Python

Programming

Compiled by SEED Infotech Ltd.

Issue No./ Date : 01 / Dec. 02, 2022

Revision No. & Date : 00 / Dec. 02, 2022
Complied by SEED Infotech Ltd. Pune, India.
 Python Tutorial
Release 3.6.4

Guido van Rossum and the Python development team

January 11, 2018

Python Software Foundation Email: docs@[Link]

 CONTENTS

Whetting Your Appetite 3

Using the Python Interpreter 6

An Informal Introduction to Python 9

More Control Flow Tools 18

Data Structures 31

Modules 41

Input and Output 52

Errors and Exceptions 65

Classes 66

Brief Tour of the Standard Library 82

Brief Tour of the Standard Library — Part II 89

Virtual Environments and Packages 96

What Now? 109

Interactive Input Editing and History Substitution 111

Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and Limitations 113

Appendix 110

A Glossary 112

B About these documents 138

C History and License 139

CONTENTS 1
Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Python is an easy to learn, powerful programming language. It has
efficient high-level data structures and a simple but effective approach to
object-oriented programming. Python’s elegant syntax and dynamic
typing, together with its interpreted nature, make it an ideal language for
scripting and rapid application development in many areas on most
platforms.
The Python interpreter and the extensive standard library are freely
available in source or binary form for all major platforms from the Python
Web site, [Link] and may be freely distributed. The
same site also contains distributions of and pointers to many free third
party Python modules, programs and tools, and additional
documentation.
The Python interpreter is easily extended with new functions and data
types implemented in C or C++ (or other languages callable from C).
Python is also suitable as an extension language for customizable
applications.
This tutorial introduces the reader informally to the basic concepts and
features of the Python language and system. It helps to have a Python
interpreter handy for hands-on experience, but all examples are self-
contained, so the tutorial can be read off-line as well.
For a description of standard objects and modules, see library-index.
reference-index gives a more formal definition of the language. To write
extensions in C or C++, read extending-index and c-api-index. There are
also several books covering Python in depth.
This tutorial does not attempt to be comprehensive and cover every single
feature, or even every commonly used feature. Instead, it introduces
many of Python’s most noteworthy features, and will give you a good
idea of the language’s flavor and style. After reading it, you will be able
to read and write Python modules and programs, and you will be ready
to learn more about the various Python library modules described in
library-index.
The Glossary is also worth going through.

2 CONTENTS
 ONE

WHETTING YOUR APPETITE

If you do much work on computers, eventually you find that there’s

some task you’d like to automate. For example, you may wish to perform
a search-and-replace over a large number of text files, or rename and
rearrange a bunch of photo files in a complicated way. Perhaps you’d like
to write a small custom database, or a specialized GUI application, or a
simple game.
If you’re a professional software developer, you may have to work with
several C/C++/Java libraries but find the usual write/compile/test/re-
compile cycle is too slow. Perhaps you’re writing a test suite for such a
library and find writing the testing code a tedious task. Or maybe you’ve
written a program that could use an extension language, and you don’t
want to design and implement a whole new language for your
application.
Python is just the language for you.
You could write a Unix shell script or Windows batch files for some of
these tasks, but shell scripts are best at moving around files and
changing text data, not well-suited for GUI applications or games. You
could write a C/C++/Java program, but it can take a lot of development
time to get even a first-draft program. Python is simpler to use,
available on Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix operating systems, and will
help you get the job done more quickly.
Python is simple to use, but it is a real programming language, offering
much more structure and support for large programs than shell scripts or
batch files can offer. On the other hand, Python also offers much more
error checking than C, and, being a very-high-level language, it has high-
level data types built in, such as flexible arrays and dictionaries. Because
of its more general data types Python is applicable to a much larger
problem domain than Awk or even Perl, yet many things are at least as
easy in Python as in those languages.
Python allows you to split your program into modules that can be reused
3
 in other Python programs. It comes with a large collection of standard
modules that you can use as the basis of your programs — or as
examples to start learning to program in Python. Some of these modules
provide things like file I/O, system calls, sockets, and even interfaces to
graphical user interface toolkits like Tk.
Python is an interpreted language, which can save you considerable time
during program development because no compilation and linking is
necessary. The interpreter can be used interactively, which makes it easy
to experiment with features of the language, to write throw-away
programs, or to test functions during bottom-up program development.
It is also a handy desk calculator.
Python enables programs to be written compactly and readably.
Programs written in Python are typically much shorter than equivalent
C, C++, or Java programs, for several reasons:
• the high-level data types allow you to express complex operations in a single
statement;
• statement grouping is done by indentation instead of beginning and ending
brackets;
• no variable or argument declarations are necessary.
Python is extensible: if you know how to program in C it is easy to add a
new built-in function or module to the interpreter, either to perform
critical operations at maximum speed, or to link Python programs to
libraries that may only be available in binary form (such as a vendor-
specific graphics library). Once you are really hooked, you can link the
Python interpreter into an application written in C and use it as an
extension or command language for that application.
By the way, the language is named after the BBC show “Monty Python’s
Flying Circus” and has nothing to do with reptiles. Making references to
Monty Python skits in documentation is not only allowed, it is
encouraged!
Now that you are all excited about Python, you’ll want to examine it in
some more detail. Since the best way to learn a language is to use it, the
tutorial invites you to play with the Python interpreter as you read.
4 Chapter 1. Whetting Your Appetite
In the next chapter, the mechanics of using the interpreter are explained.
This is rather mundane information, but essential for trying out the
examples shown later.
The rest of the tutorial introduces various features of the Python
language and system through examples, beginning with simple
expressions, statements and data types, through functions and modules,
and finally touching upon advanced concepts like exceptions and user-
defined classes.

5
 TWO

USING THE PYTHON INTERPRETER

2.1 Invoking the Interpreter

The Python interpreter is usually installed as

/usr/local/bin/python3.6 on those machines where it is available;
python3.6

putting /usr/local/bin in your Unix shell’s search path makes it

possible to start it by typing the command:
to the shell.1 Since the choice of the directory where the interpreter lives
is an installation option, other places are possible; check with your local
Python guru or system administrator. (E.g., /usr/local/python is a
popular alternative location.)
On Windows machines, the Python installation is usually placed in
C:\Python36, though you can change this when you’re running the
set path=%path%;C:\python36

installer. To add this directory to your path, you can type the following
command into the command prompt in a DOS box:
Typing an end-of-file character (Control-D on Unix, Control-Z on
Windows) at the primary prompt causes the interpreter to exit with a zero
exit status. If that doesn’t work, you can exit the interpreter by typing the
following command: quit().
The interpreter’s line-editing features include interactive editing, history
substitution and code completion on systems that support readline.
Perhaps the quickest check to see whether command line editing is
supported is typing Control-P to the first Python prompt you get. If it
6 Chapter 1. Whetting Your Appetite
beeps, you have command line editing; see Appendix Interactive Input
Editing and History Substitution for an introduction to the keys. If nothing
appears to happen, or if ^P is echoed, command line editing isn’t
available; you’ll only be able to use backspace to remove characters from
the current line.
The interpreter operates somewhat like the Unix shell: when called with
standard input connected to a tty device, it reads and executes
commands interactively; when called with a file name argument or with
a file as standard input, it reads and executes a script from that file.
A second way of starting the interpreter is python -c command [arg]
..., which executes the statement(s) in command, analogous to the shell’s
-c option. Since Python statements often contain spaces or other
characters that are special to the shell, it is usually advised to quote
command in its entirety with single quotes.
Some Python modules are also useful as scripts. These can be invoked
using python -m module [arg] ..., which executes the source file for
module as if you had spelled out its full name on the command line.
When a script file is used, it is sometimes useful to be able to run the

script and enter interactive mode afterwards. This can be done by

passing -i before the script.
On Unix, the Python 3.x interpreter is by default not installed with the
executable named python, so that it does not conflict with a
simultaneously installed Python 2.x executable.

7
 All command line options are described in using-on-general.

2.1.1 Argument Passing

When known to the interpreter, the script name and additional

arguments thereafter are turned into a list of strings and assigned to the
argv variable in the sys module. You can access this list by executing
import sys. The length of the list is at least one; when no script and no
arguments are given, [Link][0] is an empty string. When the script
name is given as '-' (meaning standard input), [Link][0] is set to
'-'. When -c command is used, [Link][0] is set to '-c'. When -m
module is used, [Link][0] is set to the full name of the located
module. Options found after -c command or -m module are not
consumed by the Python interpreter’s option processing but left in
[Link] for the command or module to handle.

2.1.2 Interactive Mode

When commands are read from a tty, the interpreter is said to be in

interactive mode. In this mode it prompts for the next command with

$ python3.6

Python 3.6 (default, Sep

16 2015, 09:25:04) [GCC
4.8.2] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for
more information.
>>>

6 Chapter 2. Using the Python Interpreter

 the primary prompt, usually three greater-than signs (>>>); for
continuation lines it prompts with the secondary prompt, by default three
dots (...). The interpreter prints a welcome message stating its version
number and a copyright notice before printing the first prompt:
Continuation lines are needed when entering a multi-line construct. As
an example, take a look at this if
>>> the_world_is_flat = True
>>> if the_world_is_flat:
... print("Be careful not to fall off!")
...
Be careful not to fall off!

statement:For more on interactive mode, see Interactive Mode.

2.2 The Interpreter and Its Environment

2.2.1 Source Code Encoding

By default, Python source files are treated as encoded in UTF-8. In that

encoding, characters of most languages in the world can be used
simultaneously in string literals, identifiers and comments — although
the standard library only uses ASCII characters for identifiers, a
convention that any portable code should follow. To display all these
characters properly, your editor must recognize that the file is UTF-8,
and it must use a font that supports all the characters in the file.
To declare an encoding other than the default one, a special comment

# -*- coding: encoding -*-

line should be added as the first line of the file. The syntax is as follows:
where encoding is one of the valid codecs supported by Python.

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For example, to declare that Windows-1252 encoding is to be used, the

# -*- coding: cp-1252 -*-

first line of your source code file should be:

One exception to the first line rule is when the source code starts with a
UNIX “shebang” line. In this case, the encoding declaration should be
added as the second line of the file. For example:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# -*- coding: cp-1252 -*-

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CHAPTER
THREE

AN INFORMAL INTRODUCTION TO PYTHON

In the following examples, input and output are distinguished by the

presence or absence of prompts (>>> and …): to repeat the example, you
must type everything after the prompt, when the prompt appears; lines
that do not begin with a prompt are output from the interpreter. Note
that a secondary prompt on a line by itself in an example means you
must type a blank line; this is used to end a multi-line command.
Many of the examples in this manual, even those entered at the
interactive prompt, include comments. Comments in Python start with
the hash character, #, and extend to the end of the physical line. A
comment may appear at the start of a line or following whitespace or
code, but not within a string literal. A hash character within a string
literal is just a hash character. Since comments are to clarify code and are
not interpreted by Python, they may be omitted when typing in
examples.

# this is the first comment

spam = 1 # and this is
the second comment
# ... and now a
third!
text = "# This is not a comment because it's inside
quotes."

Some examples:

3.1 Using Python as a Calculator

Let’s try some simple Python commands. Start the interpreter and wait
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for the primary prompt, >>>. (It shouldn’t take long.)

3.1.1 Numbers
The interpreter acts as a simple calculator: you can type an expression at
it and it will write the value. Expression syntax is straightforward:
>>> 2 + 2

4
>>> 50
- 5*6
20
>>> (50 - 5*6) / 4

5.0
>>> 8 / 5 # division always returns a floating point
number
1.6

the operators +, -, * and / work just like in most other languages (for
example, Pascal or C); parentheses (()) can be used for grouping. For
example:
The integer numbers (e.g. 2, 4, 20) have type int, the ones with a
fractional part (e.g. 5.0, 1.6) have type
float. We will see more about numeric types later in the tutorial.

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Division (/) always returns a float. To do floor division and get an integer

>>> 17 / 3 # classic division returns a float

5.666666666666667
>>>
>>> 17 // 3 # floor division discards the fractional
part
5
>>> 17 % 3 # the % operator returns the remainder of
the division
2
>>> 5 * 3 + 2 # result * divisor + remainder
17

result (discarding any fractional result) you can use the // operator; to
calculate the remainder you can use %:
With Python, it is possible to use the ** operator to calculate powers1:
>>> 5 ** 2 # 5 squared

25
>>> 2 ** 7 # 2 to the power of 7
128

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The equal sign (=) is used to assign a value to a variable. Afterwards, no

>>> width = 20
>>> height = 5 * 9
>>> width
* height
900

result is displayed before the next interactive prompt:

If a variable is not “defined” (assigned a value), trying to use it will give
you an error:
>>> n # try to access an undefined variable

Traceback (most
recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line
1, in <module>
NameError: name 'n' is not defined

There is full support for floating point; operators with mixed type
>>> 4 * 3.75 - 1
14.0

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operands convert the integer operand to floating point:
In interactive mode, the last printed expression is assigned to the
variable _. This means that when you are using Python as a desk
calculator, it is somewhat easier to continue calculations, for example:
>>> tax = 12.5 / 100
>>> price = 100.50
>>>
price *
tax
12.5625
>>>
price +
_
113.06
25
>>> round(_, 2)
113.06

This variable should be treated as read-only by the user. Don’t explicitly assign
a value to it — you would create an independent local variable with the same
name masking the built-in variable with its magic behavior.

Since ** has higher precedence than -, -3**2 will be interpreted as -

(3**2) and thus result in -9. To avoid this and get
9, you can use (-3)**2.

In addition to int and float, Python supports other types of numbers,

such as Decimal and Fraction. Python also has built-in support for
complex numbers, and uses the j or J suffix to indicate the imaginary

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part (e.g. 3+5j).

3.1.2 Strings

Besides numbers, Python can also manipulate strings, which can be

expressed in several ways. They can be enclosed in single quotes
>>> 'spam eggs' # single quotes

'spam eggs'
>>> 'doesn\'t' # use \' to escape the single quote...

"doesn't"
>>> "doesn't" # ...or use double quotes instead

"doesn't"
>>> '"Yes," he said.'

