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>>> def f():

... raise ExceptionGroup(
... "group1",
... [
... OSError(1),
... SystemError(2),
... ExceptionGroup(
... "group2",
... [
... OSError(3),
... RecursionError(4)
... ]
... )
... ]
... )
...
>>> try:
... f()
... except* OSError as e:
... print("There were OSErrors")
... except* SystemError as e:
... print("There were SystemErrors")
...
There were OSErrors
There were SystemErrors
+ Exception Group Traceback (most recent call last):
| File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
| File "<stdin>", line 2, in f
| ExceptionGroup: group1
+-+---------------- 1 ----------------
| ExceptionGroup: group2
+-+---------------- 1 ----------------
| RecursionError: 4
+------------------------------------
>>>

Note that the exceptions nested in an exception group must be instances, not types. This is because in practice the
exceptions would typically be ones that have already been raised and caught by the program, along the following pattern:

>>> excs = []
... for test in tests:
... try:
... test.run()
... except Exception as e:
... excs.append(e)
...
>>> if excs:
... raise ExceptionGroup("Test Failures", excs)
...

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8.10 Enriching Exceptions with Notes

When an exception is created in order to be raised, it is usually initialized with information that describes the error that
has occurred. There are cases where it is useful to add information after the exception was caught. For this purpose,
exceptions have a method add_note(note) that accepts a string and adds it to the exception’s notes list. The standard
traceback rendering includes all notes, in the order they were added, after the exception.
>>> try:
... raise TypeError('bad type')
... except Exception as e:
... e.add_note('Add some information')
... e.add_note('Add some more information')
... raise
...
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 2, in <module>
TypeError: bad type
Add some information
Add some more information
>>>

For example, when collecting exceptions into an exception group, we may want to add context information for the indi-
vidual errors. In the following each exception in the group has a note indicating when this error has occurred.
>>> def f():
... raise OSError('operation failed')
...
>>> excs = []
>>> for i in range(3):
... try:
... f()
... except Exception as e:
... e.add_note(f'Happened in Iteration {i+1}')
... excs.append(e)
...
>>> raise ExceptionGroup('We have some problems', excs)
+ Exception Group Traceback (most recent call last):
| File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
| ExceptionGroup: We have some problems (3 sub-exceptions)
+-+---------------- 1 ----------------
| Traceback (most recent call last):
| File "<stdin>", line 3, in <module>
| File "<stdin>", line 2, in f
| OSError: operation failed
| Happened in Iteration 1
+---------------- 2 ----------------
| Traceback (most recent call last):
| File "<stdin>", line 3, in <module>
| File "<stdin>", line 2, in f
| OSError: operation failed
| Happened in Iteration 2
+---------------- 3 ----------------
| Traceback (most recent call last):
| File "<stdin>", line 3, in <module>
| File "<stdin>", line 2, in f
| OSError: operation failed
| Happened in Iteration 3
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

+------------------------------------
>>>

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 CHAPTER

NINE

CLASSES

Classes provide a means of bundling data and functionality together. Creating a new class creates a new type of object,
allowing new instances of that type to be made. Each class instance can have attributes attached to it for maintaining its
state. Class instances can also have methods (defined by its class) for modifying its state.
Compared with other programming languages, Python’s class mechanism adds classes with a minimum of new syntax and
semantics. It is a mixture of the class mechanisms found in C++ and Modula-3. Python classes provide all the standard
features of Object Oriented Programming: the class inheritance mechanism allows multiple base classes, a derived class
can override any methods of its base class or classes, and a method can call the method of a base class with the same
name. Objects can contain arbitrary amounts and kinds of data. As is true for modules, classes partake of the dynamic
nature of Python: they are created at runtime, and can be modified further after creation.
In C++ terminology, normally class members (including the data members) are public (except see below Private Variables),
and all member functions are virtual. As in Modula-3, there are no shorthands for referencing the object’s members from
its methods: the method function is declared with an explicit first argument representing the object, which is provided
implicitly by the call. As in Smalltalk, classes themselves are objects. This provides semantics for importing and renaming.
Unlike C++ and Modula-3, built-in types can be used as base classes for extension by the user. Also, like in C++, most
built-in operators with special syntax (arithmetic operators, subscripting etc.) can be redefined for class instances.
(Lacking universally accepted terminology to talk about classes, I will make occasional use of Smalltalk and C++ terms.
I would use Modula-3 terms, since its object-oriented semantics are closer to those of Python than C++, but I expect that
few readers have heard of it.)

9.1 A Word About Names and Objects

Objects have individuality, and multiple names (in multiple scopes) can be bound to the same object. This is known as
aliasing in other languages. This is usually not appreciated on a first glance at Python, and can be safely ignored when
dealing with immutable basic types (numbers, strings, tuples). However, aliasing has a possibly surprising effect on the
semantics of Python code involving mutable objects such as lists, dictionaries, and most other types. This is usually used
to the benefit of the program, since aliases behave like pointers in some respects. For example, passing an object is cheap
since only a pointer is passed by the implementation; and if a function modifies an object passed as an argument, the caller
will see the change — this eliminates the need for two different argument passing mechanisms as in Pascal.

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9.2 Python Scopes and Namespaces

Before introducing classes, I first have to tell you something about Python’s scope rules. Class definitions play some neat
tricks with namespaces, and you need to know how scopes and namespaces work to fully understand what’s going on.
Incidentally, knowledge about this subject is useful for any advanced Python programmer.
Let’s begin with some definitions.
A namespace is a mapping from names to objects. Most namespaces are currently implemented as Python dictionaries,
but that’s normally not noticeable in any way (except for performance), and it may change in the future. Examples of
namespaces are: the set of built-in names (containing functions such as abs(), and built-in exception names); the global
names in a module; and the local names in a function invocation. In a sense the set of attributes of an object also form
a namespace. The important thing to know about namespaces is that there is absolutely no relation between names in
different namespaces; for instance, two different modules may both define a function maximize without confusion —
users of the modules must prefix it with the module name.
By the way, I use the word attribute for any name following a dot — for example, in the expression z.real, real is
an attribute of the object z. Strictly speaking, references to names in modules are attribute references: in the expression
modname.funcname, modname is a module object and funcname is an attribute of it. In this case there happens
to be a straightforward mapping between the module’s attributes and the global names defined in the module: they share
the same namespace!1
Attributes may be read-only or writable. In the latter case, assignment to attributes is possible. Module attributes are
writable: you can write modname.the_answer = 42. Writable attributes may also be deleted with the del state-
ment. For example, del modname.the_answer will remove the attribute the_answer from the object named
by modname.
Namespaces are created at different moments and have different lifetimes. The namespace containing the built-in names
is created when the Python interpreter starts up, and is never deleted. The global namespace for a module is created
when the module definition is read in; normally, module namespaces also last until the interpreter quits. The statements
executed by the top-level invocation of the interpreter, either read from a script file or interactively, are considered part of
a module called __main__, so they have their own global namespace. (The built-in names actually also live in a module;
this is called builtins.)
The local namespace for a function is created when the function is called, and deleted when the function returns or raises
an exception that is not handled within the function. (Actually, forgetting would be a better way to describe what actually
happens.) Of course, recursive invocations each have their own local namespace.
A scope is a textual region of a Python program where a namespace is directly accessible. “Directly accessible” here
means that an unqualified reference to a name attempts to find the name in the namespace.
Although scopes are determined statically, they are used dynamically. At any time during execution, there are 3 or 4
nested scopes whose namespaces are directly accessible:
• the innermost scope, which is searched first, contains the local names
• the scopes of any enclosing functions, which are searched starting with the nearest enclosing scope, contain non-
local, but also non-global names
• the next-to-last scope contains the current module’s global names
• the outermost scope (searched last) is the namespace containing built-in names
If a name is declared global, then all references and assignments go directly to the next-to-last scope containing the
module’s global names. To rebind variables found outside of the innermost scope, the nonlocal statement can be used;
if not declared nonlocal, those variables are read-only (an attempt to write to such a variable will simply create a new local
variable in the innermost scope, leaving the identically named outer variable unchanged).
1 Except for one thing. Module objects have a secret read-only attribute called __dict__ which returns the dictionary used to implement the

module’s namespace; the name __dict__ is an attribute but not a global name. Obviously, using this violates the abstraction of namespace imple-
mentation, and should be restricted to things like post-mortem debuggers.

