16 October 2000, with many major
new features such as list comprehensions, cycle-detecting License Python Software
garbage collection, reference counting, and Unicode Foundation
support.[48] Python  3.0, released on 3 December 2008, with License
many of its major features backported to Python 2.6.x[49] and
Filename .py, .pyi, .pyc,
2.7.x. Releases of Python  3 include the 2to3 utility, which
extensions .pyd, .pyw, .pyz
automates the translation of Python 2 code to Python 3.[50]
(since 3.5),[10]
Python  2.7's end-of-life was initially set for 2015, then .pyo (prior to
postponed to 2020 out of concern that a large body of existing 3.5)[11]
code could not easily be forward-ported to Python 3.[51][52] No Website python.org (https:/
further security patches or other improvements will be /www.python.org/)
released for it.[53][54] Currently only 3.7 and later are
Major implementations
supported. In 2021, Python 3.9.2 and 3.8.8 were expedited[55]
as all versions of Python (including 2.7[56]) had security issues CPython, PyPy, Stackless Python,
MicroPython, CircuitPython,
leading to possible remote code execution[57] and web cache
IronPython, Jython
poisoning.[58]
Dialects
[59]
In 2022, Python  3.10.4 and 3.9.12 were expedited and Cython, RPython, Starlark[12]
[60]
3.8.13, and 3.7.13, because of many security issues. When
Influenced by
Python  3.9.13 was released in May 2022, it was announced
that the 3.9 series (joining the older series 3.8 and 3.7) would ABC,[13] Ada,[14] ALGOL 68,[15]
only receive security fixes in the future.[61] On September 7, APL,[16] C,[17] C++,[18] CLU,[19]
2022, four new releases were made due to a potential denial- Dylan,[20] Haskell,[21][16] Icon,[22]
of-service attack: 3.10.7, 3.9.14, 3.8.14, and 3.7.14.[62][63] Lisp,[23] Modula-3,[15][18] Perl,[24]
Standard ML[16]
As of November  2022, Python  3.11 is the stable release. Influenced
Notable changes from 3.10 include increased program
execution speed and improved error reporting.[64] Apache Groovy, Boo, Cobra,
CoffeeScript,[25] D, F#, GDScript,
Genie,[26] Go, JavaScript,[27][28]
Design philosophy and features Julia,[29] Nim, Ring,[30] Ruby,[31]
Swift[32]
Python is a multi-paradigm programming language. Object-
oriented programming and structured programming are fully Python Programming at
supported, and many of their features support functional Wikibooks
programming and aspect-oriented programming (including
metaprogramming[65] and metaobjects).[66] Many other paradigms are supported via extensions,
including design by contract[67][68] and logic programming.[69]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language) Page 2 of 38
Python (programming language) - Wikipedia 3/25/23, 2:19 AM

Python uses dynamic typing and a combination of reference counting and a cycle-detecting garbage
collector for memory management.[70] It uses dynamic name resolution (late binding), which
binds method and variable names during program execution.

Its design offers some support for functional programming in the Lisp
tradition. It has filter,mapandreduce functions; list comprehensions,
dictionaries, sets, and generator expressions.[71] The standard library has
two modules (itertools and functools) that implement functional
tools borrowed from Haskell and Standard ML.[72]

Its core philosophy is summarized in the document The Zen of Python

(PEP 20), which includes aphorisms such as:[73]

Beautiful is better than ugly.

Explicit is better than implicit.
The designer of Python,
Simple is better than complex. Guido van Rossum, at
Complex is better than complicated. OSCON 2006
Readability counts.