'"Yes," he said.'
>>> "\"Yes,\"
he said."
'"Yes," he
said.'
>>> '"Isn\'t," she said.'
'"Isn\'t," she said.'

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('...') or double quotes ("...") with the same result2. \ can be used
to escape quotes:
In the interactive interpreter, the output string is enclosed in quotes and
special characters are escaped with backslashes. While this might
sometimes look different from the input (the enclosing quotes could
change), the two strings are equivalent. The string is enclosed in double
quotes if the string contains a single quote and no double quotes,
otherwise it is enclosed in single quotes. The print() function
produces a more readable output, by omitting the enclosing quotes and
by printing escaped and special characters:
>>> '"Isn\'t," she said.'
'"Isn\'t," she said.'
>>>
print('"Isn\'t,"
she said.')
"Isn't," she
said.
>>> s = 'First line.\nSecond line.' # \n means
newline
>>> s # without print(), \n is included in the
output
'First line.\nSecond line.'
>>> print(s) # with print(), \n produces a new line
First
line.
Second
line.

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If you don’t want characters prefaced by \ to be interpreted as special
characters, you can use raw strings
by adding an r before the first quote:
>>> print('C:\some\name') # here \n means newline!

C:\s
ome
ame
>>> print(r'C:\some\name') # note the r before the
quote
C:\some\name

String literals can span multiple lines. One way is using triple-quotes:
"""...""" or '''...'''. End of lines are automatically included in
the string, but it’s possible to prevent this by adding a \ at the end of the
line. The following example:

Unlike other languages, special characters such as \n have the same

meaning with both single ('...') and double ("...") quotes. The only
difference between the two is that within single quotes you don’t need to
escape " (but you have to escape \') and vice versa.

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print("""\

-h
-H Hostname to
hostname connect to
""")

produces the following output (note that the initial newline is not
included):
Strings can be concatenated (glued together) with the + operator, and
repeated with *:
>>> # 3 times 'un', followed by 'ium'
>>> 3 *
'un' +
'ium'
'unununium
'

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Two or more string literals (i.e. the ones enclosed between quotes) next

>>> 'Py'
'thon'
'Python'

to each other are automatically concatenated.

This feature is particularly useful when you want to break long strings:
>>> text = ('Put several strings within parentheses
'
... 'to have them joined together.')
>>> text
'Put several strings within parentheses to have them
joined together.'

>>> prefix = 'Py'

>>> prefix 'thon' # can't concatenate a variable and a
string literal
...
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>> ('un' * 3) 'ium'

...
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

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This only works with two literals though, not with variables or
expressions:
If you want to concatenate variables or a variable and a literal, use +:
>>> prefix
+ 'thon'
'Python'

Strings can be indexed (subscripted), with the first character having index

>>> word = 'Python'

>>> word[0] # character in position 0

'P'
>>> word[5] # character in position 5

'n'
0. There is no separate character type; a character is simply a string of
size one:
Indices may also be negative numbers, to start counting from the right:

>>> word[-1] # last character

'n'
>>> word[-2] # second-last character

'o'
>>>
word[-
6] 'P'

Note that since -0 is the same as 0, negative indices start from -1.
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In addition to indexing, slicing is also supported. While indexing is used
to obtain individual characters,

>>> word[0:2] # characters from position 0 (included)

to 2 (excluded)
'Py'
>>> word[2:5] # characters from position 2 (included)
to 5 (excluded)
'tho'

slicing allows you to obtain substring:

Note how the start is always included, and the end always excluded. This
makes sure that s[:i] + s[i:]

>>> word[:2]
+ word[2:]
'Python'
>>> word[:4]
+ word[4:]
'Python'

is always equal to s:
Slice indices have useful defaults; an omitted first index defaults to zero,
an omitted second index defaults to the size of the string being sliced.

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>>> word[:2] # character from the beginning to
position 2 (excluded)
'Py'
>>> word[4:] # characters from position 4 (included)
to the end
'on'
>>> word[-2:] # characters from the second-last
(included) to the end
'on'

One way to remember how slices work is to think of the indices as

pointing between characters, with the left edge of the first character
numbered 0. Then the right edge of the last character of a string of n
+---+---+---+---+---+---+
| P | y | t | h | o | n |
+---+---+---+--
-+---+---+ 0 1
2 3 4 5 6
-6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1

characters has index n, for example:

The first row of numbers gives the position of the indices 0…6 in the
string; the second row gives the corresponding negative indices. The
slice from i to j consists of all characters between the edges labeled i and
j, respectively.
For non-negative indices, the length of a slice is the difference of the
indices, if both are within bounds. For example, the length of word[1:3]
is 2.

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Attempting to use an index that is too large will result in an error:
>>> 'J' + word[1:]
>>> word[42] # the word only has 6 characters
'Jython'
Traceback (most
>>> word[:2] + 'py'
recent call last):
'Pypy'
File "<stdin>", line
1, in <module>
IndexError: string index out of range

However, out of range slice indexes are handled gracefully when used
>>>
word[4:42]
'on'
>>>
word[42:
] ''

for slicing:
Python strings cannot be changed — they are immutable. Therefore,
assigning to an indexed position in the string results in an error:
>>> word[0] = 'J'

...
TypeError: 'str' object does not support item
assignment
>>> word[2:] = 'py'

...
If you need a different string, you should create a new one:
TypeError:
The 'str'len()
built-in function object does
returns thenot support
length item
of a string:
assignment
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 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
>>> s = 'supercalifragilisticexpialidocious'
>>>
len(s
) 34

See also:
 textseq Strings are examples of sequence types, and support the common
operations supported by such types.
 string-methods Strings support a large number of methods for
basic transformations and searching.
 f-strings String literals that have embedded expressions.
 formatstrings Information about string formatting with
[Link]().
 old-string-formatting The old formatting operations invoked when strings
are the left operand of the %

 operator are described in more detail here.

3.1.3 Lists

Python knows a number of compound data types, used to group together

other values. The most versatile is the list, which can be written as a list
>>> squares = [1, 4, 9, 16, 25]
>>> squares
[1, 4, 9, 16, 25]

of comma-separated values (items) between square brackets. Lists might

contain items of different types, but usually the items all have the same
type.
Like strings (and all other built-in sequence type), lists can be indexed and
sliced:

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>>> cubes = [1, 8, 27, 65, 125] # something's wrong

here
>>> 4 ** 3 # the cube of 4 is 64, not 65!

64
>>> cubes[3] = 64 # replace the wrong value
>>>
>>> cubes
squares[:
] [1,
[1, 8,4,27, 64, 125]
9, 16,
25]

>>> squares[-3:] # slicing returns a new list

[9, 16, 25]

All slice operations return a new list containing the requested elements.
This means that the following slice returns a new (shallow) copy of the
list:
Lists also support operations like concatenation:
>>> squares + [36, 49, 64, 81, 100]
[1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81, 100]

Unlike strings, which are immutable, lists are a mutable type, i.e. it is
possible to change their content:
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You can also add new items at the end of the list, by using the append()
method (we will see more about methods later):
>>> [Link](216) # add the cube of 6
>>> [Link](7 ** 3) # and the cube of 7
>>> cubes
[1, 8, 27, 64, 125, 216, 343]

>>> letters = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g']

>>> letters

['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g']

>>> # replace some values
>>> letters[2:5] = ['C', 'D', 'E']
>>> letters

['a', 'b', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'f', 'g']

>>> # now remove them
>>> letters[2:5] = []
>>> letters

['a', 'b', 'f', 'g']

>>> # clear the list by replacing all the elements with
an empty list
>>> letters[:] = []
>>>
letters
[]

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Assignment to slices is also possible, and this can even change the size of
the list or clear it entirely:
The built-in function len() also applies to lists:

>>> letters = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']

>>>
len(lette
rs) 4

It is possible to nest lists (create lists containing other lists), for example:

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>>> a = ['a', 'b', 'c']

>>> n = [1, 2, 3]
>>> x = [a, n]
>>> x

[['a', 'b', 'c'], [1, 2, 3]]

>>> x[0]

['a', 'b', 'c']

>>> x[0][1]

'b'

3.2 First Steps Towards Programming

Of course, we can use Python for more complicated tasks than adding

>>> # Fibonacci series:

... # the sum of two elements defines the next
... a, b = 0, 1
>>> while b < 10:
... print(b)
... a, b = b, a+b
...1123
58

two and two together. For instance, we can write an initial sub-sequence

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of the Fibonacci series as follows:
This example introduces several new features.
• The first line contains a multiple assignment: the variables a and b
simultaneously get the new values 0 and 1. On the last line this is used again,
demonstrating that the expressions on the right-hand side are all evaluated first
before any of the assignments take place. The right-hand side expressions are
evaluated from the left to the right.
• The while loop executes as long as the condition (here: b < 10) remains
true. In Python, like in C, any non-zero integer value is true; zero is false. The
condition may also be a string or list value, in fact any sequence; anything with
a non-zero length is true, empty sequences are false. The test used in the
example is a simple comparison. The standard comparison operators are
written the same as in C: < (less than), > (greater than), == (equal to), <=
(less than or equal to), >= (greater than or equal to) and != (not equal to).
• The body of the loop is indented: indentation is Python’s way of grouping
statements. At the interactive prompt, you have to type a tab or space(s) for
each indented line. In practice you will prepare more complicated input for
Python with a text editor; all decent text editors have an auto-indent facility.
When a compound statement is entered interactively, it must be followed by a
blank line to indicate completion (since the parser cannot guess when you have
typed the last line). Note that each line within a basic block must be indented
by the same amount.
• The print() function writes the value of the argument(s) it is given. It differs
from just writing the expression you want to write (as we did earlier in the
calculator examples) in the way it handles multiple arguments, floating point
quantities, and strings. Strings are printed without quotes, and a space is
inserted between items, so you can format things nicely, like this:

28 Chapter 3. An Informal Introduction to Python

>>> i = 256*256
>>> print('The
value of i is', i)
The value of i is
65536

The keyword argument end can be used to avoid the newline after the

>>> a, b = 0, 1
>>> while b < 1000:
... print(b, end=',')
... a, b = b, a+b
...
1,1,2,3,5,8,13,21,34,55,89,144,233,377,610,987,

output, or end the output with a different string:

3.2. First Steps Towards Programming 17

 CHAPTER
FOUR

MORE CONTROL FLOW TOOLS

Besides the while statement just introduced, Python knows the usual
control flow statements known from other languages, with some twists.

4.1 if Statements

>>> x = int(input("Please
enter an integer: "))
Please enter an integer:
42>>> if x < 0:
... x = 0... print('Negative changed to zero')
... elif x == 0:
... print('Zero')
... elif x == 1:
... print('Single')
... else:
... print('More')
...More

18 Chapter 3. An Informal Introduction to Python

 Perhaps the most well-known statement type is the if statement. For
example:
There can be zero or more elif parts, and the else part is optional. The
keyword ‘elif’ is short for ‘else if’, and is useful to avoid excessive
indentation. An if … elif … elif … sequence is a substitute for the
switch or case statements found in other languages.

4.2 for Statements

The for statement in Python differs a bit from what you may be used to
in C or Pascal. Rather than always iterating over an arithmetic

>>> # Measure some strings:

... words = ['cat', 'window', 'defenestrate']
>>> for w in words:
... print(w, len(w))
...

cat 3
window 6
defenestrate 12
progression of numbers (like in Pascal), or giving the user the ability to
define both the iteration step and halting condition (as C), Python’s for
statement iterates over the items of any sequence (a list or a string), in the
order that they appear in the sequence. For example (no pun intended):

If you need to modify the sequence you are iterating over while inside
the loop (for example to duplicate selected items), it is recommended
>>> for w in words[:]: # Loop over a slice copy of the
entire list.
... if len(w) > 6:
... [Link](0, w)
...
>>> words
['defenestrate', 'cat', 'window', 'defenestrate']

20 Chapter 3. An Informal Introduction to Python

 that you first make a copy. Iterating over a sequence does not implicitly
make a copy. The slice notation makes this especially convenient:
With for w in words:, the example would attempt to create an infinite
list, inserting defenestrate over and over again.

4.3 The range() Function

If you do need to iterate over a sequence of numbers, the built-in

>>> for i in range(5):

... print(i)
...

0
1
2
3
4

function range() comes in handy. It generates arithmetic progressions:

The given end point is never part of the generated sequence; range(10)
generates 10 values, the legal indices for items of a sequence of length 10.
It is possible to let the range start at another number, or to specify a
different increment (even negative; sometimes this is called the ‘step’):
>>> a = ['Mary', 'had', 'a', 'little', 'lamb']
>>> for i in range(len(a)):
... print(i, a[i])
...
0 Mary
1 had
2 a
3 little
4 lamb

range(5, 10)
5 through 9

range(0, 10, 3)
0, 3, 6, 9

range(-10, -100, -30)

-10, -40, -70

22 Chapter 3. An Informal Introduction to Python

To iterate over the indices of a sequence, you can combine range() and
len() as follows:
In most such cases, however, it is convenient to use the enumerate()
function, see Looping Techniques. A strange thing happens if you just print
a range:

>>>
print(range
(10))
range(0,
10)

In many ways the object returned by range() behaves as if it is a list,

but in fact it isn’t. It is an object which returns the successive items of the
desired sequence when you iterate over it, but it doesn’t really make the
list, thus saving space.
We say such an object is iterable, that is, suitable as a target for functions
and constructs that expect something from which they can
>>>
list(range
(5)) [0,
1, 2, 3,
4]
 obtain successive items until the supply is exhausted. We have seen that
the for statement is such an iterator. The function list() is another; it
creates lists from iterables:
Later we will see more functions that return iterables and take iterables
as argument.