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Usually, the local scope references the local names of the (textually) current function. Outside functions, the local scope
references the same namespace as the global scope: the module’s namespace. Class definitions place yet another names-
pace in the local scope.
It is important to realize that scopes are determined textually: the global scope of a function defined in a module is that
module’s namespace, no matter from where or by what alias the function is called. On the other hand, the actual search
for names is done dynamically, at run time — however, the language definition is evolving towards static name resolution,
at “compile” time, so don’t rely on dynamic name resolution! (In fact, local variables are already determined statically.)
A special quirk of Python is that – if no global or nonlocal statement is in effect – assignments to names always
go into the innermost scope. Assignments do not copy data — they just bind names to objects. The same is true for
deletions: the statement del x removes the binding of x from the namespace referenced by the local scope. In fact, all
operations that introduce new names use the local scope: in particular, import statements and function definitions bind
the module or function name in the local scope.
The global statement can be used to indicate that particular variables live in the global scope and should be rebound
there; the nonlocal statement indicates that particular variables live in an enclosing scope and should be rebound there.

9.2.1 Scopes and Namespaces Example

This is an example demonstrating how to reference the different scopes and namespaces, and how global and
nonlocal affect variable binding:

def scope_test():
def do_local():
spam = "local spam"

def do_nonlocal():
nonlocal spam
spam = "nonlocal spam"

def do_global():
global spam
spam = "global spam"

spam = "test spam"

do_local()
print("After local assignment:", spam)
do_nonlocal()
print("After nonlocal assignment:", spam)
do_global()
print("After global assignment:", spam)

scope_test()
print("In global scope:", spam)

The output of the example code is:

After local assignment: test spam

After nonlocal assignment: nonlocal spam
After global assignment: nonlocal spam
In global scope: global spam

Note how the local assignment (which is default) didn’t change scope_test’s binding of spam. The nonlocal assignment
changed scope_test’s binding of spam, and the global assignment changed the module-level binding.
You can also see that there was no previous binding for spam before the global assignment.

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9.3 A First Look at Classes

Classes introduce a little bit of new syntax, three new object types, and some new semantics.

9.3.1 Class Definition Syntax

The simplest form of class definition looks like this:

class ClassName:
<statement-1>
.
.
.
<statement-N>

Class definitions, like function definitions (def statements) must be executed before they have any effect. (You could
conceivably place a class definition in a branch of an if statement, or inside a function.)
In practice, the statements inside a class definition will usually be function definitions, but other statements are allowed,
and sometimes useful — we’ll come back to this later. The function definitions inside a class normally have a peculiar
form of argument list, dictated by the calling conventions for methods — again, this is explained later.
When a class definition is entered, a new namespace is created, and used as the local scope — thus, all assignments to
local variables go into this new namespace. In particular, function definitions bind the name of the new function here.
When a class definition is left normally (via the end), a class object is created. This is basically a wrapper around the
contents of the namespace created by the class definition; we’ll learn more about class objects in the next section. The
original local scope (the one in effect just before the class definition was entered) is reinstated, and the class object is
bound here to the class name given in the class definition header (ClassName in the example).

9.3.2 Class Objects

Class objects support two kinds of operations: attribute references and instantiation.
Attribute references use the standard syntax used for all attribute references in Python: obj.name. Valid attribute names
are all the names that were in the class’s namespace when the class object was created. So, if the class definition looked
like this:

class MyClass:
"""A simple example class"""
i = 12345

def f(self):
return 'hello world'

then MyClass.i and MyClass.f are valid attribute references, returning an integer and a function object, respectively.
Class attributes can also be assigned to, so you can change the value of MyClass.i by assignment. __doc__ is also a
valid attribute, returning the docstring belonging to the class: "A simple example class".
Class instantiation uses function notation. Just pretend that the class object is a parameterless function that returns a new
instance of the class. For example (assuming the above class):

x = MyClass()

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creates a new instance of the class and assigns this object to the local variable x.
The instantiation operation (“calling” a class object) creates an empty object. Many classes like to create objects with
instances customized to a specific initial state. Therefore a class may define a special method named __init__(), like
this:

def __init__(self):
self.data = []

When a class defines an __init__() method, class instantiation automatically invokes __init__() for the newly
created class instance. So in this example, a new, initialized instance can be obtained by:

x = MyClass()

Of course, the __init__() method may have arguments for greater flexibility. In that case, arguments given to the
class instantiation operator are passed on to __init__(). For example,

>>> class Complex:

... def __init__(self, realpart, imagpart):
... self.r = realpart
... self.i = imagpart
...
>>> x = Complex(3.0, -4.5)
>>> x.r, x.i
(3.0, -4.5)

9.3.3 Instance Objects

Now what can we do with instance objects? The only operations understood by instance objects are attribute references.
There are two kinds of valid attribute names: data attributes and methods.
data attributes correspond to “instance variables” in Smalltalk, and to “data members” in C++. Data attributes need not be
declared; like local variables, they spring into existence when they are first assigned to. For example, if x is the instance
of MyClass created above, the following piece of code will print the value 16, without leaving a trace:

x.counter = 1
while x.counter < 10:
x.counter = x.counter * 2
print(x.counter)
del x.counter

The other kind of instance attribute reference is a method. A method is a function that “belongs to” an object. (In Python,
the term method is not unique to class instances: other object types can have methods as well. For example, list objects
have methods called append, insert, remove, sort, and so on. However, in the following discussion, we’ll use the term
method exclusively to mean methods of class instance objects, unless explicitly stated otherwise.)
Valid method names of an instance object depend on its class. By definition, all attributes of a class that are function objects
define corresponding methods of its instances. So in our example, x.f is a valid method reference, since MyClass.f
is a function, but x.i is not, since MyClass.i is not. But x.f is not the same thing as MyClass.f — it is a method
object, not a function object.

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9.3.4 Method Objects

Usually, a method is called right after it is bound:

x.f()

In the MyClass example, this will return the string 'hello world'. However, it is not necessary to call a method
right away: x.f is a method object, and can be stored away and called at a later time. For example:

xf = x.f
while True:
print(xf())

will continue to print hello world until the end of time.