Rather than building all of its functionality into its core, Python was designed to be highly
extensible via modules. This compact modularity has made it particularly popular as a means of
adding programmable interfaces to existing applications. Van Rossum's vision of a small core
language with a large standard library and easily extensible interpreter stemmed from his
frustrations with ABC, which espoused the opposite approach.[42]

Python strives for a simpler, less-cluttered syntax and grammar while giving developers a choice in
their coding methodology. In contrast to Perl's "there is more than one way to do it" motto, Python
embraces a "there should be one—and preferably only one—obvious way to do it" philosophy.[73]
Alex Martelli, a Fellow at the Python Software Foundation and Python book author, wrote: "To
describe something as 'clever' is not considered a compliment in the Python culture."[74]

Python's developers strive to avoid premature optimization and reject patches to non-critical parts
of the CPython reference implementation that would offer marginal increases in speed at the cost
of clarity.[75] When speed is important, a Python programmer can move time-critical functions to
extension modules written in languages such as C; or use PyPy, a just-in-time compiler. Cython is
also available, which translates a Python script into C and makes direct C-level API calls into the
Python interpreter.

Python's developers aim for it to be fun to use. This is reflected in its name—a tribute to the British
comedy group Monty Python[76]—and in occasionally playful approaches to tutorials and reference
materials, such as the use of the terms "spam" and "eggs" (a reference to a Monty Python sketch) in
examples, instead of the often-used "foo" and "bar".[77][78]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language) Page 3 of 38
Python (programming language) - Wikipedia 3/25/23, 2:19 AM

A common neologism in the Python community is pythonic, which has a wide range of meanings
related to program style. "Pythonic" code may use Python idioms well, be natural or show fluency
in the language, or conform with Python's minimalist philosophy and emphasis on readability.
Code that is difficult to understand or reads like a rough transcription from another programming
language is called unpythonic.[79][80]

Syntax and semantics

Python is meant to be an easily readable language. Its formatting is visually uncluttered and often
uses English keywords where other languages use punctuation. Unlike many other languages, it
does not use curly brackets to delimit blocks, and semicolons after statements are allowed but
rarely used. It has fewer syntactic exceptions and special cases than C or Pascal.[81]

Indentation
Python uses whitespace indentation, rather than curly brackets or keywords, to delimit blocks. An
increase in indentation comes after certain statements; a decrease in indentation signifies the end
of the current block.[82] Thus, the program's visual structure accurately represents its semantic
structure.[83] This feature is sometimes termed the off-side rule. Some other languages use
indentation this way; but in most, indentation has no semantic meaning. The recommended indent
size is four spaces.[84]

Statements and control flow

Python's statements include:

The assignment statement, using a single equals sign =

The if statement, which conditionally executes a block of code, along with else and elif (a
contraction of else-if)
The for statement, which iterates over an iterable object, capturing each element to a local
variable for use by the attached block
The while statement, which executes a block of code as long as its condition is true
The try statement, which allows exceptions raised in its attached code block to be caught and
handled by except clauses (or new syntax except* in Python 3.11 for exception groups[85]);
it also ensures that clean-up code in a finally block is always run regardless of how the
block exits
The raise statement, used to raise a specified exception or re-raise a caught exception
The class statement, which executes a block of code and attaches its local namespace to a
class, for use in object-oriented programming
The def statement, which defines a function or method

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language) Page 4 of 38
Python (programming language) - Wikipedia 3/25/23, 2:19 AM

The with statement, which encloses a code block within a context manager (for example,
acquiring a lock before it is run, then releasing the lock; or opening and closing a file), allowing
resource-acquisition-is-initialization (RAII)-like behavior and replacing a common try/finally
idiom[86]
The break statement, which exits a loop
The continue statement, which skips the rest of the current iteration and continues with the
next
The del statement, which removes a variable—deleting the reference from the name to the
value, and producing an error if the variable is referred to before it is redefined
The pass statement, serving as a NOP, syntactically needed to create an empty code block
The assert statement, used in debugging to check for conditions that should apply
The yield statement, which returns a value from a generator function (and also an operator);
used to implement coroutines
The return statement, used to return a value from a function
The import and from statements, used to import modules whose functions or variables can
be used in the current program

The assignment statement (=) binds a name as a reference to a separate, dynamically allocated
object. Variables may subsequently be rebound at any time to any object. In Python, a variable
name is a generic reference holder without a fixed data type; however, it always refers to some
object with a type. This is called dynamic typing—in contrast to statically-typed languages, where
each variable may contain only a value of a certain type.