4.4 break and continue Statements, and else Clauses on Loops

The break statement, like in C, breaks out of the innermost enclosing

for or while loop.
Loop statements may have an else clause; it is executed when the loop
terminates through exhaustion of the list (with for) or when the
>>> for n in range(2, 10):
... for x in range(2, n):
... if n % x == 0:
... print(n, 'equals', x, '*', n//x)
... break... else:
... # loop fell through without finding a factor
... print(n, 'is a prime number')
...is a prime number

2 is a prime number
3 equals 2 * 2
4 is a prime number
5 equals 2 * 3
6 is a prime number
7 equals 2 * 4
8 equals 3 * 3

24 Chapter 3. An Informal Introduction to Python

condition becomes false (with while), but not when the loop is
terminated by a break statement. This is exemplified by the following
loop, which searches for prime numbers:
(Yes, this is the correct code. Look closely: the else clause belongs to the
for loop, not the if statement.)
When used with a loop, the else clause has more in common with the
else clause of a try statement than it does that of if statements: a
try statement’s else clause runs when no exception occurs, and a loop’s
else clause runs when no break occurs. For more on the try
statement and exceptions, see Handling Exceptions.
The continue statement, also borrowed from C, continues with the

next iteration of the loop:

4.4. break and continue Statements, and else Clauses on Loops

Found an
even number
4 Found a
number 5
Found an
even number
6 Found a
number 7
Found an
even number
8 Found a
26 Chapter 3. An Informal Introduction to Python
4.5 pass Statements

The pass statement does nothing. It can be used when a statement is

>>> while True:

... pass # Busy-wait for keyboard interrupt (Ctrl+C)
...

required syntactically but the program requires no action. For example:

This is commonly used for creating minimal classes:
>>> class MyEmptyClass:
... pass
...

Another place pass can be used is as a place-holder for a function or

conditional body when you are working on new code, allowing you to
keep thinking at a more abstract level. The pass is silently ignored:

4.6 Defining Functions

>>> def fib(n): # write Fibonacci series up to n

... """Print a Fibonacci series up to n."""
... a, b = 0, 1
... while a < n:
... print(a, end=' ')
... a, b = b, a+b
... print()
...
We can#create
>>> a function
Now call the that writes the
function weFibonacci series to an arbitrary
just defined:
... fib(2000)
boundary:
The keyword def introduces a function definition. It must be followed
by the function name and the parenthesized list of formal parameters.
The statements that form the body of the function start at the next line,
and must be indented.
The first statement of the function body can optionally be a string literal;
this string literal is the function’s documentation string, or docstring.
(More about docstrings can be found in the section Documentation
Strings.) There are tools which use docstrings to automatically produce
online or printed documentation,

>>> def initlog(*args):

... pass # Remember to implement this!
...

or to let the user interactively browse through code; it’s good practice to include
docstrings in code that you write, so make a habit of it.

The execution of a function introduces a new symbol table used for the
local variables of the function. More precisely, all variable assignments in
a function store the value in the local symbol table; whereas variable
references first look in the local symbol table, then in the local symbol
tables of enclosing functions, then in the global symbol table, and finally
in the table of built-in names. Thus, global variables cannot be directly
assigned a value within a function (unless named in a global statement),
although they may be referenced.
The actual parameters (arguments) to a function call are introduced in
the local symbol table of the called function when it is called; thus,
arguments are passed using call by value (where the value is always an

28 Chapter 3. An Informal Introduction to Python

object reference, not the value of the object).1 When a function calls
another function, a new local symbol table is created for that call.
A function definition introduces the function name in the current symbol
table. The value of the function name has a type that is
>>> fib

<function fib at 10042ed0>

>>> f = fib
>>> f(100)
0 1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89

recognized by the interpreter as a user-defined function. This value can

be assigned to another name which can then also be used as a function.
This serves as a general renaming mechanism:
Coming from other languages, you might object that fib is not a
function but a procedure since it doesn’t return a value. In fact, even
functions without a return statement do return a value, albeit a rather
boring one. This value is called None (it’s a built-in name). Writing the
value None is normally suppressed by the interpreter if it would be the
only value written. You can see it if you really want to using print():
>>> fib(0)
>>>
print(fib(
0)) None
 It is simple to write a function that returns a list of the numbers of the

Fibonacci series, instead of printing it:

This example, as usual, demonstrates some new Python features:
• The return statement returns with a value from a function. return without
an expression argument returns None. Falling off the end of a function also
returns None.
• The statement [Link](a) calls a method of the list object
result. A method is a function that ‘belongs’ to an object and is named
[Link], where obj is some object (this may be an expression),
and methodname is the name of a method that is defined by the object’s
type. Different
Actually, call by object reference would be a better description, since if a
mutable object is passed, the caller will see any changes the callee makes to
it (items inserted into a list).

4.6.
30 Defining Functions 23
Chapter 3. An Informal Introduction to Python
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

types define different methods. Methods of different types may have the
same name without causing ambiguity. (It is possible to define your own
object types and methods, using classes, see Classes) The method
append() shown in the example is defined for list objects; it adds a new
element at the end of the list. In this example it is equivalent to result
= result + [a], but more efficient.

4.7 More on Defining Functions

It is also possible to define functions with a variable number of

arguments. There are three forms, which can be combined.

4.7.1 Default Argument Values

The most useful form is to specify a default value for one or more
def ask_ok(prompt, retries=4, reminder='Please try
again!'):
while True:

ok = input(prompt)
if ok in ('y', 'ye', 'yes'):
return True
if ok in ('n', 'no', 'nop', 'nope'):
return
False
retries =
retries - 1
if retries
< 0:
raise
ValueError('invalid user
response')
24 print(reminder) Chapter 4. More Control Flow Tools
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
arguments. This creates a function that can be called with fewer
arguments than it is defined to allow. For example:
This function can be called in several ways:
• giving only the mandatory argument: ask_ok('Do you really want to
quit?')
• giving one of the optional arguments: ask_ok('OK to overwrite the
file?', 2)
• or even giving all arguments: ask_ok('OK to overwrite the file?',
2, 'Come on, only yes or no!')
This example also introduces the in keyword. This tests whether or not a

i = 5
def f(arg=i):

print(arg)
i =
6
f()
sequence contains a certain value. The default values are evaluated at the
point of function definition in the defining scope, so thatwill print 5.
Important warning: The default value is evaluated only once. This
makes a difference when the default is a mutable object such as a list,
def f(a,
L=[]):
[Link]
nd(a)
return
L

dictionary, or instances of most classes. For example, the following

function accumulates the arguments passed to it on subsequent calls:

4.7. More on Defining Functions 25

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
print(f(1))
print(f(2))
print(f(3))

This will print

If you don’t want the default to be shared between subsequent calls, you
can write the function like this instead:
[1]
[1, 2]
[1, 2, 3]

def f(a, L=None):

if L is
None
: L
= []
[Link](a)
return L

26 Chapter 4. More Control Flow Tools

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

4.7.2 Keyword Arguments

Functions can also be called using keyword arguments of the form

def parrot(voltage, state='a stiff',

action='voom', type='Norwegian Blue'):
print("-- This parrot wouldn't",
action, end=' ')
print("if you put", voltage,
"volts through it.")
print("-- Lovely plumage,
the", type)
print("-- It's", state, "!")

kwarg=value. For instance, the following function:

accepts one required argument (voltage) and three optional arguments
(state, action, and type). This function can be called in any of the
following ways:

parrot(1000) # 1 keyword argument

but all the following calls would be invalid:

In a function call, keyword arguments must follow positional arguments.
All the keyword arguments passed must match one of the arguments
4.7. More on Defining Functions 27
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
accepted by the function (e.g. actor is not a valid argument for the
parrot function), and their order is not important. This also includes
non-optional arguments (e.g. parrot(voltage=1000) is valid too). No
argument may receive a value more than once. Here’s an example that fails
due to this restriction:
>>> def function(a):
... pass
...

>>> function(0, a=0)

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: function() got multiple values for
keyword argument 'a'

When a final formal parameter of the form **name is present, it receives

a dictionary (see typesmapping) containing all keyword arguments
except for those corresponding to a formal parameter. This may be
combined with a formal parameter of the form *name (described in the

def cheeseshop(kind,
*arguments, **keywords):
print("-- Do you have
any", kind, "?")
print("-- I'm sorry,
we're all out of", kind)
for arg in arguments:
print(ar
g)
print("-"
28 * 40) for Chapter 4. More Control Flow Tools

kw in
keywords:
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
next subsection) which receives a tuple containing the positional
arguments beyond the formal parameter list. (*name must occur before
**name.) For example, if we define a function like this:
It could be called like this:

-- Do you have any Limburger ?

-- I'm sorry, we're all
out of Limburger It's
very runny, sir.
It's really very, VERY runny, sir.
----------------------------------------
shopkeeper :
Michael Palin
client : John
Cleese sketch :
Cheese Shop
Sketch

cheeseshop("Limburger",
"It's very runny,
sir.", "It's really
very, VERY runny,
sir.",
shopkeeper="Michael
Palin",
client="John
Cleese",
and of course it would print:
sketch="Cheese
Note that Shop
the order in which theSketch")
keyword arguments are printed is
guaranteed to match the order in which they were provided in the
function call.

4.7. More on Defining Functions 29

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

4.7.3 Arbitrary Argument Lists

Finally, the least frequently used option is to specify that a function

can be called with an arbitrary number of arguments. These arguments

will be wrapped up in a tuple (see Tuples and Sequences). Before the
variable number of arguments, zero or more normal arguments may
occur.
Normally, these variadic arguments will be last in the list of formal
parameters, because they scoop up all remaining input arguments that
are passed to the function. Any formal parameters which occur after the
*args parameter are ‘keyword-only’ arguments, meaning that they can
only be used as keywords rather than positional arguments.
def
write_multiple_items(file,
separator, *args):
[Link]([Link]
n(args))
>>> def concat(*args, sep="/"):
... return [Link](args)
...
>>> concat("earth",
"mars", "venus")
'earth/mars/venus'
>>> concat("earth",
"mars", "venus", sep=".")
'[Link]'
4.7.4 Unpacking Argument Lists

The reverse situation occurs when the arguments are already in a list or
tuple but need to be unpacked for a function call requiring separate
positional arguments. For instance, the built-in range() function expects
30 Chapter 4. More Control Flow Tools
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
separate start and stop arguments. If they are not available separately,
write the function call with the

*-operator to unpack the arguments out of a list or tuple:

In the same fashion, dictionaries can deliver keyword arguments with
the **-operator:
>>> def parrot(voltage, state='a stiff',
action='voom'):
... print("-- This parrot wouldn't", action, end=' ')
... print("if you put", voltage, "volts through it.",
end=' ')
... print("E's", state, "!")
...
>>> d = {"voltage": "four million", "state":
"bleedin' demised", "action": "VOOM"}
>>> parrot(**d)

-- This parrot wouldn't VOOM if you put four million

volts through it. E's bleedin' demised !

4.7. More on Defining Functions 31

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
4.7.5 Lambda Expressions

Small anonymous functions can be created with the lambda keyword.

This function returns the sum of its two arguments: lambda a, b: a+b.
Lambda functions can be used wherever function objects are
>>> def make_incrementor(n):
... return lambda x: x + n
...
>>> f = make_incrementor(42)
>>>
f(0)
42
>>>
f(1)
43

required. They are syntactically restricted to a single expression.

Semantically, they are just syntactic sugar for a normal function
definition. Like nested function definitions, lambda functions can
reference variables from the containing scope:
The above example uses a lambda expression to return a function.
Another use is to pass a small function as an argument:
>>> pairs = [(1, 'one'), (2, 'two'), (3, 'three'),
(4, 'four')]
>>> [Link](key=lambda pair: pair[1])

32 Chapter 4. More Control Flow Tools

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> pairs
[(4, 'four'), (1, 'one'), (3, 'three'), (2, 'two')]

4.7.6 Documentation Strings

Here are some conventions about the content and formatting of
documentation strings.
The first line should always be a short, concise summary of the object’s
purpose. For brevity, it should not explicitly state the object’s name or
type, since these are available by other means (except if the name
happens to be a verb describing a function’s operation). This line should
begin with a capital letter and end with a period.
If there are more lines in the documentation string, the second line should
be blank, visually separating the summary from the rest of the
description. The following lines should be one or more paragraphs
describing the object’s calling conventions, its side effects, etc.
The Python parser does not strip indentation from multi-line string
literals in Python, so tools that process documentation have to strip
indentation if desired. This is done using the following convention. The
first non-blank line after the first line of the string determines the amount
of indentation for the entire documentation string. (We can’t use the first
line since it is generally adjacent to the string’s opening quotes so its
indentation is not apparent in the string literal.) Whitespace “equivalent”
to this indentation is then stripped from the start of all lines of the string.
Lines that are indented less should not occur, but if they occur all their
leading whitespace should be stripped. Equivalence of whitespace
should be tested after expansion of tabs (to 8 spaces, normally).

4.7. More on Defining Functions 33

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> def f(ham: str, eggs: str = 'eggs') -> str:

>>> def my_function():
... print("Annotations:", f. annotations )
... print("Arguments:",
...
"""Do nothing, but document it.
ham, eggs)

...
... return ham + ' and ' + eggs

...
... No, really, it doesn't do anything.
... """
... pass
...
>>>
print(my_functio
n. doc ) Do
nothing, but
document it.

No, really, it doesn't

do anything.