What exactly happens when a method is called? You may have noticed that x.f() was called without an argument above,
even though the function definition for f() specified an argument. What happened to the argument? Surely Python raises
an exception when a function that requires an argument is called without any — even if the argument isn’t actually used…
Actually, you may have guessed the answer: the special thing about methods is that the instance object is passed as the
first argument of the function. In our example, the call x.f() is exactly equivalent to MyClass.f(x). In general,
calling a method with a list of n arguments is equivalent to calling the corresponding function with an argument list that
is created by inserting the method’s instance object before the first argument.
In general, methods work as follows. When a non-data attribute of an instance is referenced, the instance’s class is
searched. If the name denotes a valid class attribute that is a function object, references to both the instance object and
the function object are packed into a method object. When the method object is called with an argument list, a new
argument list is constructed from the instance object and the argument list, and the function object is called with this new
argument list.

9.3.5 Class and Instance Variables

Generally speaking, instance variables are for data unique to each instance and class variables are for attributes and
methods shared by all instances of the class:

class Dog:

kind = 'canine' # class variable shared by all instances

def __init__(self, name):

self.name = name # instance variable unique to each instance

>>> d = Dog('Fido')
>>> e = Dog('Buddy')
>>> d.kind # shared by all dogs
'canine'
>>> e.kind # shared by all dogs
'canine'
>>> d.name # unique to d
'Fido'
>>> e.name # unique to e
'Buddy'

As discussed in A Word About Names and Objects, shared data can have possibly surprising effects with involving mutable
objects such as lists and dictionaries. For example, the tricks list in the following code should not be used as a class variable
because just a single list would be shared by all Dog instances:

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class Dog:

tricks = [] # mistaken use of a class variable

def __init__(self, name):

self.name = name

def add_trick(self, trick):

self.tricks.append(trick)

>>> d = Dog('Fido')
>>> e = Dog('Buddy')
>>> d.add_trick('roll over')
>>> e.add_trick('play dead')
>>> d.tricks # unexpectedly shared by all dogs
['roll over', 'play dead']

Correct design of the class should use an instance variable instead:

class Dog:

def __init__(self, name):

self.name = name
self.tricks = [] # creates a new empty list for each dog

def add_trick(self, trick):

self.tricks.append(trick)

>>> d = Dog('Fido')
>>> e = Dog('Buddy')
>>> d.add_trick('roll over')
>>> e.add_trick('play dead')
>>> d.tricks
['roll over']
>>> e.tricks
['play dead']

9.4 Random Remarks

If the same attribute name occurs in both an instance and in a class, then attribute lookup prioritizes the instance:

>>> class Warehouse:

... purpose = 'storage'
... region = 'west'
...
>>> w1 = Warehouse()
>>> print(w1.purpose, w1.region)
storage west
>>> w2 = Warehouse()
>>> w2.region = 'east'
>>> print(w2.purpose, w2.region)
storage east

Data attributes may be referenced by methods as well as by ordinary users (“clients”) of an object. In other words, classes
are not usable to implement pure abstract data types. In fact, nothing in Python makes it possible to enforce data hiding

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— it is all based upon convention. (On the other hand, the Python implementation, written in C, can completely hide
implementation details and control access to an object if necessary; this can be used by extensions to Python written in
C.)
Clients should use data attributes with care — clients may mess up invariants maintained by the methods by stamping
on their data attributes. Note that clients may add data attributes of their own to an instance object without affecting the
validity of the methods, as long as name conflicts are avoided — again, a naming convention can save a lot of headaches
here.
There is no shorthand for referencing data attributes (or other methods!) from within methods. I find that this actually
increases the readability of methods: there is no chance of confusing local variables and instance variables when glancing
through a method.
Often, the first argument of a method is called self. This is nothing more than a convention: the name self has
absolutely no special meaning to Python. Note, however, that by not following the convention your code may be less
readable to other Python programmers, and it is also conceivable that a class browser program might be written that relies
upon such a convention.
Any function object that is a class attribute defines a method for instances of that class. It is not necessary that the function
definition is textually enclosed in the class definition: assigning a function object to a local variable in the class is also ok.
For example:

# Function defined outside the class

def f1(self, x, y):
return min(x, x+y)

class C:
f = f1

def g(self):
return 'hello world'

h = g

Now f, g and h are all attributes of class C that refer to function objects, and consequently they are all methods of
instances of C — h being exactly equivalent to g. Note that this practice usually only serves to confuse the reader of a
program.
Methods may call other methods by using method attributes of the self argument:

class Bag:
def __init__(self):
self.data = []

def add(self, x):

self.data.append(x)

def addtwice(self, x):

self.add(x)
self.add(x)

Methods may reference global names in the same way as ordinary functions. The global scope associated with a method
is the module containing its definition. (A class is never used as a global scope.) While one rarely encounters a good
reason for using global data in a method, there are many legitimate uses of the global scope: for one thing, functions and
modules imported into the global scope can be used by methods, as well as functions and classes defined in it. Usually,
the class containing the method is itself defined in this global scope, and in the next section we’ll find some good reasons
why a method would want to reference its own class.
Each value is an object, and therefore has a class (also called its type). It is stored as object.__class__.

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9.5 Inheritance

Of course, a language feature would not be worthy of the name “class” without supporting inheritance. The syntax for a
derived class definition looks like this:

class DerivedClassName(BaseClassName):
<statement-1>
.
.
.
<statement-N>

The name BaseClassName must be defined in a namespace accessible from the scope containing the derived class
definition. In place of a base class name, other arbitrary expressions are also allowed. This can be useful, for example,
when the base class is defined in another module:

class DerivedClassName(modname.BaseClassName):

Execution of a derived class definition proceeds the same as for a base class. When the class object is constructed, the
base class is remembered. This is used for resolving attribute references: if a requested attribute is not found in the class,
the search proceeds to look in the base class. This rule is applied recursively if the base class itself is derived from some
other class.
There’s nothing special about instantiation of derived classes: DerivedClassName() creates a new instance of the
class. Method references are resolved as follows: the corresponding class attribute is searched, descending down the chain
of base classes if necessary, and the method reference is valid if this yields a function object.
Derived classes may override methods of their base classes. Because methods have no special privileges when calling
other methods of the same object, a method of a base class that calls another method defined in the same base class may
end up calling a method of a derived class that overrides it. (For C++ programmers: all methods in Python are effectively
virtual.)
An overriding method in a derived class may in fact want to extend rather than simply replace the base class method
of the same name. There is a simple way to call the base class method directly: just call BaseClassName.
methodname(self, arguments). This is occasionally useful to clients as well. (Note that this only works if
the base class is accessible as BaseClassName in the global scope.)
Python has two built-in functions that work with inheritance:
• Use isinstance() to check an instance’s type: isinstance(obj, int) will be True only if obj.
__class__ is int or some class derived from int.
• Use issubclass() to check class inheritance: issubclass(bool, int) is True since bool is a sub-
class of int. However, issubclass(float, int) is False since float is not a subclass of int.