Python does not support tail call optimization or first-class continuations, and, according to Van
Rossum, it never will.[87][88] However, better support for coroutine-like functionality is provided
by extending Python's generators.[89] Before 2.5, generators were lazy iterators; data was passed
unidirectionally out of the generator. From Python  2.5 on, it is possible to pass data back into a
generator function; and from version 3.3, it can be passed through multiple stack levels.[90]

Expressions
Python's expressions include:

The +, -, and * operators for mathematical addition, subtraction, and multiplication are similar
to other languages, but the behavior of division differs. There are two types of divisions in
Python: floor division (or integer division) // and floating-point/division.[91] Python uses the **
operator for exponentiation.
Python uses the + operator for string concatenation. Python uses the * operator for duplicating
a string a specified number of times.
The @ infix operator. It is intended to be used by libraries such as NumPy for matrix
multiplication.[92][93]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language) Page 5 of 38
Python (programming language) - Wikipedia 3/25/23, 2:19 AM

The syntax :=, called the "walrus operator", was introduced in Python 3.8. It assigns values to
variables as part of a larger expression.[94]
In Python, == compares by value. Python's is operator may be used to compare object
identities (comparison by reference), and comparisons may be chained—for example, a <= b
<= c.
Python uses and, or, and not as boolean operators.
Python has a type of expression called a list comprehension, as well as a more general
expression called a generator expression.[71]
Anonymous functions are implemented using lambda expressions; however, there may be only
one expression in each body.
Conditional expressions are written as x if c else y[95] (different in order of operands from
the c ? x : y operator common to many other languages).
Python makes a distinction between lists and tuples. Lists are written as [1, 2, 3], are
mutable, and cannot be used as the keys of dictionaries (dictionary keys must be immutable in
Python). Tuples, written as (1, 2, 3), are immutable and thus can be used as keys of
dictionaries, provided all of the tuple's elements are immutable. The + operator can be used to
concatenate two tuples, which does not directly modify their contents, but produces a new tuple
containing the elements of both. Thus, given the variable t initially equal to (1, 2, 3),
executing t = t + (4, 5) first evaluates t + (4, 5), which yields (1, 2, 3, 4, 5),
which is then assigned back to t—thereby effectively "modifying the contents" of t while
conforming to the immutable nature of tuple objects. Parentheses are optional for tuples in
unambiguous contexts.[96]
Python features sequence unpacking where multiple expressions, each evaluating to anything
that can be assigned (to a variable, writable property, etc.) are associated in an identical
manner to that forming tuple literals—and, as a whole, are put on the left-hand side of the
equal sign in an assignment statement. The statement expects an iterable object on the right-
hand side of the equal sign that produces the same number of values as the provided writable
expressions; when iterated through them, it assigns each of the produced values to the
corresponding expression on the left.[97]
Python has a "string format" operator % that functions analogously to printf format strings in
C—e.g. "spam=%s eggs=%d" % ("blah", 2) evaluates to "spam=blah eggs=2". In
Python 2.6+ and 3+, this was supplemented by the format() method of the str class, e.g.
"spam={0} eggs={1}".format("blah", 2). Python 3.6 added "f-strings": spam =
"blah"; eggs = 2; f'spam={spam} eggs={eggs}'.[98]
Strings in Python can be concatenated by "adding" them (with the same operator as for adding
integers and floats), e.g. "spam" + "eggs" returns "spameggs". If strings contain numbers,
they are added as strings rather than integers, e.g. "2" + "2" returns "22".
Python has various string literals:
Delimited by single or double quote marks; unlike in Unix shells, Perl, and Perl-influenced
languages, single and double quote marks work the same. Both use the backslash (\) as
an escape character. String interpolation became available in Python 3.6 as "formatted
string literals".[98]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Python_(programming_language) Page 6 of 38