Here is an example of a multi-line docstring:

4.7.7 Function Annotations

Function annotations are completely optional metadata information

about the types used by user-defined functions (see PEP 484 for more
information).
Annotations are stored in the annotations attribute of the function as
a dictionary and have no effect on any other part of the function.
Parameter annotations are defined by a colon after the parameter

34 Chapter 4. More Control Flow Tools

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

name, followed by an expression evaluating to the value of the

annotation. Return annotations are defined by a literal ->, followed by an
expression, between the parameter list and the colon denoting the end of
the def statement. The following example has a positional argument, a
keyword argument, and the return value annotated:

>>> f('spam')
Annotations: {'ham': <class 'str'>, 'return': <class
'str'>, 'eggs': <class 'str'>}
Arguments:
spam eggs
'spam and
eggs'

4.7. More on Defining Functions 35

4.8 Intermezzo: Coding Style

Now that you are about to write longer, more complex pieces of Python,
it is a good time to talk about coding style. Most languages can be written
(or more concise, formatted) in different styles; some are more readable
than others. Making it easy for others to read your code is always a good
idea, and adopting a nice coding style helps tremendously for that.
For Python, PEP 8 has emerged as the style guide that most projects
adhere to; it promotes a very readable and eye-pleasing coding style.
Every Python developer should read it at some point; here are the most
important points extracted for you:
• Use 4-space indentation, and no tabs.
4 spaces are a good compromise between small indentation (allows
greater nesting depth) and large indentation (easier to read). Tabs
introduce confusion, and are best left out.
• Wrap lines so that they don’t exceed 79 characters.
This helps users with small displays and makes it possible to have
several code files side-by-side on larger displays.
• Use blank lines to separate functions and classes, and larger blocks of code
inside functions.
• When possible, put comments on a line of their own.
• Use docstrings.
• Use spaces around operators and after commas, but not directly inside
bracketing constructs: a = f(1, 2) + g(3, 4).
• Name your classes and functions consistently; the convention is to use
CamelCase for classes and lower_case_with_underscores for
functions and methods. Always use self as the name for the first method
argument (see A First Look at Classes for more on classes and methods).
• Don’t use fancy encodings if your code is meant to be used in international
environments. Python’s default, UTF-8, or even plain ASCII work best in any
case.
• Likewise, don’t use non-ASCII characters in identifiers if there is only the
36 Chapter 4. More Control Flow Tools
slightest chance people speaking a different language will read or maintain the
code.

4.8. Intermezzo: Coding Style 37

 CHAPTER

FIVE

DATA STRUCTURES

This chapter describes some things you’ve learned about already in more
detail, and adds some new things as well.

5.1 More on Lists

The list data type has some more methods. Here are all of the methods of
list objects:
[Link](x)

Add an item to the end of the list. Equivalent to a[len(a):] = [x].

[Link](iterable)

Extend the list by appending all the items from the iterable. Equivalent to
a[len(a):] = iterable.
[Link](i, x)

Insert an item at a given position. The first argument is the index of the
element before which to insert, so [Link](0, x) inserts at the front
of the list, and [Link](len(a), x) is equivalent to [Link](x).
[Link](x)

Remove the first item from the list whose value is x. It is an error if there
is no such item.

31
[Link]([i ])

Remove the item at the given position in the list, and return it. If no index is
specified, [Link]() removes and returns the last item in the list. (The
square brackets around the i in the method signature denote that the
parameter is optional, not that you should type square brackets at that
position. You will see this notation frequently in the Python Library
Reference.)
[Link]()

Remove all items from the list. Equivalent to del a[:].

[Link](x[, start[, end ] ])

Return zero-based index in the list of the first item whose value is x.
Raises a ValueError if there is no such item.
The optional arguments start and end are interpreted as in the slice
notation and are used to limit the search to a particular subsequence of
the list. The returned index is computed relative to the beginning of the
full sequence rather than the start argument.
[Link](x)

Return the number of times x appears in the list.

[Link](key=None, reverse=False)

Sort the items of the list in place (the arguments can be used for sort
customization, see sorted() for their explanation).

32 Chapter 5. Data Structures

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

[Link]()

Reverse the elements of the list in place.

[Link]()

Return a shallow copy of the list. Equivalent to a[:].

>>> fruits = ['orange', 'apple', 'pear', 'banana', 'kiwi', 'apple',

'banana']

>>>
[Link]('apple
') 2

>>>
[Link]('tangerin
e') 0

>>>
[Link]('banana
') 3

>>> [Link]('banana', 4) # Find next banana starting a position

46>>> [Link]()

>>> fruits

['banana', 'apple', 'kiwi', 'banana', 'pear', 'apple', 'orange']

>>> [Link]('grape')

>>> fruits

['banana', 'apple', 'kiwi', 'banana', 'pear', 'apple', 'orange',

'grape']

>>> [Link]()

>>> fruits

['apple', 'apple', 'banana', 'banana', 'grape', 'kiwi', 'orange',

'pear']

>>>
[Link]()
'pear'

33
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

An example that uses most of the list methods:

You might have noticed that methods like insert, remove or sort that
only modify the list have no return value printed – they return the default
None.1 This is a design principle for all mutable data structures in
Python.

5.1.1 Using Lists as Stacks

The list methods make it very easy to use a list as a stack, where the last
element added is the first element retrieved (“last-in, first-out”). To add
>>> stack = [3, 4, 5]
>>> [Link](6)
>>> [Link](7)
>>> stack

[3, 4, 5, 6, 7]
>>> [Link]() 7
>>> stack [3, 4,
5, 6]
>>> [Link]() 6
>>> [Link]() 5
>>> stack [3, 4]
an item to the top of the stack, use append(). To retrieve an item from
the top of the stack, use pop() without an explicit index. For example:
Other languages may return the mutated object, which
allows method chaining, such as
d->insert("a")->remove("b")->sort();.

34 Chapter 5. Data Structures

5.1.2 Using Lists as Queues
It is also possible to use a list as a queue, where the first element added is
the first element retrieved (“first-in, first-out”); however, lists are not
efficient for this purpose. While appends and pops from the end of list
are fast, doing inserts or pops from the beginning of a list is slow
(because all of the other elements have to be shifted by one).
To implement a queue, use [Link] which was

designed to have fast appends and pops from both ends. For example:

5.1. More on Lists 33

5.1.3 List Comprehensions

List comprehensions provide a concise way to create lists. Common

applications are to make new lists where each element is the result of
some operations applied to each member of another sequence or iterable,
or to create a subsequence of those elements that satisfy a certain
condition.
>>> squares = []
>>> for x in range(10):
... [Link](x**2)
...
>>> squares
[0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36, 49, 64, 81]

For example, assume we want to create a list of squares, like:

Note that this creates (or overwrites) a variable named x that still exists
after the loop completes. We can calculate the list of squares without any
side effects using:
squares = list(map(lambda x: x**2, range(10)))

squares = [x**2 for x in range(10)]

or, equivalently:
which is more concise and readable.
A list comprehension consists of brackets containing an expression
followed by a for clause, then zero or more for or if clauses. The

>>> [(x, y) for x in [1,2,3] for

y in [3,1,4] if x != y] [(1, 3),
(1, 4),
result will (2,
be a 3),
new (2, 1), (2, from
list resulting 4), evaluating the expression in the
(3, 1), (3, 4)]
34 Chapter 5. Data Structures
context of the for and if clauses which follow it. For example, this
listcomp combines the elements of two lists if they are not equal:
and it’s equivalent to:

>>> combs = []
>>> for x in [1,2,3]:
... for y in [3,1,4]:
... if x != y:
... [Link]((x, y))
...
>>> combs

[(1, 3), (1, 4), (2, 3), (2, 1), (2, 4), (3, 1), (3,
4)]

5.1. More on Lists 35

Note how the order of the for and if statements is the same in both
these snippets.
f the expression is a tuple (e.g. the (x, y) in the previous example), it must
be parenthesized.

>>> vec = [-4, -2, 0, 2, 4]

>>> # create a new list with the values doubled

>>> [x*2 for x in

vec] [-8, -4, 0,
4, 8]

>>> # filter the list to exclude negative numbers

>>> [x for x in vec if x

>= 0] [0, 2, 4]
>>> # apply a function to all the elements

>>> [abs(x) for x in

vec] [4, 2, 0, 2,
4]
>>> # call a method on each element

>>> freshfruit = [' banana', ' loganberry ', 'passion fruit ']

>>> [[Link]() for weapon in

freshfruit] ['banana',
'loganberry', 'passion fruit']
>>> # create a list of 2-tuples like (number, square)

>>> [(x, x**2) for x in range(6)]

[(0, 0), (1, 1), (2, 4), (3, 9), (4, 16), (5, 25)]

>>> # the tuple must be parenthesized, otherwise an error is raised

>>> [x, x**2 for x in range(6)]

File "<stdin>", line 1, in

<module> [x, x**2 for x
in range(6)]

^
SyntaxError: invalid
syntax

>>> # flatten a list using a listcomp with two 'for'

>>> vec = [[1,2,3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9]]

>>> [num for elem in vec for num

36in elem] [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, Chapter 5. Data Structures
8, 9]
 List comprehensions can contain complex expressions and nested
functions:
>>> from math import pi
>>> [str(round(pi, i))
for i in range(1, 6)]
['3.1', '3.14', '3.142',
'3.1416', '3.14159']

5.1.4 Nested List Comprehensions

The initial expression in a list comprehension can be any arbitrary

expression, including another list com- prehension.
Consider the following example of a 3x4 matrix implemented as a list of
>>> matrix = [
... [1, 2, 3, 4],
... [5, 6, 7, 8],

3 lists of length 4:

5.1. More on Lists 37

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

... [9, 10, 11, 12],

... ]

>>> [[row[i] for row in

matrix] for i in range(4)]
[[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3,
The following list comprehension will transpose rows and columns:
7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]
As we saw in the previous section, the nested listcomp is evaluated in the
context of the for that follows it, so this example is equivalent to:
>>> transposed = []
>>> for i in range(4):
... [Link]([row[i] for row in matrix])
...
>>> transposed

[[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]

>>> transposed = []
>>> for i in range(4):
... # the following 3 lines implement the nested
listcomp... transposed_row = []
... for row in matrix:...
transposed_row.append(row[i])
... [Link](transposed_row)
...>>> transposed
[[1, 5, 9], [2, 6, 10], [3, 7, 11], [4, 8, 12]]

36 Chapter 5. Data Structures

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

which, in turn, is the same as:

In the real world, you should prefer built-in functions to complex flow
statements. The zip() function would do a great job for this use case:
>>> list(zip(*matrix))
[(1, 5, 9), (2, 6, 10), (3, 7, 11), (4, 8, 12)]

See Unpacking Argument Lists for details on the asterisk in this line.

5.2 The del statement

There is a way to remove an item from a list given its index instead of its
value: the del statement. This differs from the pop() method

>>> a = [-1, 1, 66.25, 333, 333, 1234.5]

>>> del a[0]
>>> a

[1, 66.25, 333, 333, 1234.5]

>>> del a[2:4]
>>> a

[1, 66.25, 1234.5]

>>> del a[:]
>>>
a
[]

5.1. More on Lists 37

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
which returns a value. The del statement can also be used to remove
slices from a list or clear the entire list (which we did earlier by
assignment of an empty list to the slice). For example:

5.2. The del statement 35

del can also be used to delete entire variables:

>>> del a
Referencing the name a hereafter is an error (at least until another value
is assigned to it). We’ll find other uses for del later.

5.3 Tuples and Sequences

We saw that lists and strings have many common properties, such as
indexing and slicing operations. They are two examples of sequence data
types (see typesseq). Since Python is an evolving language, other
sequence data types may be added. There is also another standard
sequence data type: the tuple.
A tuple consists of a number of values separated by commas, for
instance:
As you see, on output tuples are always enclosed in parentheses, so that
nested tuples are interpreted correctly; they may be input with or
without surrounding parentheses, although often parentheses are
necessary anyway (if the tuple is part of a larger expression). It is not
possible to assign to the individual items of a tuple, however it is
possible to create tuples which contain mutable objects, such as lists.

Though tuples may seem similar to lists, they are often used in different
situations and for different purposes. Tuples are immutable, and usually
contain a heterogeneous sequence of elements that are accessed via
unpacking (see later in this section) or indexing (or even by attribute in
38 Chapter 5. Data Structures
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
the case of namedtuples). Lists are mutable, and their elements are
usually homogeneous and are accessed by iterating over the list.

>>> t = 12345, 54321, 'hello!'

>>>
t[0]
1234
5
>>> t
(12345, 54321, 'hello!')
>>> # Tuples may be nested:
... u = t, (1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
>>> u

((12345, 54321, 'hello!'), (1, 2, 3, 4, 5))

>>> # Tuples are immutable:
... t[0] = 88888

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: 'tuple' object does not support item
assignment
>>> # but they can contain mutable objects:
... v = ([1, 2, 3], [3, 2, 1])
>>> v
([1, 2, 3], [3, 2, 1])

5.1. More on Lists 39

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
A special problem is the construction of tuples containing 0 or 1 items:
the syntax has some extra quirks to accommodate these. Empty tuples

>>> empty = ()
>>> singleton = 'hello', # <-- note trailing comma
>>>
len(empt
y) 0
>>>
len(single
ton) 1
>>>
singleton
('hello',
)

are constructed by an empty pair of parentheses; a tuple with one item is

constructed by following a value with a comma (it is not sufficient to
enclose a single value in parentheses). Ugly, but effective. For example:

40 Chapter 5. Data Structures

 The statement t = 12345, 54321, 'hello!' is an example of tuple
packing: the values 12345, 54321 and

>>> x, y, z = t

'hello!' are packed together in a tuple. The reverse operation is also

possible:
This is called, appropriately enough, sequence unpacking and works for
any sequence on the right-hand side. Sequence unpacking requires that
there are as many variables on the left side of the equals sign as there are
elements in the sequence. Note that multiple assignment is really just a
combination of tuple packing and sequence unpacking.