9.5.1 Multiple Inheritance

Python supports a form of multiple inheritance as well. A class definition with multiple base classes looks like this:

class DerivedClassName(Base1, Base2, Base3):

<statement-1>
.
.
.
<statement-N>

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For most purposes, in the simplest cases, you can think of the search for attributes inherited from a parent class as depth-
first, left-to-right, not searching twice in the same class where there is an overlap in the hierarchy. Thus, if an attribute is
not found in DerivedClassName, it is searched for in Base1, then (recursively) in the base classes of Base1, and
if it was not found there, it was searched for in Base2, and so on.
In fact, it is slightly more complex than that; the method resolution order changes dynamically to support cooperative calls
to super(). This approach is known in some other multiple-inheritance languages as call-next-method and is more
powerful than the super call found in single-inheritance languages.
Dynamic ordering is necessary because all cases of multiple inheritance exhibit one or more diamond relationships (where
at least one of the parent classes can be accessed through multiple paths from the bottommost class). For example, all
classes inherit from object, so any case of multiple inheritance provides more than one path to reach object. To
keep the base classes from being accessed more than once, the dynamic algorithm linearizes the search order in a way
that preserves the left-to-right ordering specified in each class, that calls each parent only once, and that is monotonic
(meaning that a class can be subclassed without affecting the precedence order of its parents). Taken together, these
properties make it possible to design reliable and extensible classes with multiple inheritance. For more detail, see https:
//www.python.org/download/releases/2.3/mro/.

9.6 Private Variables

“Private” instance variables that cannot be accessed except from inside an object don’t exist in Python. However, there
is a convention that is followed by most Python code: a name prefixed with an underscore (e.g. _spam) should be
treated as a non-public part of the API (whether it is a function, a method or a data member). It should be considered an
implementation detail and subject to change without notice.
Since there is a valid use-case for class-private members (namely to avoid name clashes of names with names defined by
subclasses), there is limited support for such a mechanism, called name mangling. Any identifier of the form __spam (at
least two leading underscores, at most one trailing underscore) is textually replaced with _classname__spam, where
classname is the current class name with leading underscore(s) stripped. This mangling is done without regard to the
syntactic position of the identifier, as long as it occurs within the definition of a class.
Name mangling is helpful for letting subclasses override methods without breaking intraclass method calls. For example:

class Mapping:
def __init__(self, iterable):
self.items_list = []
self.__update(iterable)

def update(self, iterable):

for item in iterable:
self.items_list.append(item)

__update = update # private copy of original update() method

class MappingSubclass(Mapping):

def update(self, keys, values):

# provides new signature for update()
# but does not break __init__()
for item in zip(keys, values):
self.items_list.append(item)

The above example would work even if MappingSubclass were to introduce a __update identifier since
it is replaced with _Mapping__update in the Mapping class and _MappingSubclass__update in the
MappingSubclass class respectively.

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Note that the mangling rules are designed mostly to avoid accidents; it still is possible to access or modify a variable that
is considered private. This can even be useful in special circumstances, such as in the debugger.
Notice that code passed to exec() or eval() does not consider the classname of the invoking class to be the current
class; this is similar to the effect of the global statement, the effect of which is likewise restricted to code that is
byte-compiled together. The same restriction applies to getattr(), setattr() and delattr(), as well as when
referencing __dict__ directly.

9.7 Odds and Ends

Sometimes it is useful to have a data type similar to the Pascal “record” or C “struct”, bundling together a few named data
items. The idiomatic approach is to use dataclasses for this purpose:
from dataclasses import dataclass

@dataclass
class Employee:
name: str
dept: str
salary: int

>>> john = Employee('john', 'computer lab', 1000)

>>> john.dept
'computer lab'
>>> john.salary
1000

A piece of Python code that expects a particular abstract data type can often be passed a class that emulates the methods
of that data type instead. For instance, if you have a function that formats some data from a file object, you can define a
class with methods read() and readline() that get the data from a string buffer instead, and pass it as an argument.
Instance method objects have attributes, too: m.__self__ is the instance object with the method m(), and m.
__func__ is the function object corresponding to the method.

9.8 Iterators

By now you have probably noticed that most container objects can be looped over using a for statement:
for element in [1, 2, 3]:
print(element)
for element in (1, 2, 3):
print(element)
for key in {'one':1, 'two':2}:
print(key)
for char in "123":
print(char)
for line in open("myfile.txt"):
print(line, end='')

This style of access is clear, concise, and convenient. The use of iterators pervades and unifies Python. Behind the scenes,
the for statement calls iter() on the container object. The function returns an iterator object that defines the method
__next__() which accesses elements in the container one at a time. When there are no more elements, __next__()
raises a StopIteration exception which tells the for loop to terminate. You can call the __next__() method
using the next() built-in function; this example shows how it all works:

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>>> s = 'abc'
>>> it = iter(s)
>>> it
<str_iterator object at 0x10c90e650>
>>> next(it)
'a'
>>> next(it)
'b'
>>> next(it)
'c'
>>> next(it)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
next(it)
StopIteration

Having seen the mechanics behind the iterator protocol, it is easy to add iterator behavior to your classes. Define an
__iter__() method which returns an object with a __next__() method. If the class defines __next__(), then
__iter__() can just return self:

class Reverse:
"""Iterator for looping over a sequence backwards."""
def __init__(self, data):
self.data = data
self.index = len(data)

def __iter__(self):
return self

def __next__(self):
if self.index == 0:
raise StopIteration
self.index = self.index - 1
return self.data[self.index]

>>> rev = Reverse('spam')

>>> iter(rev)
<__main__.Reverse object at 0x00A1DB50>
>>> for char in rev:
... print(char)
...
m
a
p
s

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9.9 Generators

Generators are a simple and powerful tool for creating iterators. They are written like regular functions but use the yield
statement whenever they want to return data. Each time next() is called on it, the generator resumes where it left off (it
remembers all the data values and which statement was last executed). An example shows that generators can be trivially
easy to create:

def reverse(data):
for index in range(len(data)-1, -1, -1):
yield data[index]

>>> for char in reverse('golf'):

... print(char)
...
f
l
o
g

Anything that can be done with generators can also be done with class-based iterators as described in the previous section.
What makes generators so compact is that the __iter__() and __next__() methods are created automatically.
Another key feature is that the local variables and execution state are automatically saved between calls. This made the
function easier to write and much more clear than an approach using instance variables like self.index and self.
data.
In addition to automatic method creation and saving program state, when generators terminate, they automatically raise
StopIteration. In combination, these features make it easy to create iterators with no more effort than writing a
regular function.

9.10 Generator Expressions

Some simple generators can be coded succinctly as expressions using a syntax similar to list comprehensions but with
parentheses instead of square brackets. These expressions are designed for situations where the generator is used right
away by an enclosing function. Generator expressions are more compact but less versatile than full generator definitions
and tend to be more memory friendly than equivalent list comprehensions.
Examples:

>>> sum(i*i for i in range(10)) # sum of squares

285

>>> xvec = [10, 20, 30]

>>> yvec = [7, 5, 3]
>>> sum(x*y for x,y in zip(xvec, yvec)) # dot product
260

>>> unique_words = set(word for line in page for word in line.split())

>>> valedictorian = max((student.gpa, student.name) for student in graduates)

>>> data = 'golf'

>>> list(data[i] for i in range(len(data)-1, -1, -1))
['f', 'l', 'o', 'g']

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10.1 Operating System Interface

The os module provides dozens of functions for interacting with the operating system:

>>> import os
>>> os.getcwd() # Return the current working directory
'C:\\Python312'
>>> os.chdir('/server/accesslogs') # Change current working directory
>>> os.system('mkdir today') # Run the command mkdir in the system shell
0

Be sure to use the import os style instead of from os import *. This will keep os.open() from shadowing
the built-in open() function which operates much differently.
The built-in dir() and help() functions are useful as interactive aids for working with large modules like os:

>>> import os
>>> dir(os)
<returns a list of all module functions>
>>> help(os)
<returns an extensive manual page created from the module's docstrings>

For daily file and directory management tasks, the shutil module provides a higher level interface that is easier to use:

>>> import shutil

>>> shutil.copyfile('data.db', 'archive.db')
'archive.db'
>>> shutil.move('/build/executables', 'installdir')
'installdir'

10.2 File Wildcards

The glob module provides a function for making file lists from directory wildcard searches:

>>> import glob

>>> glob.glob('*.py')
['primes.py', 'random.py', 'quote.py']

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10.3 Command Line Arguments

Common utility scripts often need to process command line arguments. These arguments are stored in the sys module’s
argv attribute as a list. For instance, let’s take the following demo.py file:

# File demo.py
import sys
print(sys.argv)

Here is the output from running python demo.py one two three at the command line:

['demo.py', 'one', 'two', 'three']

The argparse module provides a more sophisticated mechanism to process command line arguments. The following
script extracts one or more filenames and an optional number of lines to be displayed:

import argparse

parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(
prog='top',
description='Show top lines from each file')
parser.add_argument('filenames', nargs='+')
parser.add_argument('-l', '--lines', type=int, default=10)
args = parser.parse_args()
print(args)

When run at the command line with python top.py --lines=5 alpha.txt beta.txt, the script sets
args.lines to 5 and args.filenames to ['alpha.txt', 'beta.txt'].

10.4 Error Output Redirection and Program Termination

The sys module also has attributes for stdin, stdout, and stderr. The latter is useful for emitting warnings and error
messages to make them visible even when stdout has been redirected:

>>> sys.stderr.write('Warning, log file not found starting a new one\n')

Warning, log file not found starting a new one

The most direct way to terminate a script is to use sys.exit().

10.5 String Pattern Matching

The re module provides regular expression tools for advanced string processing. For complex matching and manipulation,
regular expressions offer succinct, optimized solutions:

>>> import re
>>> re.findall(r'\bf[a-z]*', 'which foot or hand fell fastest')
['foot', 'fell', 'fastest']
>>> re.sub(r'(\b[a-z]+) \1', r'\1', 'cat in the the hat')
'cat in the hat'

When only simple capabilities are needed, string methods are preferred because they are easier to read and debug:

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>>> 'tea for too'.replace('too', 'two')

'tea for two'

10.6 Mathematics

The math module gives access to the underlying C library functions for floating point math:

>>> import math

>>> math.cos(math.pi / 4)
0.70710678118654757
>>> math.log(1024, 2)
10.0

The random module provides tools for making random selections:

>>> import random

>>> random.choice(['apple', 'pear', 'banana'])
'apple'
>>> random.sample(range(100), 10) # sampling without replacement
[30, 83, 16, 4, 8, 81, 41, 50, 18, 33]
>>> random.random() # random float
0.17970987693706186
>>> random.randrange(6) # random integer chosen from range(6)
4

The statistics module calculates basic statistical properties (the mean, median, variance, etc.) of numeric data:

>>> import statistics

>>> data = [2.75, 1.75, 1.25, 0.25, 0.5, 1.25, 3.5]
>>> statistics.mean(data)
1.6071428571428572
>>> statistics.median(data)
1.25
>>> statistics.variance(data)
1.3720238095238095

The SciPy project <https://scipy.org> has many other modules for numerical computations.

10.7 Internet Access

There are a number of modules for accessing the internet and processing internet protocols. Two of the simplest are
urllib.request for retrieving data from URLs and smtplib for sending mail:

>>> from urllib.request import urlopen

>>> with urlopen('http://worldtimeapi.org/api/timezone/etc/UTC.txt') as response:
... for line in response:
... line = line.decode() # Convert bytes to a str
... if line.startswith('datetime'):
... print(line.rstrip()) # Remove trailing newline
...
datetime: 2022-01-01T01:36:47.689215+00:00

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(continued from previous page)

>>> import smtplib
>>> server = smtplib.SMTP('localhost')
>>> server.sendmail('[email protected]', '[email protected]',
... """To: [email protected]
... From: [email protected]
...
... Beware the Ides of March.
... """)
>>> server.quit()

(Note that the second example needs a mailserver running on localhost.)

10.8 Dates and Times

The datetime module supplies classes for manipulating dates and times in both simple and complex ways. While date
and time arithmetic is supported, the focus of the implementation is on efficient member extraction for output formatting
and manipulation. The module also supports objects that are timezone aware.

>>> # dates are easily constructed and formatted

>>> from datetime import date
>>> now = date.today()
>>> now
datetime.date(2003, 12, 2)
>>> now.strftime("%m-%d-%y. %d %b %Y is a %A on the %d day of %B.")
'12-02-03. 02 Dec 2003 is a Tuesday on the 02 day of December.'

>>> # dates support calendar arithmetic

>>> birthday = date(1964, 7, 31)
>>> age = now - birthday
>>> age.days
14368

10.9 Data Compression

Common data archiving and compression formats are directly supported by modules including: zlib, gzip, bz2,
lzma, zipfile and tarfile.

>>> import zlib

>>> s = b'witch which has which witches wrist watch'
>>> len(s)
41
>>> t = zlib.compress(s)
>>> len(t)
37
>>> zlib.decompress(t)
b'witch which has which witches wrist watch'
>>> zlib.crc32(s)
226805979

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10.10 Performance Measurement

Some Python users develop a deep interest in knowing the relative performance of different approaches to the same
problem. Python provides a measurement tool that answers those questions immediately.
For example, it may be tempting to use the tuple packing and unpacking feature instead of the traditional approach to
swapping arguments. The timeit module quickly demonstrates a modest performance advantage:

>>> from timeit import Timer

>>> Timer('t=a; a=b; b=t', 'a=1; b=2').timeit()
0.57535828626024577
>>> Timer('a,b = b,a', 'a=1; b=2').timeit()
0.54962537085770791

In contrast to timeit’s fine level of granularity, the profile and pstats modules provide tools for identifying time
critical sections in larger blocks of code.

10.11 Quality Control

One approach for developing high quality software is to write tests for each function as it is developed and to run those
tests frequently during the development process.
The doctest module provides a tool for scanning a module and validating tests embedded in a program’s docstrings.
Test construction is as simple as cutting-and-pasting a typical call along with its results into the docstring. This improves
the documentation by providing the user with an example and it allows the doctest module to make sure the code remains
true to the documentation:

def average(values):
"""Computes the arithmetic mean of a list of numbers.