5.4 Sets

Python also includes a data type for sets. A set is an unordered collection
with no duplicate elements. Basic uses include membership testing and
eliminating duplicate entries. Set objects also support mathematical
operations like union, intersection, difference, and symmetric difference.
Curly braces or the set() function can be used to create sets. Note: to
create an empty set you have to use
set(), not {}; the latter creates an empty dictionary, a data structure
that we discuss in the next section.
Here is a brief demonstration:

Similarly to list comprehensions, set comprehensions are also supported:

>>> a = {x for x in 'abracadabra' if x not in 'abc'}
>>> a
{'r', 'd'}

42 Chapter 5. Data Structures

5.5 Dictionaries

Another useful data type built into Python is the dictionary (see
typesmapping). Dictionaries are sometimes found in other languages as
“associative memories” or “associative arrays”. Unlike sequences, which
are

5.4. Sets 37
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

indexed by a range of numbers, dictionaries are indexed by keys, which

can be any immutable type; strings and numbers can always be keys.
Tuples can be used as keys if they contain only strings, numbers, or tuples;
if a tuple contains any mutable object either directly or indirectly, it
cannot be used as a key. You can’t use lists as keys, since lists can be
modified in place using index assignments, slice assignments, or methods
like append() and extend().
It is best to think of a dictionary as an unordered set of key: value pairs,
with the requirement that the keys are unique (within one dictionary). A
pair of braces creates an empty dictionary: {}. Placing a comma-
separated list of key:value pairs within the braces adds initial key:value
pairs to the dictionary; this is also the way dictionaries are written on
output.
The main operations on a dictionary are storing a value with some key
and extracting the value given the key. It is also possible to delete a
key:value pair with del. If you store using a key that is already in use,
the old value associated with that key is forgotten. It is an error to extract
a value using a non-existent key.
Performing list([Link]()) on a dictionary returns a list of all the keys
used in the dictionary, in arbitrary order (if you want it sorted, just use
sorted([Link]()) instead).2 To check whether a single key is in the
dictionary, use the in keyword.

38 Chapter 5. Data Structures

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Here is a small example using a dictionary:
>>> tel = {'jack': 4098, 'sape': 4139}
>>> tel['guido'] = 4127
>>> tel

{'sape': 4139, 'guido': 4127, 'jack': 4098}

>>>
tel['jack
'] 4098
>>> del tel['sape']
>>> tel['irv'] = 4127
>>> tel

{'guido': 4127, 'irv': 4127, 'jack': 4098}

>>>
list([Link](
)) ['irv',
'guido',
'jack']
>>>
sorted([Link]
ys())
['guido',
'irv', 'jack']
>>>
'guido' in
tel True
>>> 'jack'
not in tel
False

5.6. Looping Techniques 39

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
The dict() constructor builds dictionaries directly from sequences of
key-value pairs:

>>> {x: x**2 for x in (2, 4, 6)}

{2: 4, 4: 16, 6: 36}

>>> dict([('sape', 4139), ('guido', 4127), ('jack',
4098)])
{'sape': 4139, 'jack': 4098, 'guido': 4127}

In addition, dict comprehensions can be used to create dictionaries from

arbitrary key and value expressions:
When the keys are simple strings, it is sometimes easier to specify pairs
using keyword arguments:
>>> dict(sape=4139, guido=4127, jack=4098)
{'sape': 4139, 'jack': 4098, 'guido': 4127}

Calling [Link]() will return a dictionary view object. It supports

operations like membership test and iteration, but its
contents are not independent of the original dictionary – it is only a view.

40 Chapter 5. Data Structures

5.6 Looping Techniques

When looping through dictionaries, the key and corresponding value

>>> knights = {'gallahad': 'the pure', 'robin': 'the

brave'}
>>> for k, v in [Link]():
... print(k, v)
...
gallahad
the pure
robin the
brave

can be retrieved at the same time using the items() method.

When looping through a sequence, the position index and corresponding
value can be retrieved at the same time using the enumerate()
function.
>>> for i, v in enumerate(['tic', 'tac', 'toe']):
... print(i, v)
...
0 tic
1 tac
2 toe

5.8. Comparing Sequences and Other Types 41

To loop over two or more sequences at the same time, the entries can be

>>> questions = ['name', 'quest', 'favorite color']

>>> answers = ['lancelot', 'the holy grail', 'blue']
>>> for q, a in zip(questions, answers):
... print('What is your {0}? It is {1}.'.format(q, a))
...

What is your name? It is lancelot.

What is your quest? It
is the holy grail. What
is your favorite color?
It is blue.

paired with the zip() function.

To loop over a sequence in reverse, first specify the sequence in a
forward direction and then call the

>>> for i in reversed(range(1, 10, 2)):

... print(i)
...
9
7
5
3
1

42 Chapter 5. Data Structures

reversed() function.
To loop over a sequence in sorted order, use the sorted() function
which returns a new sorted list while leaving the source unaltered.
>>> basket = ['apple', 'orange', 'apple', 'pear',
'orange', 'banana']
>>> for f in sorted(set(basket)):
... print(f)
...
apple banana
orange pear

It is sometimes tempting to change a list while you are looping over it;

>>> import math

>>> raw_data = [56.2, float('NaN'), 51.7, 55.3, 52.5,
float('NaN'), 47.8]
>>> filtered_data = []
>>> for value in raw_data:
... if not [Link](value):
... filtered_data.append(value)
...
>>> filtered_data
[56.2, 51.7, 55.3, 52.5, 47.8]

5.8. Comparing Sequences and Other Types 41

 however, it is often simpler and safer to create a new list instead.

5.7 More on Conditions

The conditions used in while and if statements can contain any

operators, not just comparisons.
The comparison operators in and not in check whether a value occurs
(does not occur) in a sequence. The operators is and is not compare
whether two objects are really the same object; this only matters for
mutable objects like lists. All comparison operators have the same
priority, which is lower than that of all numerical operators.
Comparisons can be chained. For example, a < b == c tests whether a
is less than b and moreover b equals
c.
Comparisons may be combined using the Boolean operators and and or,
and the outcome of a comparison (or of any other Boolean expression)
may be negated with not. These have lower priorities than comparison
operators; between them, not has the highest priority and or the
lowest, so that A and not B or C is equivalent to (A and (not B))
or C. As always, parentheses can be used to express the desired
composition.
The Boolean operators and and or are so-called short-circuit operators:
their arguments are evaluated from left to right, and evaluation stops as
soon as the outcome is determined. For example, if A and C are true but
B is false, A and B and C does not evaluate the expression C. When
used as a general value and not as a Boolean, the return value of a short-
circuit operator is the last evaluated argument.

42 Chapter 5. Data Structures

 It is possible to assign the result of a comparison or other Boolean
expression to a variable. For example,
Note that in Python, unlike C, assignment cannot occur inside
expressions. C programmers may grumble about this, but it avoids a
common class of problems encountered in C programs: typing = in an
expression when == was intended.

5.8 Comparing Sequences and Other Types

Sequence objects may be compared to other objects with the same

sequence type. The comparison uses lex- icographical ordering: first the
first two items are compared, and if they differ this determines the

>>> string1, string2, string3 = '', 'Trondheim',

'Hammer Dance'
>>> non_null = string1 or string2 or string3
>>> non_null
'Trondheim'

outcome of the comparison; if they are equal, the next two items are
compared, and so on, until either sequence is exhausted. If two items to
be compared are themselves sequences of the same type, the
lexicographical com- parison is carried out recursively. If all items of two
sequences compare equal, the sequences are considered equal. If one
sequence is an initial sub-sequence of the other, the shorter sequence is
the smaller (lesser)

5.8. Comparing Sequences and Other Types 41

one. Lexicographical ordering for strings uses the Unicode code point

[1, 2, 3] < [1, 2, 4]

'ABC' < 'C' < 'Pascal' <
'Python'

number to order individual characters. Some examples of comparisons

between sequences of the same type:
Note that comparing objects of different types with < or > is legal
provided that the objects have appropriate comparison methods. For
example, mixed numeric types are compared according to their numeric
value, so 0 equals 0.0, etc. Otherwise, rather than providing an arbitrary
ordering, the interpreter will raise a TypeError exception.

42 Chapter 5. Data Structures

 CHAPTER

SIX

MODULES

If you quit from the Python interpreter and enter it again, the definitions
you have made (functions and variables) are lost. Therefore, if you want
to write a somewhat longer program, you are better off using a text
editor to prepare the input for the interpreter and running it with that file
as input instead. This is known as creating a script. As your program gets
longer, you may want to split it into several files for easier maintenance.
You may also want to use a handy function that you’ve written in several
programs without copying its definition into each program.
To support this, Python has a way to put definitions in a file and use
them in a script or in an interactive instance of the interpreter. Such a file
is called a module; definitions from a module can be imported into other
modules or into the main module (the collection of variables that you have
access to in a script executed at the top level and in calculator mode).
A module is a file containing Python definitions and statements. The file
name is the module name with the suffix .py appended. Within a
module, the module’s name (as a string) is available as the value of the
global variable name . For instance, use your favorite text editor to create
a file called [Link] in the current directory with the following
contents:
Now enter the Python interpreter and import this module with the
following command:
>>> import fibo

This does not enter the names of the functions defined in fibo directly

>>> [Link](1000)

1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377 610 987

>>> fibo.fib2(100)
[1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89]

in the current symbol table; it only enters the module name fibo there.
Using the module name you can access the functions:

43

42 Chapter 5. Data Structures

 >>> fibo.
name
'fibo'

>>> fib = [Link]

>>> fib(500)
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377

If you intend to use a function often you can assign it to a local name:

6.1 More on Modules

A module can contain executable statements as well as function

definitions. These statements are intended to initialize the module. They
are executed only the first time the module name is encountered in an
import statement.1 (They are also run if the file is executed as a script.)
Each module has its own private symbol table, which is used as the
global symbol table by all functions defined in the module. Thus, the
author of a module can use global variables in the module without
worrying about accidental clashes with a user’s global variables. On the
other hand, if you know what you are doing you can touch a module’s
global variables with the same notation used to refer to its functions,
[Link].
Modules can import other modules. It is customary but not required to
place all import statements at the beginning of a module (or script, for
that matter). The imported module names are placed in the importing
module’s global symbol table.
There is a variant of the import statement that imports names from a

>>> from fibo import fib, fib2

>>> fib(500)
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377

module directly into the importing module’s symbol table. For example:
This does not introduce the module name from which the imports are
taken in the local symbol table (so in the example, fibo is not defined).

>>> from fibo import *

>>> fib(500)
1 1 2 3 5 8 13 21 34 55 89 144 233 377

There is even a variant to import all names that a module defines:

This imports all names except those beginning with an underscore (_). In
most cases Python programmers do not use this facility since it introduces
an unknown set of names into the interpreter, possibly hiding some things
you have already defined.
Note that in general the practice of importing * from a module or
package is frowned upon, since it often causes poorly readable code.
However, it is okay to use it to save typing in interactive sessions.

Note: For efficiency reasons, each module is only imported once per
interpreter session. Therefore, if you change your modules, you must
restart the interpreter – or, if it’s just one module you want to test
interactively, use [Link](), e.g. import importlib;
[Link](modulename).
42 Chapter 5. Data Structures
 In fact function definitions are also ‘statements’ that are ‘executed’; the
execution of a module-level function definition
enters the function name in the module’s global symbol table.
6.1.1 Executing modules as scripts

python [Link] <arguments>

When you run a Python module with

the code in the module will be executed, just as if you imported it, but
with the name set to "
main ". That means that by adding this code at the end of your
module:
if name == "
main ":
import sys
fib(int(sys.a
rgv[1]))

you can make the file usable as a script as well as an importable module,

$ python
[Link] 50
1 1 2 3 5 8
13 21 34

because the code that parses the command line only runs if the module is
executed as the “main” file:
If the module is imported, the code is not run:
>>> import fibo
>>>
 This is often used either to provide a convenient user interface to a
module, or for testing purposes (running the module as a script executes
a test suite).

6.1.2 The Module Search Path

When a module named spam is imported, the interpreter first searches for
a built-in module with that name. If not found, it then searches for a file
named [Link] in a list of directories given by the variable

[Link]. [Link] is initialized from these locations:

• The directory containing the input script (or the current directory when no file
is specified).
• PYTHONPATH (a list of directory names, with the same syntax as the shell
variable PATH).
• The installation-dependent default.

Note: On file systems which support symlinks, the directory containing

the input script is calculated after the symlink is followed. In other words
the directory containing the symlink is not added to the module search
path.

After initialization, Python programs can modify [Link]. The

directory containing the script being run is placed at the beginning of the
search path, ahead of the standard library path. This means that scripts in
that directory will be loaded instead of modules of the same name in the
library directory. This is an error unless the replacement is intended. See
section Standard Modules for more information.

6.1.3 “Compiled” Python files

To speed up loading modules, Python caches the compiled version of
each module in the pycache directory under the name
[Link],
42 where the version encodes [Link]
Chapter of the
Data Structures
compiled file; it generally contains the Python version number. For
 example, in CPython release 3.3 the compiled version of [Link] would be
cached as pycache /[Link]. This naming convention
allows compiled modules from different releases and different versions
of Python to coexist.

6.1. More on Modules 45

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

Python checks the modification date of the source against the compiled
version to see if it’s out of date and needs to be recompiled. This is a
completely automatic process. Also, the compiled modules are platform-
independent, so the same library can be shared among systems with
different architectures.
Python does not check the cache in two circumstances. First, it always
recompiles and does not store the result for the module that’s loaded
directly from the command line. Second, it does not check the cache if
there is no source module. To support a non-source (compiled only)
distribution, the compiled module must be in the source directory, and
there must not be a source module.
Some tips for experts:
• You can use the -O or -OO switches on the Python command to reduce the size
of a compiled module. The -O switch removes assert statements, the -OO
switch removes both assert statements and doc strings. Since some programs
may rely on having these available, you should only use this option if you know
what you’re doing. “Optimized” modules have an opt- tag and are usually
smaller. Future releases may change the effects of optimization.
• A program doesn’t run any faster when it is read from a .pyc file than when it
is read from a .py file; the only thing that’s faster about .pyc files is the
speed with which they are loaded.
• The module compileall can create .pyc files for all modules in a directory.
• There is more detail on this process, including a flow chart of the decisions, in
PEP 3147.

46 Chapter 6. Modules
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

6.2 Standard Modules

Python comes with a library of standard modules, described in a

separate document, the Python Library Reference (“Library Reference”
hereafter). Some modules are built into the interpreter; these provide
access to operations that are not part of the core of the language but are
nevertheless built in, either for efficiency or to provide access to
>>> import sys
>>> sys.ps1 '>>> '
>>> sys.ps2 '... '
>>> sys.ps1 = 'C> ' C> print('Yuck!') Yuck!
C>

operating system primitives such as system calls. The set of such

modules is a configuration option which also depends on the underlying
platform. For example, the winreg module is only provided on
Windows systems. One particular module deserves some attention: sys,
which is built into every Python interpreter. The variables sys.ps1 and
sys.ps2 define the strings used as primary and secondary prompts:
These two variables are only defined if the interpreter is in interactive
mode.
The variable [Link] is a list of strings that determines the
interpreter’s search path for modules. It is initialized to a default path
>>> import sys
>>> [Link]('/ufs/guido/lib/python')

taken from the environment variable PYTHONPATH, or from a built-in

default if PYTHONPATH is not set. You can modify it using standard list
operations:
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

6.3 The dir() Function

The built-in function dir() is used to find out which names a module

>>> import fibo, sys

>>> dir(fibo)

[' name ', 'fib', 'fib2']

>>> dir(sys)

[' displayhook ', ' doc ', ' excepthook ', ' loader ', '
name ', ' package ', ' stderr ', ' stdin ', '
stdout ', '_clear_type_cache', '_current_frames',
'_debugmallocstats', '_getframe', '_home', '_mercurial',
'_xoptions', 'abiflags', 'api_version', 'argv',
'base_exec_prefix', 'base_prefix', 'builtin_module_names',
'byteorder', 'call_tracing', 'callstats', 'copyright',
'displayhook', 'dont_write_bytecode', 'exc_info',
'excepthook', 'exec_prefix', 'executable', 'exit',
'flags', 'float_info', 'float_repr_style',
'getcheckinterval', 'getdefaultencoding',
'getdlopenflags', 'getfilesystemencoding', 'getobjects',
'getprofile', 'getrecursionlimit', 'getrefcount',
'getsizeof', 'getswitchinterval', 'gettotalrefcount',
'gettrace', 'hash_info', 'hexversion', 'implementation',
'int_info', 'intern', 'maxsize', 'maxunicode',
'meta_path', 'modules', 'path', 'path_hooks',
'path_importer_cache', 'platform', 'prefix', 'ps1',
'setcheckinterval', 'setdlopenflags', 'setprofile',
'setrecursionlimit', 'setswitchinterval', 'settrace',
'stderr', 'stdin', 'stdout', 'thread_info', 'version',
'version_info', 'warnoptions']

48 Chapter 6. Modules
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> import builtins

>>> dir(builtins)

['ArithmeticError', 'AssertionError',
'AttributeError', 'BaseException',
'BlockingIOError', 'BrokenPipeError',
'BufferError', 'BytesWarning',
'ChildProcessError',
'ConnectionAbortedError',
'ConnectionError',
'ConnectionRefusedError',
'ConnectionResetError',
'DeprecationWarning', 'EOFError',
'Ellipsis', 'EnvironmentError',
'Exception', 'False', 'FileExistsError',
'FileNotFoundError',
'FloatingPointError', 'FutureWarning',
'GeneratorExit', 'IOError',
'ImportError', 'ImportWarning',
'IndentationError', 'IndexError',
'InterruptedError', 'IsADirectoryError',
'KeyError', 'KeyboardInterrupt',
'LookupError', 'MemoryError', 'NameError',
'None', 'NotADirectoryError',
'NotImplemented', 'NotImplementedError',
'OSError', 'OverflowError',
'PendingDeprecationWarning',
'PermissionError', 'ProcessLookupError',
'ReferenceError', 'ResourceWarning',
'RuntimeError', 'RuntimeWarning',
'StopIteration', 'SyntaxError',
'SyntaxWarning', 'SystemError',
'SystemExit', 'TabError', 'TimeoutError',
'True', 'TypeError', 'UnboundLocalError',
'UnicodeDecodeError',
'UnicodeEncodeError',
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

defines. It returns a sorted list of strings:

Without arguments, dir() lists the names you have defined currently:
>>> a = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
>>> import fibo
>>> fib = [Link]
>>> dir()
[' builtins ', ' name ', 'a', 'fib', 'fibo', 'sys']

Note that it lists all types of names: variables, modules, functions, etc.
dir() does not list the names of built-in functions and variables. If you
want a list of those, they are defined in the standard module builtins:

[Link] dir() Function

6.4.47

50 Chapter 6. Modules
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
'UnicodeError', 'UnicodeTranslateError', 'UnicodeWarning',
'UserWarning', 'ValueError', 'Warning',
'ZeroDivisionError', '_', ' build_class ',
' debug ', ' doc ', ' import ', ' name ', '
package ', 'abs',
'all', 'any', 'ascii', 'bin', 'bool', 'bytearray',
'bytes', 'callable', 'chr', 'classmethod', 'compile',
'complex', 'copyright', 'credits', 'delattr', 'dict',
'dir', 'divmod', 'enumerate', 'eval', 'exec', 'exit',
'filter', 'float', 'format', 'frozenset', 'getattr',
'globals', 'hasattr',
'hash', 'help', 'hex', 'id', 'input', 'int',
'isinstance', 'issubclass',
'iter', 'len', 'license', 'list', 'locals', 'map',
'max', 'memoryview',
'min', 'next', 'object', 'oct', 'open', 'ord',
'pow', 'print', 'property',
'quit', 'range', 'repr', 'reversed', 'round', 'set',
'setattr', 'slice',
'sorted', 'staticmethod', 'str', 'sum', 'super', 'tuple',
'type', 'vars', 'zip']

6.4 Packages

Packages are a way of structuring Python’s module namespace by using

“dotted module names”. For example, the module name A.B designates a
submodule named B in a package named A. Just like the use of modules
saves the authors of different modules from having to worry about each
other’s global variable names, the use of dotted module names saves the
authors of multi-module packages like NumPy or the Python Imaging
Library from having to worry about each other’s module names.
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Suppose you want to design a collection of modules (a “package”) for the
uniform handling of sound files and sound data. There are many different
sound file formats (usually recognized by their extension, for example:
.wav, .aiff, .au), so you may need to create and maintain a growing
collection of modules for the conversion between the various file formats.
There are also many different operations you might want to

perform on sound data (such as mixing, adding echo, applying an

equalizer function, creating an artificial stereo effect), so in addition you
will be writing a never-ending stream of modules to perform these
operations. Here’s a possible structure for your package (expressed in
terms of a hierarchical filesystem):
When importing the package, Python searches through the directories on
[Link] looking for the package

52 Chapter 6. Modules
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subdirectory.
The init .py files are required to make Python treat the directories as
containing packages; this is done to prevent directories with a common
name, such as string, from unintentionally hiding valid modules that
occur later on the module search path. In the simplest case, init .py
can just be an empty file, but it can also execute initialization code for the
package or set the all variable, described later.
Users of the package can import individual modules from the package,
import [Link]

for example:
This loads the submodule [Link]. It must be referenced
with its full name.
[Link](input, output,
delay=0.7, atten=4)

from [Link] import echo

An alternative way of importing the submodule is:

This also loads the submodule echo, and makes it available without its
package prefix, so it can be used as follows:
[Link](input, output, delay=0.7, atten=4)

from [Link] import echofilter

Yet another variation is to import the desired function or variable

directly:
Again, this loads the submodule echo, but this makes its function
echofilter() directly available:
50 Chapter 6. Modules
 echofilter(input, output, delay=0.7, atten=4)

Note that when using from package import item, the item can be
either a submodule (or subpackage) of the package, or some other name
defined in the package, like a function, class or variable. The import
statement first tests whether the item is defined in the package; if not, it
assumes it is a module and attempts to load it. If it fails to find it, an
ImportError exception is raised.
Contrarily, when using syntax like import
[Link], each item except for the last must be a
package; the last item can be a module or a package but can’t be a class or
function or variable defined in the previous item.

6.4.1 Importing * From a Package

Now what happens when the user writes from [Link] import
*? Ideally, one would hope that this somehow goes out to the filesystem,
finds which submodules are present in the package, and imports them all.
This could take a long time and importing sub-modules might have
unwanted side-effects that should only happen when the sub-module is
explicitly imported.
The only solution is for the package author to provide an explicit index of
the package. The import statement uses the following convention: if a
package’s init .py code defines a list named all , it is taken to be

all = ["echo", "surround", "reverse"]

the list of module names that should be imported when from package
import * is encountered. It is up to the package author to keep this list
up-to-date when a new version of the package is released. Package
authors may also decide not to support it, if they don’t see a use for
importing * from their package. For example, the file sound/effects/
init .py could contain the following code:
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
[Link] 49

This would mean that from [Link] import * would import

the three named submodules of the
sound package.
If all is not defined, the statement from [Link] import *
does not import all submodules from the package [Link] into
the current namespace; it only ensures that the package [Link]
has been imported (possibly running any initialization code in init
.py) and then imports whatever names are defined in the package. This
includes any names defined (and submodules explicitly loaded) by
init .py. It also includes any submodules of the package that were
explicitly loaded by previous import

import
[Link]
ho import
[Link]
ound from
[Link]
import *

statements. Consider this code:

In this example, the echo and surround modules are imported in the
current namespace because they are defined in the [Link]
package when the from...import statement is executed. (This also
works when all is defined.)
Although certain modules are designed to export only names that follow
certain patterns when you use
import *, it is still considered bad practice in production code.
Remember, there is nothing wrong with using from Package import
specific_submodule! In fact, this is the recommended notation unless
the importing module needs to use submodules with the same name from
different packages.
52 Chapter 6. Modules
6.4.2 Intra-package References

When packages are structured into subpackages (as with the sound
package in the example), you can use absolute imports to refer to
submodules of siblings packages. For example, if the module
[Link]. vocoder needs to use the echo module in the
[Link] package, it can use from [Link] import
echo.
You can also write relative imports, with the from module import
name form of import statement. These imports use leading dots to
from . import echo
from .. import formats
from ..filters import equalizer

indicate the current and parent packages involved in the relative import.
From the surround module for example, you might use:
Note that relative imports are based on the name of the current module.
Since the name of the main module is always " main ", modules
intended for use as the main module of a Python application must
always use absolute imports.

6.4.3 Packages in Multiple Directories

Packages support one more special attribute, path . This is initialized

to be a list containing the name of the directory holding the package’s
init .py before the code in that file is executed. This variable can be
modified; doing so affects future searches for modules and subpackages
contained in the package.
While this feature is not often needed, it can be used to extend the set of
modules found in a package.
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
CHAPTER

SEVEN

INPUT AND OUTPUT

There are several ways to present the output of a program; data can be
printed in a human-readable form, or written to a file for future use. This
chapter will discuss some of the possibilities.

7.1 Fancier Output Formatting

So far we’ve encountered two wayErrors and Exceptionss of writing

values: expression statements and the print() function. (A third way is
using the write() method of file objects; the standard output file can
be referenced as [Link]. See the Library Reference for more
information on this.)
Often you’ll want more control over the formatting of your output than
simply printing space-separated values. There are two ways to format
your output; the first way is to do all the string handling yourself; using
string slicing and concatenation operations you can create any layout
you can imagine. The string type has some methods that perform useful
operations for padding strings to a given column width; these will be
discussed shortly. The second way is to use formatted string literals, or
the [Link]() method.
The string module contains a Template class which offers yet another
way to substitute values into strings.

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 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
One question remains, of course: how do you convert values to strings?
Luckily, Python has ways to convert any value to a string: pass it to the
repr() or str() functions.
The str() function is meant to return representations of values which
are fairly human-readable, while repr() is meant to generate
representations which can be read by the interpreter (or will force a
SyntaxError if there is no equivalent syntax). For objects which don’t
have a particular representation for human con- sumption, str() will
return the same value as repr(). Many values, such as numbers or
structures like lists and dictionaries, have the same representation using
either function. Strings, in particular, have two distinct representations.

>>> s = 'Hello, world.'

>>> str(s) 'Hello, world.'
>>> repr(s) "'Hello, world.'"
>>> str(1/7) '0.14285714285714285'
>>> x = 10 * 3.25
>>> y = 200 * 200
>>> s = 'The value of x is ' + repr(x) + ', and y is '
+ repr(y) + '...'
>>> print(s)

The value of x is 32.5, and y is 40000...

>>> # The repr() of a string adds string quotes and
backslashes:
... hello = 'hello, world\n'
>>> hellos = repr(hello)
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Some examples:

>>> print(hellos) 'hello, world\n'

>>> # The argument to repr() may be any Python
object:
... repr((x, y, ('spam', 'eggs')))
"(32.5, 40000, ('spam', 'eggs'))"

Here are two ways to write a table of squares and cubes:

54 Chapter 7. Input and Output

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

1 1 1
2 4 8
3 9 27
4 16 64
5 25 125
6 36 216
7 49 343
8 64 512
9 81 729
10 100 1000

1 1 1
2 4 8
3 9 27
4 16 64
5 25 125
6 36 216
7 49 343
8 64 512
9 81 729
10 100 1000
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
(Note that in the first example, one space between each column was
added by the way print() works: it always adds spaces between its
arguments.)
This example demonstrates the [Link]() method of string objects,
which right-justifies a string in a field of a given width by padding it
with spaces on the left. There are similar methods [Link]() and
[Link](). These methods do not write anything, they just return a
new string. If the input string is too long, they don’t truncate it, but
return it unchanged; this will mess up your column lay-out but that’s
usually better than the alternative, which would be lying about a value.
(If you really want truncation you can always add a slice operation, as in
[Link](n)[:n].)
There is another method, [Link](), which pads a numeric string on
>>> '12'.zfill(5) '00012'
>>> '-3.14'.zfill(7) '-003.14'
>>> '3.14159265359'.zfill(5) '3.14159265359'

the left with zeros. It understands about plus and minus signs:
Basic usage of the [Link]() method looks like this:

56 Chapter 7. Input and Output

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> print('We are the {} who say

"{}!"'.format('knights', 'Ni')) We
are the knights who say "Ni!"

The brackets and characters within them (called format fields) are
replaced with the objects passed into the [Link]() method. A
>>> print('{0} and {1}'.format('spam', 'eggs')) spam and
eggs
>>> print('{1} and {0}'.format('spam', 'eggs')) eggs and
spam

number in the brackets can be used to refer to the position of the object
passed into the [Link]() method.
If keyword arguments are used in the [Link]() method, their
values are referred to by using the name of the argument.
>>> print('This {food} is {adjective}.'.format(
... food='spam', adjective='absolutely horrible')) This
spam is absolutely horrible.