>>> print(average([20, 30, 70]))

40.0
"""
return sum(values) / len(values)

import doctest
doctest.testmod() # automatically validate the embedded tests

The unittest module is not as effortless as the doctest module, but it allows a more comprehensive set of tests to
be maintained in a separate file:

import unittest

class TestStatisticalFunctions(unittest.TestCase):

def test_average(self):
self.assertEqual(average([20, 30, 70]), 40.0)
self.assertEqual(round(average([1, 5, 7]), 1), 4.3)
with self.assertRaises(ZeroDivisionError):
average([])
with self.assertRaises(TypeError):
average(20, 30, 70)

unittest.main() # Calling from the command line invokes all tests

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10.12 Batteries Included

Python has a “batteries included” philosophy. This is best seen through the sophisticated and robust capabilities of its
larger packages. For example:
• The xmlrpc.client and xmlrpc.server modules make implementing remote procedure calls into an al-
most trivial task. Despite the modules’ names, no direct knowledge or handling of XML is needed.
• The email package is a library for managing email messages, including MIME and other RFC 2822-based mes-
sage documents. Unlike smtplib and poplib which actually send and receive messages, the email package
has a complete toolset for building or decoding complex message structures (including attachments) and for imple-
menting internet encoding and header protocols.
• The json package provides robust support for parsing this popular data interchange format. The csv module
supports direct reading and writing of files in Comma-Separated Value format, commonly supported by databases
and spreadsheets. XML processing is supported by the xml.etree.ElementTree, xml.dom and xml.sax
packages. Together, these modules and packages greatly simplify data interchange between Python applications and
other tools.
• The sqlite3 module is a wrapper for the SQLite database library, providing a persistent database that can be
updated and accessed using slightly nonstandard SQL syntax.
• Internationalization is supported by a number of modules including gettext, locale, and the codecs pack-
age.

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This second tour covers more advanced modules that support professional programming needs. These modules rarely
occur in small scripts.

11.1 Output Formatting

The reprlib module provides a version of repr() customized for abbreviated displays of large or deeply nested
containers:

>>> import reprlib

>>> reprlib.repr(set('supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'))
"{'a', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', ...}"

The pprint module offers more sophisticated control over printing both built-in and user defined objects in a way that
is readable by the interpreter. When the result is longer than one line, the “pretty printer” adds line breaks and indentation
to more clearly reveal data structure:

>>> import pprint

>>> t = [[[['black', 'cyan'], 'white', ['green', 'red']], [['magenta',
... 'yellow'], 'blue']]]
...
>>> pprint.pprint(t, width=30)
[[[['black', 'cyan'],
'white',
['green', 'red']],
[['magenta', 'yellow'],
'blue']]]

The textwrap module formats paragraphs of text to fit a given screen width:

>>> import textwrap

>>> doc = """The wrap() method is just like fill() except that it returns
... a list of strings instead of one big string with newlines to separate
... the wrapped lines."""
...
>>> print(textwrap.fill(doc, width=40))
The wrap() method is just like fill()
except that it returns a list of strings
instead of one big string with newlines
to separate the wrapped lines.

The locale module accesses a database of culture specific data formats. The grouping attribute of locale’s format
function provides a direct way of formatting numbers with group separators:

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>>> import locale

>>> locale.setlocale(locale.LC_ALL, 'English_United States.1252')
'English_United States.1252'
>>> conv = locale.localeconv() # get a mapping of conventions
>>> x = 1234567.8
>>> locale.format_string("%d", x, grouping=True)
'1,234,567'
>>> locale.format_string("%s%.*f", (conv['currency_symbol'],
... conv['frac_digits'], x), grouping=True)
'$1,234,567.80'

11.2 Templating

The string module includes a versatile Template class with a simplified syntax suitable for editing by end-users.
This allows users to customize their applications without having to alter the application.
The format uses placeholder names formed by $ with valid Python identifiers (alphanumeric characters and underscores).
Surrounding the placeholder with braces allows it to be followed by more alphanumeric letters with no intervening spaces.
Writing $$ creates a single escaped $:

>>> from string import Template

>>> t = Template('${village}folk send $$10 to $cause.')
>>> t.substitute(village='Nottingham', cause='the ditch fund')
'Nottinghamfolk send $10 to the ditch fund.'

The substitute() method raises a KeyError when a placeholder is not supplied in a dictionary or a keyword
argument. For mail-merge style applications, user supplied data may be incomplete and the safe_substitute()
method may be more appropriate — it will leave placeholders unchanged if data is missing:

>>> t = Template('Return the $item to $owner.')

>>> d = dict(item='unladen swallow')
>>> t.substitute(d)
Traceback (most recent call last):
...
KeyError: 'owner'
>>> t.safe_substitute(d)
'Return the unladen swallow to $owner.'

Template subclasses can specify a custom delimiter. For example, a batch renaming utility for a photo browser may elect
to use percent signs for placeholders such as the current date, image sequence number, or file format:

>>> import time, os.path

>>> photofiles = ['img_1074.jpg', 'img_1076.jpg', 'img_1077.jpg']
>>> class BatchRename(Template):
... delimiter = '%'
...
>>> fmt = input('Enter rename style (%d-date %n-seqnum %f-format): ')
Enter rename style (%d-date %n-seqnum %f-format): Ashley_%n%f

>>> t = BatchRename(fmt)
>>> date = time.strftime('%d%b%y')
>>> for i, filename in enumerate(photofiles):
... base, ext = os.path.splitext(filename)
... newname = t.substitute(d=date, n=i, f=ext)
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(continued from previous page)

... print('{0} --> {1}'.format(filename, newname))

img_1074.jpg --> Ashley_0.jpg

img_1076.jpg --> Ashley_1.jpg
img_1077.jpg --> Ashley_2.jpg

Another application for templating is separating program logic from the details of multiple output formats. This makes it
possible to substitute custom templates for XML files, plain text reports, and HTML web reports.

11.3 Working with Binary Data Record Layouts

The struct module provides pack() and unpack() functions for working with variable length binary record for-
mats. The following example shows how to loop through header information in a ZIP file without using the zipfile
module. Pack codes "H" and "I" represent two and four byte unsigned numbers respectively. The "<" indicates that
they are standard size and in little-endian byte order:

import struct

with open('myfile.zip', 'rb') as f:

data = f.read()

start = 0
for i in range(3): # show the first 3 file headers
start += 14
fields = struct.unpack('<IIIHH', data[start:start+16])
crc32, comp_size, uncomp_size, filenamesize, extra_size = fields

start += 16
filename = data[start:start+filenamesize]
start += filenamesize
extra = data[start:start+extra_size]
print(filename, hex(crc32), comp_size, uncomp_size)

start += extra_size + comp_size # skip to the next header

11.4 Multi-threading

Threading is a technique for decoupling tasks which are not sequentially dependent. Threads can be used to improve
the responsiveness of applications that accept user input while other tasks run in the background. A related use case is
running I/O in parallel with computations in another thread.
The following code shows how the high level threading module can run tasks in background while the main program
continues to run:

import threading, zipfile

class AsyncZip(threading.Thread):
def __init__(self, infile, outfile):
threading.Thread.__init__(self)
self.infile = infile
self.outfile = outfile
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def run(self):
f = zipfile.ZipFile(self.outfile, 'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
f.write(self.infile)
f.close()
print('Finished background zip of:', self.infile)

background = AsyncZip('mydata.txt', 'myarchive.zip')

background.start()
print('The main program continues to run in foreground.')

background.join() # Wait for the background task to finish

print('Main program waited until background was done.')

The principal challenge of multi-threaded applications is coordinating threads that share data or other resources. To that
end, the threading module provides a number of synchronization primitives including locks, events, condition variables,
and semaphores.
While those tools are powerful, minor design errors can result in problems that are difficult to reproduce. So, the preferred
approach to task coordination is to concentrate all access to a resource in a single thread and then use the queue module
to feed that thread with requests from other threads. Applications using Queue objects for inter-thread communication
and coordination are easier to design, more readable, and more reliable.