>>> print('The story of {0}, {1}, and

{other}.'.format('Bill', 'Manfred',
other='Georg'))
The story of Bill, Manfred, and Georg.

Positional and keyword arguments can be arbitrarily combined:

'!a' (apply ascii()), '!s' (apply str()) and '!r' (apply repr())
can be used to convert the value before it is formatted:

54 Chapter 7. Input and Output

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
>>> contents = 'eels'
>>> print('My hovercraft is full
of {}.'.format(contents)) My
hovercraft is full of eels.
>>> print('My hovercraft is full of
{!r}.'.format(contents)) My
hovercraft is full of 'eels'.

An optional ':' and format specifier can follow the field name. This

>>> import math

>>> print('The value of PI is
approximately {0:.3f}.'.format([Link]))
The value of PI is approximately 3.142.

allows greater control over how the value is formatted. The following
example rounds Pi to three places after the decimal.
Passing an integer after the ':' will cause that field to be a minimum
number of characters wide. This is useful for making tables pretty.

Jack ==> 4098

Dcab ==> 7678
Sjoer ==> 4127
d

If you have a really long format string that you don’t want to split up, it
would be nice if you could reference the variables to be formatted by
name instead of by position. This can be done by simply passing the dict
and using square brackets '[]' to access the keys

7.2. Reading and Writing Files 55

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

7.1. Fancier Output Formatting 53

>>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab':

8637678}
>>> print('Jack: {0[Jack]:d}; Sjoerd: {0[Sjoerd]:d};
'
... 'Dcab:
{0[Dcab]:d}'.format(table))
Jack: 4098; Sjoerd:
4127; Dcab: 8637678

This could also be done by passing the table as keyword arguments with
the ‘**’ notation.
This is particularly useful in combination with the built-in function
>>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab':
8637678}
>>> print('Jack: {Jack:d}; Sjoerd: {Sjoerd:d};
Dcab: {Dcab:d}'.format(**table)) Jack: 4098;
Sjoerd: 4127; Dcab: 8637678

vars(), which returns a dictionary containing all local variables.

For a complete overview of string formatting with [Link](), see
formatstrings.

56 Chapter 7. Input and Output

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
7.1.1 Old string formatting

The % operator can also be used for string formatting. It interprets the left
argument much like a sprintf()- style format string to be applied to the

>>> import math

>>> print('The value of PI is approximately %5.3f.' %
[Link]) The value of PI is approximately 3.142.

right argument, and returns the string resulting from this formatting
operation. For example:
More information can be found in the old-string-formatting section.

7.2 Reading and Writing Files

>>> f = open('workfile', 'w')

open() returns a file object, and is most commonly used with two
arguments: open(filename, mode).
The first argument is a string containing the filename. The second
argument is another string containing a few characters describing the
way in which the file will be used. mode can be 'r' when the file will
only be read, 'w' for only writing (an existing file with the same name
will be erased), and 'a' opens the file for appending; any data written
to the file is automatically added to the end. 'r+' opens the file for both
reading and writing. The mode argument is optional; 'r' will be
assumed if it’s omitted.
Normally, files are opened in text mode, that means, you read and write
strings from and to the file, which are encoded in a specific encoding. If
encoding is not specified, the default is platform dependent (see open()).
'b' appended to the mode opens the file in binary mode: now the data is
read and written in the form of bytes objects. This mode should be used
7.2. Reading and Writing Files 57
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
for all files that don’t contain text.
In text mode, the default when reading is to convert platform-specific
line endings (\n on Unix, \r\n on Windows) to just \n. When writing
in text mode, the default is to convert occurrences of \n back to
platform-specific line endings. This behind-the-scenes modification to file
data is fine for text files, but will corrupt binary data like that in JPEG or
EXE files. Be very careful to use binary mode when reading and writing
such files.
It is good practice to use the with keyword when dealing with file
objects. The advantage is that the file is properly closed after its suite
finishes, even if an exception is raised at some point. Using with is also
much shorter than writing equivalent try-finally blocks:

>>> with open('workfile') as f:

... read_data = [Link]()
>>>
[Link]
d True

58 Chapter 7. Input and Output

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

If you’re not using the with keyword, then you should call [Link]()
to close the file and immediately free up any system resources used by it.
If you don’t explicitly close a file, Python’s garbage collector will
eventually destroy the object and close the open file for you, but the file
may stay open for a while. Another risk is that different Python
implementations will do this clean-up at different times.
After a file object is closed, either by a with statement or by calling

>>> [Link]()
>>> [Link]()

Traceback (most
recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line
1, in <module>
ValueError: I/O operation on closed file

[Link](), attempts to use the file object will automatically fail.

7.2.1 Methods of File Objects

The rest of the examples in this section will assume that a file object
called f has already been created.
To read a file’s contents, call [Link](size), which reads some quantity
of data and returns it as a string (in text mode) or bytes object (in binary
mode). size is an optional numeric argument. When size is

7.2. Reading and Writing Files 59

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> [Link]()

'This is the entire file.\n'

>>>
[Link](
) ''

omitted or negative, the entire contents of the file will be read and
returned; it’s your problem if the file is twice as large as your machine’s
memory. Otherwise, at most size bytes are read and returned. If the end
of the file has been reached, [Link]() will return an empty string ('').
[Link]() reads a single line from the file; a newline character (\n)
is left at the end of the string, and is only omitted on the last line of the
file if the file doesn’t end in a newline. This makes the return value
unambiguous; if [Link]() returns an empty string, the end of the
file has been reached, while a blank line is represented by '\n', a string
containing only a single newline.
>>> [Link]()

'This is the first line of the file.\n'

>>> [Link]()

'Second line of the file\n'

>>> [Link]() ''

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 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
For reading lines from a file, you can loop over the file object. This is

>>> for line in f:

... print(line, end='')
...
This is the first line of the file. Second line of the
file

memory efficient, fast, and leads to simple code:

If you want to read all the lines of a file in a list you can also use
list(f) or [Link]().

>>> [Link]('This
is a test\n') 15

[Link](string) writes the contents of string to the file, returning the

number of characters written.
Other types of objects need to be converted – either to a string (in text
mode) or a bytes object (in binary mode) – before writing them:
>>> value = ('the answer', 42)
>>> s = str(value) # convert the tuple to string
>>>
[Link](
s) 18

[Link]() returns an integer giving the file object’s current position in the
file represented as number of bytes from the beginning of the file when in
binary mode and an opaque number when in text mode.

7.2. Reading and Writing Files 61

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
To change the file object’s position, use [Link](offset,
from_what). The position is computed from adding offset to a reference
point; the reference point is selected by the from_what

>>> f = open('workfile', 'rb+')

>>>
[Link](b'0123456789
abcdef') 16
>>> [Link](5) # Go to the 6th byte in the file
5
>>>
[Link](1
) b'5'
>>> [Link](-3, 2) # Go to the 3rd byte before the end
13
>>>
[Link](1 A from_what value of 0 measures from the beginning of the
argument.
) b'd'
file, 1 uses the current file position, and 2 uses the end of the file as the
reference point. from_what can be omitted and defaults to 0, using the
beginning of the file as the reference point.
In text files (those opened without a b in the mode string), only seeks
relative to the beginning of the file are allowed (the exception being
seeking to the very file end with seek(0, 2)) and the only valid offset
values are those returned from the [Link](), or zero. Any other offset
value produces undefined behaviour.
File objects have some additional methods, such as isatty() and
truncate() which are less frequently used; consult the Library
Reference for a complete guide to file objects.

7.2.2 Saving structured data with json

Strings can easily be written to and read from a file. Numbers take a bit
62 Chapter 7. Input and Output
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
more effort, since the read() method only returns strings, which will
have to be passed to a function like int(), which takes a string like
'123' and returns its numeric value 123. When you want to save more
complex data types like nested lists and dictionaries, parsing and
serializing by hand becomes complicated.
Rather than having users constantly writing and debugging code to save
complicated data types to files, Python allows you to use the popular
data interchange format called JSON (JavaScript Object Notation). The
standard module called json can take Python data hierarchies, and
convert them to string represen- tations; this process is called serializing.
Reconstructing the data from the string representation is called
deserializing. Between serializing and deserializing, the string
representing the object may have been stored in a file or data, or sent
over a network connection to some distant machine.

Note: The JSON format is commonly used by modern applications to

allow for data exchange. Many

programmers are already familiar with it, which makes it a good choice
for interoperability.

>>> import json

>>> [Link]([1, 'simple', 'list'])
'[1, "simple", "list"]'

If you have an object x, you can view its JSON string representation with
a simple line of code:
Another variant of the dumps() function, called dump(), simply
serializes the object to a text file. So if f is a text file object opened for
writing, we can do this:
7.2. Reading and Writing Files 63
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
[Link](x, f)

x = [Link](f)

To decode the object again, if f is a text file object which has been
opened for reading:
This simple serialization technique can handle lists and dictionaries, but
serializing arbitrary class instances in JSON requires a bit of extra effort.
The reference for the json module contains an explanation of this.
See also:
pickle - the pickle module
Contrary to JSON , pickle is a protocol which allows the serialization of
arbitrarily complex Python objects. As such, it is specific to Python and
cannot be used to communicate with applications written in other
languages. It is also insecure by default: deserializing pickle data coming
from an untrusted source can execute arbitrary code, if the data was
crafted by a skilled attacker.

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CHAPTER

EIGHT

ERRORS AND EXCEPTIONS

Until now error messages haven’t been more than mentioned, but if you
have tried out the examples you have probably seen some. There are (at
least) two distinguishable kinds of errors: syntax errors and exceptions.

8.1 Syntax Errors

Syntax errors, also known as parsing errors, are perhaps the most

>>> while True print('Hello world')

File "<stdin>", line 1

while True print('Hello world')
^
SyntaxError:
invalid syntax

common kind of complaint you get while you are still learning Python:
The parser repeats the offending line and displays a little ‘arrow’
pointing at the earliest point in the line where the error was detected.
The error is caused by (or at least detected at) the token preceding the
arrow: in the example, the error is detected at the function print(),
since a colon (':') is missing before it. File name and line number are
printed so you know where to look in case the input came from a script.
7.2. Reading and Writing Files 65
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8.2 Exceptions

Even if a statement or expression is syntactically correct, it may cause an

error when an attempt is made to execute it. Errors detected during

>>> 10 * (1/0)

Traceback (most recent call last):

File "<stdin>", line
1, in <module>
ZeroDivisionError:
division by zero
>>> 4 + spam*3
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line
1, in <module>
NameError: name
'spam' is not defined
>>> '2' + 2
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
TypeError: Can't convert 'int' object to str implicitly

execution are called exceptions and are not unconditionally fatal: you will
soon learn how to handle them in Python programs. Most exceptions are
not handled by programs, however, and result in error messages as
shown here:

66 Chapter 7. Input and Output

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
The last line of the error message indicates what happened. Exceptions
come in different types, and the type is printed as part of the message: the
types in the example are ZeroDivisionError, NameError and
TypeError. The string printed as the exception type is the name of the
built-in exception that occurred. This is true for all built-in exceptions,
but need not be true for user-defined exceptions (although it is a useful
convention). Standard exception names are built-in identifiers (not
reserved keywords).
The rest of the line provides detail based on the type of exception and
what caused it.
The preceding part of the error message shows the context where the
exception happened, in the form of a stack traceback. In general it
contains a stack traceback listing source lines; however, it will not display
lines read from standard input.
bltin-exceptions lists the built-in exceptions and their meanings.

8.3 Handling Exceptions

It is possible to write programs that handle selected exceptions. Look at

the following example, which asks the user for input until a valid

integer has been entered, but allows the user to interrupt the program
7.2. Reading and Writing Files 67
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
(using Control-C or whatever the operating system supports); note that
a user-generated interruption is signalled by raising the
KeyboardInterrupt exception.
The try statement works as follows.
• First, the try clause (the statement(s) between the try and except
keywords) is executed.
• If no exception occurs, the except clause is skipped and execution of the try
statement is finished.
• If an exception occurs during execution of the try clause, the rest of the clause
is skipped. Then if its type matches the exception named after the except
keyword, the except clause is executed, and then execution continues after the
try statement.
• If an exception occurs which does not match the exception named in the except
clause, it is passed on to outer try statements; if no handler is found, it is an
unhandled exception and execution stops with a message as shown above.
A try statement may have more than one except clause, to specify
handlers for different exceptions. At most one handler will be executed.

... except (RuntimeError, TypeError, NameError):

... pass
Handlers only handle exceptions that occur in the corresponding try
clause, not in other handlers of the same try statement. An except clause
may name multiple exceptions as a parenthesized tuple, for example:
A class in an except clause is compatible with an exception if it is the
same class or a base class thereof (but not the other way around — an
except clause listing a derived class is not compatible with a base class).
For example, the following code will print B, C, D in that order:

68 Chapter 7. Input and Output

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
class
B(Excepti
on):
pass

class C(B):

7.2. Reading and Writing Files 69

 pass

class
D(C):
pass

for cls in [B, C, D]:

try:
raise cls()
except D:

print("D")
except C:

print("C")
except B:
print("B")

Note that if the except clauses were reversed (with except B first), it
would have printed B, B, B — the first matching except clause is
triggered.
The last except clause may omit the exception name(s), to serve as a
wildcard. Use this with extreme caution, since it is easy to mask a real
import sys

try:

f = open('[Link]')
s = [Link]()

i = int([Link]())

except OSError as err:

8.3. print("OS error: {0}".format(err))

Handling Exceptions 61

except ValueError:
programming error in this way! It can also be used to print an error
message and then re-raise the exception (allowing a caller to handle the
exception as well):
The try … except statement has an optional else clause, which, when
present, must follow all except clauses. It is useful for code that must be
executed if the try clause does not raise an exception. For example:
for arg in [Link][1:]:
try:

f = open(arg, 'r')
except OSError:
print('cannot
open', arg)
else:
print(arg, 'has',
len([Link]()),
'lines') [Link]()

The use of the else clause is better than adding additional code to the
try clause because it avoids acciden- tally catching an exception that
wasn’t raised by the code being protected by the try … except
statement.
When an exception occurs, it may have an associated value, also known
as the exception’s argument. The presence and type of the argument
depend on the exception type.
The except clause may specify a variable after the exception name. The
variable is bound to an exception instance with the arguments stored in
[Link]. For convenience, the exception instance defines
str () so the arguments can be printed directly without having to
reference .args. One may also instantiate an exception first before
raising it and add any attributes to it as desired.