11.5 Logging

The logging module offers a full featured and flexible logging system. At its simplest, log messages are sent to a file
or to sys.stderr:

import logging
logging.debug('Debugging information')
logging.info('Informational message')
logging.warning('Warning:config file %s not found', 'server.conf')
logging.error('Error occurred')
logging.critical('Critical error -- shutting down')

This produces the following output:

WARNING:root:Warning:config file server.conf not found

ERROR:root:Error occurred
CRITICAL:root:Critical error -- shutting down

By default, informational and debugging messages are suppressed and the output is sent to standard error. Other output
options include routing messages through email, datagrams, sockets, or to an HTTP Server. New filters can select different
routing based on message priority: DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, and CRITICAL.
The logging system can be configured directly from Python or can be loaded from a user editable configuration file for
customized logging without altering the application.

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11.6 Weak References

Python does automatic memory management (reference counting for most objects and garbage collection to eliminate
cycles). The memory is freed shortly after the last reference to it has been eliminated.
This approach works fine for most applications but occasionally there is a need to track objects only as long as they are
being used by something else. Unfortunately, just tracking them creates a reference that makes them permanent. The
weakref module provides tools for tracking objects without creating a reference. When the object is no longer needed,
it is automatically removed from a weakref table and a callback is triggered for weakref objects. Typical applications
include caching objects that are expensive to create:

>>> import weakref, gc

>>> class A:
... def __init__(self, value):
... self.value = value
... def __repr__(self):
... return str(self.value)
...
>>> a = A(10) # create a reference
>>> d = weakref.WeakValueDictionary()
>>> d['primary'] = a # does not create a reference
>>> d['primary'] # fetch the object if it is still alive
10
>>> del a # remove the one reference
>>> gc.collect() # run garbage collection right away
0
>>> d['primary'] # entry was automatically removed
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
d['primary'] # entry was automatically removed
File "C:/python312/lib/weakref.py", line 46, in __getitem__
o = self.data[key]()
KeyError: 'primary'

11.7 Tools for Working with Lists

Many data structure needs can be met with the built-in list type. However, sometimes there is a need for alternative
implementations with different performance trade-offs.
The array module provides an array() object that is like a list that stores only homogeneous data and stores it more
compactly. The following example shows an array of numbers stored as two byte unsigned binary numbers (typecode
"H") rather than the usual 16 bytes per entry for regular lists of Python int objects:

>>> from array import array

>>> a = array('H', [4000, 10, 700, 22222])
>>> sum(a)
26932
>>> a[1:3]
array('H', [10, 700])

The collections module provides a deque() object that is like a list with faster appends and pops from the left side
but slower lookups in the middle. These objects are well suited for implementing queues and breadth first tree searches:

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>>> from collections import deque

>>> d = deque(["task1", "task2", "task3"])
>>> d.append("task4")
>>> print("Handling", d.popleft())
Handling task1

unsearched = deque([starting_node])
def breadth_first_search(unsearched):
node = unsearched.popleft()
for m in gen_moves(node):
if is_goal(m):
return m
unsearched.append(m)

In addition to alternative list implementations, the library also offers other tools such as the bisect module with functions
for manipulating sorted lists:

>>> import bisect

>>> scores = [(100, 'perl'), (200, 'tcl'), (400, 'lua'), (500, 'python')]
>>> bisect.insort(scores, (300, 'ruby'))
>>> scores
[(100, 'perl'), (200, 'tcl'), (300, 'ruby'), (400, 'lua'), (500, 'python')]

The heapq module provides functions for implementing heaps based on regular lists. The lowest valued entry is always
kept at position zero. This is useful for applications which repeatedly access the smallest element but do not want to run
a full list sort:

>>> from heapq import heapify, heappop, heappush

>>> data = [1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 2, 4, 6, 8, 0]
>>> heapify(data) # rearrange the list into heap order
>>> heappush(data, -5) # add a new entry
>>> [heappop(data) for i in range(3)] # fetch the three smallest entries
[-5, 0, 1]

11.8 Decimal Floating Point Arithmetic

The decimal module offers a Decimal datatype for decimal floating point arithmetic. Compared to the built-in
float implementation of binary floating point, the class is especially helpful for
• financial applications and other uses which require exact decimal representation,
• control over precision,
• control over rounding to meet legal or regulatory requirements,
• tracking of significant decimal places, or
• applications where the user expects the results to match calculations done by hand.
For example, calculating a 5% tax on a 70 cent phone charge gives different results in decimal floating point and binary
floating point. The difference becomes significant if the results are rounded to the nearest cent:

>>> from decimal import *

>>> round(Decimal('0.70') * Decimal('1.05'), 2)
Decimal('0.74')
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>>> round(.70 * 1.05, 2)
0.73

The Decimal result keeps a trailing zero, automatically inferring four place significance from multiplicands with two
place significance. Decimal reproduces mathematics as done by hand and avoids issues that can arise when binary floating
point cannot exactly represent decimal quantities.
Exact representation enables the Decimal class to perform modulo calculations and equality tests that are unsuitable for
binary floating point:

>>> Decimal('1.00') % Decimal('.10')

Decimal('0.00')
>>> 1.00 % 0.10
0.09999999999999995

>>> sum([Decimal('0.1')]*10) == Decimal('1.0')

True
>>> 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 + 0.1 == 1.0
False

The decimal module provides arithmetic with as much precision as needed:

>>> getcontext().prec = 36
>>> Decimal(1) / Decimal(7)
Decimal('0.142857142857142857142857142857142857')

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VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS AND PACKAGES

12.1 Introduction

Python applications will often use packages and modules that don’t come as part of the standard library. Applications will
sometimes need a specific version of a library, because the application may require that a particular bug has been fixed or
the application may be written using an obsolete version of the library’s interface.
This means it may not be possible for one Python installation to meet the requirements of every application. If application
A needs version 1.0 of a particular module but application B needs version 2.0, then the requirements are in conflict and
installing either version 1.0 or 2.0 will leave one application unable to run.
The solution for this problem is to create a virtual environment, a self-contained directory tree that contains a Python
installation for a particular version of Python, plus a number of additional packages.
Different applications can then use different virtual environments. To resolve the earlier example of conflicting require-
ments, application A can have its own virtual environment with version 1.0 installed while application B has another
virtual environment with version 2.0. If application B requires a library be upgraded to version 3.0, this will not affect
application A’s environment.

12.2 Creating Virtual Environments

The module used to create and manage virtual environments is called venv. venv will usually install the most recent
version of Python that you have available. If you have multiple versions of Python on your system, you can select a specific
Python version by running python3 or whichever version you want.
To create a virtual environment, decide upon a directory where you want to place it, and run the venv module as a script
with the directory path:

python -m venv tutorial-env

This will create the tutorial-env directory if it doesn’t exist, and also create directories inside it containing a copy
of the Python interpreter and various supporting files.
A common directory location for a virtual environment is .venv. This name keeps the directory typically hidden in your
shell and thus out of the way while giving it a name that explains why the directory exists. It also prevents clashing with
.env environment variable definition files that some tooling supports.
Once you’ve created a virtual environment, you may activate it.
On Windows, run:

tutorial-env\Scripts\activate

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On Unix or MacOS, run:

source tutorial-env/bin/activate

(This script is written for the bash shell. If you use the csh or fish shells, there are alternate activate.csh and
activate.fish scripts you should use instead.)
Activating the virtual environment will change your shell’s prompt to show what virtual environment you’re using, and
modify the environment so that running python will get you that particular version and installation of Python. For
example:

$ source ~/envs/tutorial-env/bin/activate
(tutorial-env) $ python
Python 3.5.1 (default, May 6 2016, 10:59:36)
...
>>> import sys
>>> sys.path
['', '/usr/local/lib/python35.zip', ...,
'~/envs/tutorial-env/lib/python3.5/site-packages']
>>>

To deactivate a virtual environment, type:

deactivate

into the terminal.

12.3 Managing Packages with pip

You can install, upgrade, and remove packages using a program called pip. By default pip will install packages from
the Python Package Index. You can browse the Python Package Index by going to it in your web browser.
pip has a number of subcommands: “install”, “uninstall”, “freeze”, etc. (Consult the installing-index guide for complete
documentation for pip.)
You can install the latest version of a package by specifying a package’s name:

(tutorial-env) $ python -m pip install novas

Collecting novas
Downloading novas-3.1.1.3.tar.gz (136kB)
Installing collected packages: novas
Running setup.py install for novas
Successfully installed novas-3.1.1.3

You can also install a specific version of a package by giving the package name followed by == and the version number:

(tutorial-env) $ python -m pip install requests==2.6.0

Collecting requests==2.6.0
Using cached requests-2.6.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: requests
Successfully installed requests-2.6.0

If you re-run this command, pip will notice that the requested version is already installed and do nothing. You can supply
a different version number to get that version, or you can run python -m pip install --upgrade to upgrade
the package to the latest version:

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(tutorial-env) $ python -m pip install --upgrade requests

Collecting requests
Installing collected packages: requests
Found existing installation: requests 2.6.0
Uninstalling requests-2.6.0:
Successfully uninstalled requests-2.6.0
Successfully installed requests-2.7.0

python -m pip uninstall followed by one or more package names will remove the packages from the virtual
environment.
python -m pip show will display information about a particular package:

(tutorial-env) $ python -m pip show requests

---
Metadata-Version: 2.0
Name: requests
Version: 2.7.0
Summary: Python HTTP for Humans.
Home-page: http://python-requests.org
Author: Kenneth Reitz
Author-email: [email protected]
License: Apache 2.0
Location: /Users/akuchling/envs/tutorial-env/lib/python3.4/site-packages
Requires:

python -m pip list will display all of the packages installed in the virtual environment:

(tutorial-env) $ python -m pip list

novas (3.1.1.3)
numpy (1.9.2)
pip (7.0.3)
requests (2.7.0)
setuptools (16.0)

python -m pip freeze will produce a similar list of the installed packages, but the output uses the format that
python -m pip install expects. A common convention is to put this list in a requirements.txt file:

(tutorial-env) $ python -m pip freeze > requirements.txt

(tutorial-env) $ cat requirements.txt
novas==3.1.1.3
numpy==1.9.2
requests==2.7.0

The requirements.txt can then be committed to version control and shipped as part of an application. Users can
then install all the necessary packages with install -r:

(tutorial-env) $ python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Collecting novas==3.1.1.3 (from -r requirements.txt (line 1))
...
Collecting numpy==1.9.2 (from -r requirements.txt (line 2))
...
Collecting requests==2.7.0 (from -r requirements.txt (line 3))
...
Installing collected packages: novas, numpy, requests
Running setup.py install for novas
Successfully installed novas-3.1.1.3 numpy-1.9.2 requests-2.7.0

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pip has many more options. Consult the installing-index guide for complete documentation for pip. When you’ve
written a package and want to make it available on the Python Package Index, consult the Python packaging user guide.

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THIRTEEN

WHAT NOW?

Reading this tutorial has probably reinforced your interest in using Python — you should be eager to apply Python to
solving your real-world problems. Where should you go to learn more?
This tutorial is part of Python’s documentation set. Some other documents in the set are:
• library-index:
You should browse through this manual, which gives complete (though terse) reference material about types,
functions, and the modules in the standard library. The standard Python distribution includes a lot of additional
code. There are modules to read Unix mailboxes, retrieve documents via HTTP, generate random numbers, parse
command-line options, compress data, and many other tasks. Skimming through the Library Reference will give
you an idea of what’s available.
• installing-index explains how to install additional modules written by other Python users.
• reference-index: A detailed explanation of Python’s syntax and semantics. It’s heavy reading, but is useful as a
complete guide to the language itself.
More Python resources:
• https://www.python.org: The major Python web site. It contains code, documentation, and pointers to Python-
related pages around the web.
• https://docs.python.org: Fast access to Python’s documentation.
• https://pypi.org: The Python Package Index, previously also nicknamed the Cheese Shop1 , is an index of user-
created Python modules that are available for download. Once you begin releasing code, you can register it here so
that others can find it.
• https://code.activestate.com/recipes/langs/python/: The Python Cookbook is a sizable collection of code examples,
larger modules, and useful scripts. Particularly notable contributions are collected in a book also titled Python
Cookbook (O’Reilly & Associates, ISBN 0-596-00797-3.)
• https://pyvideo.org collects links to Python-related videos from conferences and user-group meetings.
• https://scipy.org: The Scientific Python project includes modules for fast array computations and manipulations
plus a host of packages for such things as linear algebra, Fourier transforms, non-linear solvers, random number
distributions, statistical analysis and the like.
For Python-related questions and problem reports, you can post to the newsgroup comp.lang.python, or send them
to the mailing list at [email protected]. The newsgroup and mailing list are gatewayed, so messages posted to one
will automatically be forwarded to the other. There are hundreds of postings a day, asking (and answering) questions,
suggesting new features, and announcing new modules. Mailing list archives are available at https://mail.python.org/
pipermail/.
Before posting, be sure to check the list of Frequently Asked Questions (also called the FAQ). The FAQ answers many
of the questions that come up again and again, and may already contain the solution for your problem.
1 “Cheese Shop” is a Monty Python’s sketch: a customer enters a cheese shop, but whatever cheese he asks for, the clerk says it’s missing.

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FOURTEEN

INTERACTIVE INPUT EDITING AND HISTORY SUBSTITUTION

Some versions of the Python interpreter support editing of the current input line and history substitution, similar to
facilities found in the Korn shell and the GNU Bash shell. This is implemented using the GNU Readline library, which
supports various styles of editing. This library has its own documentation which we won’t duplicate here.

14.1 Tab Completion and History Editing

Completion of variable and module names is automatically enabled at interpreter startup so that the Tab key invokes
the completion function; it looks at Python statement names, the current local variables, and the available module names.
For dotted expressions such as string.a, it will evaluate the expression up to the final '.' and then suggest comple-
tions from the attributes of the resulting object. Note that this may execute application-defined code if an object with a
__getattr__() method is part of the expression. The default configuration also saves your history into a file named
.python_history in your user directory. The history will be available again during the next interactive interpreter
session.

14.2 Alternatives to the Interactive Interpreter

This facility is an enormous step forward compared to earlier versions of the interpreter; however, some wishes are left:
It would be nice if the proper indentation were suggested on continuation lines (the parser knows if an indent token is
required next). The completion mechanism might use the interpreter’s symbol table. A command to check (or even
suggest) matching parentheses, quotes, etc., would also be useful.
One alternative enhanced interactive interpreter that has been around for quite some time is IPython, which features tab
completion, object exploration and advanced history management. It can also be thoroughly customized and embedded
into other applications. Another similar enhanced interactive environment is bpython.

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