62 Chapter 8. Errors and Exceptions

>>> try:
... raise Exception('spam', 'eggs')
... except Exception as inst:
# str allows args to be printed directly,

# but may be overridden in exception

subclasses
x, y = [Link] # unpack args
... #
arguments stored in .args

('spam',
'eggs')

If an exception has arguments, they are printed as the last part (‘detail’)
of the message for unhandled exceptions.
Exception handlers don’t just handle exceptions if they occur
>>> def this_fails():
... x = 1/0
...
>>> try:
... this_fails()
... except ZeroDivisionError as err:
... print('Handling run-time error:', err)
...
Handling run-time error: division by zero

8.5. User-defined Exceptions 63

 immediately in the try clause, but also if they occur inside functions that
are called (even indirectly) in the try clause. For example:

8.4 Raising Exceptions

>>> raise
NameError('HiThere
') Traceback (most
recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line
1, in <module>
NameError: HiThere

The raise statement allows the programmer to force a specified

exception to occur. For example:
The sole argument to raise indicates the exception to be raised. This
must be either an exception instance or an exception class (a class that
derives from Exception). If an exception class is passed, it will be
implicitly instantiated by calling its constructor with no arguments:
raise ValueError # shorthand for 'raise
ValueError()'
If you need to determine whether an exception was raised but don’t
>>> try:
... raise NameError('HiThere')
... except NameError:
... print('An exception flew by!')
... raise

64 Chapter 8. Errors and Exceptions

 intend to handle it, a simpler form of the raise statement allows you to
re-raise the exception:

...

An exception flew by!

Traceback (most
recent call last):
File "<stdin>",
line 2, in <module>
NameError: HiThere

8.5 User-defined Exceptions

Programs may name their own exceptions by creating a new exception

class (see Classes for more about Python classes). Exceptions should
typically be derived from the Exception class, either directly or indi-
rectly.

8.5. User-defined Exceptions 65

 Exception classes can be defined which do anything any other class can
do, but are usually kept simple, often only offering a number of attributes
that allow information about the error to be extracted by handlers for the

class Error(Exception):

"""Base class for exceptions in this module."""

pass
class InputError(Error):

"""Exception raised for errors in the input.

Attributes:
expression -- input expression in which the error occurred
message -- explanation of the error
"""
def init (self, expression, message): [Link] =
expression [Link] = message
class TransitionError(Error):

"""Raised when an operation attempts a state transition

that's not allowed.
Attributes:
previous -- state at beginning of transition next --
attempted new state
message -- explanation of why the specific transition
is not allowed
"""def init (self, previous, next, message):
[Link] = previous
[Link] = next [Link] = message

exception. When creating a module that can raise several distinct errors,
a common practice is to create a base class for exceptions defined by that
66 Chapter 8. Errors and Exceptions
 module, and subclass that to create specific exception classes for different
error conditions:
Most exceptions are defined with names that end in “Error,” similar to the
naming of the standard exceptions.
Many standard modules define their own exceptions to report errors that
may occur in functions they define. More information on classes is
presented in chapter Classes.

8.6 Defining Clean-up Actions

The try statement has another optional clause which is intended to

>>> try:
... raise KeyboardInterrupt
... finally:
... print('Goodbye, world!')
...

Goodbye, world!
KeyboardInterrupt
Traceback (most
recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line
2, in <module>

define clean-up actions that must be executed under all circumstances.

For example:
A finally clause is always executed before leaving the try statement,
whether an exception has occurred or not. When an exception has
occurred in the try clause and has not been handled by an except
clause (or it has occurred in an except or else clause), it is re-raised
after the finally clause has been executed. The finally clause is also
8.5. User-defined Exceptions 67
 executed “on the way out” when any other clause of the try statement is
left via a break, continue or return statement. A more complicated
example:
>>> def
divide(x,
result = x / y
except ZeroDivisionError:

else:
... print("result is", result)
>>> divide(2,
finally: 1)
result is 2.0

>>> divide(2, 0)
division by zero!
As you can see, the finally clause is executed in any event. The
TypeError raised by dividing two strings is not handled by the except
clause and therefore re-raised after the finally clause has been
executed.
In real world applications, the finally clause is useful for releasing
external resources (such as files or network connections), regardless of
whether the use of the resource was successful.

8.7 Predefined Clean-up Actions

Some objects define standard clean-up actions to be undertaken when the

object is no longer needed, regard- less of whether or not the operation
using the object succeeded or failed. Look at the following example,
which tries to open a file and print its contents to the screen.

68 Chapter 8. Errors and Exceptions

for line in
open("[Link]
t"):
print(line,
end="")

The problem with this code is that it leaves the file open for an
indeterminate amount of time after this part of the code has finished

with open("[Link]") as f:
for line in
f:
print(line,
end="")

executing. This is not an issue in simple scripts, but can be a problem for
larger applications. The with statement allows objects like files to be
used in a way that ensures they are always cleaned up promptly and
correctly.
After the statement is executed, the file f is always closed, even if a
problem was encountered while pro- cessing the lines. Objects which,
like files, provide predefined clean-up actions will indicate this in their
documentation.

8.7. Predefined Clean-up Actions 65

 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
66 Chapter 8. Errors and Exceptions
 (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.

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

67
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understand what’s going on. Incidentally, knowledge about this subject

is useful for any advanced Python programmer.
Let’s begin with some definitions.
A namespace is a mapping from names to objects. Most namespaces are
currently implemented as Python dictionaries, but that’s normally not
noticeable in any way (except for performance), and it may change in
the future. Examples of namespaces are: the set of built-in names
(containing functions such as abs(), and built-in exception names); the
global names in a module; and the local names in a function invocation.
In a sense the set of attributes of an object also form a namespace. The
important thing to know about namespaces is that there is absolutely no
relation between names in different namespaces; for instance, two
different modules may both define a function maximize without
confusion — users of the modules must prefix it with the module name.
By the way, I use the word attribute for any name following a dot — for
example, in the expression z. real, real is an attribute of the object
z. Strictly speaking, references to names in modules are attribute
references: in the expression [Link], modname is a module
object and funcname is an attribute of it. In this case there happens to be
a straightforward mapping between the module’s attributes and the
global names defined in the module: they share the same namespace!1
Attributes may be read-only or writable. In the latter case, assignment to
attributes is possible. Module attributes are writable: you can write
modname.the_answer = 42. Writable attributes may also be deleted
with the del statement. For example, del modname.the_answer will
remove the attribute the_answer from the object named by modname.
Namespaces are created at different moments and have different
lifetimes. The namespace containing the built-in names is created when
the Python interpreter starts up, and is never deleted. The global
namespace for a module is created when the module definition is read in;
normally, module namespaces also last until the interpreter quits. The
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statements executed by the top-level invocation of the interpreter, either
read from a script file or interactively, are considered part of a module
called main , so they have their own global namespace. (The built-in
names actually also live in a module; this is called builtins.)
The local namespace for a function is created when the function is called,
and deleted when the function returns or raises an exception that is not
handled within the function. (Actually, forgetting would be a better way
to describe what actually happens.) Of course, recursive invocations each
have their own local namespace.
A scope is a textual region of a Python program where a namespace is
directly accessible. “Directly accessible” here means that an unqualified
reference to a name attempts to find the name in the namespace.
Although scopes are determined statically, they are used dynamically. At
any time during execution, there are at least three nested scopes whose
namespaces are directly accessible:
• the innermost scope, which is searched first, contains the local names
• the scopes of any enclosing functions, which are searched starting with the
nearest enclosing scope, contains non-local, but also non-global names
• the next-to-last scope contains the current module’s global names
• the outermost scope (searched last) is the namespace containing built-in
names
If a name is declared global, then all references and assignments go directly
to the middle scope containing the module’s global names. To rebind
variables found outside of the innermost scope, the nonlocal statement
can be used; if not declared nonlocal, those variables are read-only (an
attempt to write to such a variable will simply create a new local variable
in the innermost scope, leaving the identically named outer variable
unchanged).
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
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
implementation, and should be restricted to things like post-mortem
debuggers.

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

9.2.1 Scopes and Namespaces Example

This is an example demonstrating how to reference the different scopes

and namespaces, and how global

72 Chapter 9. Classes
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

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)

and nonlocal affect variable binding:

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
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
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.

9.2. Python Scopes and Namespaces 69

You can also see that there was no previous binding for spam before the
global assignment.

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

class ClassName:

<statement-1>
.
.
.
The <statement-N>
simplest form of class definition looks like this:
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
74 Chapter 9. Classes
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
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: [Link]. Valid attribute names are all the names
class MyClass:

"""A simple example class"""

i = 12345
def f(self):
return 'hello
world'
that were in the class’s namespace when the class object was created. So,
if the class definition looked like this:
then MyClass.i and MyClass.f are valid attribute references,
returning an integer and a function object, respectively. Class attributes
can also be assigned to, so you can change the value of MyClass.i by
assign- ment. doc is also a valid attribute, returning the docstring
belonging to the class: "A simple example class".
Class instantiation uses function notation. Just pretend that the class

x = MyClass()
object is a parameterless function that returns a new instance of the
class. For example (assuming the above class):
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
def init (self): [Link] = []

specific initial state. Therefore a class may define a special method

named init (), like this:
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

>>> 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)

76 Chapter 9. Classes
 flexibility. In that case, arguments given to the class instantiation
operator are passed on to init (). For example,

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

[Link] = 1
while [Link] < 10: [Link] = [Link] * 2
print([Link])
del [Link]

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:
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.

9.3. A First Look at Classes 71

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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'.

xf = x.f
while True:

print(xf())

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:
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.
If you still don’t understand how methods work, a look at the
implementation can perhaps clarify matters. When an instance attribute
is referenced that isn’t a data attribute, its class is searched. If the name
denotes a valid class attribute that is a function object, a method object is
created by packing (pointers to) the instance object and the function
object just found together in an abstract object: this is the method object.
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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 at- tributes and methods shared by all
instances of the class:
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

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

74 Chapter 9. Classes
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
class Dog:
def init (self, name):
[Link] = name
[Link] = []
# creates a new empty list for
each dog

>>> d = Dog('Fido')
>>> e = Dog('Buddy')

>>> [Link]
>>> [Link]

9.4 Random Remarks

Data attributes override method attributes with the same name; to avoid
accidental name conflicts, which may cause hard-to-find bugs in large
programs, it is wise to use some kind of convention that minimizes the
chance of conflicts. Possible conventions include capitalizing method
names, prefixing data attribute names with a small unique string
(perhaps just an underscore), or using verbs for methods and nouns for
data attributes.
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 — it is all based upon convention. (On the
other hand, the Python implementation, written in C, can completely
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
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

9.4. Random Remarks 73

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:
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.

76 Chapter 9. Classes
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Methods may call other methods by using method attributes of the self
class Bag:
def init (self): [Link] = []
def add(self, x): [Link](x)
def addtwice(self, x): [Link](x) [Link](x)

argument:
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 .

# 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
9.5 Inheritance

Of course, a language feature would not be worthy of the name “class”

class DerivedClassName(BaseClassName):

<statement-1>
.
.
.
without supporting inheritance. The syntax for a derived class definition
looks<statement-N>
like this:
The name BaseClassName must be defined in a scope containing the
derived class definition. In place of a base class name, other arbitrary
expressions are also allowed. This can be useful, for example, when the
base class is defined in another module:
class DerivedClassName([Link]):

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.

78 Chapter 9. Classes
 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
[Link](self, arguments). This is occasionally
useful to clients as well. (Note that this only works if the base class is
accessible as BaseClassName in the global scope.)
Python has two built-in functions that work with inheritance:
• Use isinstance() to check an instance’s type: isinstance(obj,
int) will be True only if obj.
class is int or some class derived from int.
• Use issubclass() to check class inheritance: issubclass(bool, int) is
True since bool is a subclass of int. However, issubclass(float, int)
is False since float is not a subclass of int.

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>

9.5. Inheritance 75
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

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

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

76 Chapter 9. Classes
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
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

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)

without breaking intraclass method calls. For example:

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”

class
Employ
ee:
pass

john = Employee() # Create an

empty employee record # Fill
the fields of the record
[Link] = 'John Doe'
[Link] =
'computer lab'
[Link] =
1000

or C “struct”, bundling together a few named data items. An empty class

definition will do nicely:
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.

78 Chapter 9. Classes
 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
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("[Link]"): print(line, end='')

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

<iterator object at 0x00A1DB50>

9.7. Odds and Ends 77

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> 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

class Reverse:

"""Iterator for looping over a sequence backwards."""

def init (self, data): [Link] = data [Link] =
len(data)

def iter (self): return self

def next (self):

if [Link] == 0:
raise StopIteration [Link] = [Link] - 1 return
[Link][[Link]]

78 Chapter 9. Classes
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

next (), then iter () can just return self:

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
def reverse(data):

for index in range(len(data)-1, -1, -1):

they want
yieldto return data. Each time next() is called on it, the generator
data[index]

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:

>>> rev = Reverse('spam')

>>> iter(rev)

< main .Reverse object at 0x00A1DB50>

>>> for char in rev:
... print(char)
...
m a p s

9.10. Generator Expressions 79

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> 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
[Link] and [Link].
In addition to automatic method creation and saving program state,
when generators terminate, they au- tomatically raise StopIteration.
In combination, these features make it easy to create iterators with no
more effort than writing a regular function.

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
gen- erator 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.

80 Chapter 9. Classes
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Examples:

9.10. Generator Expressions 79

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CHAPTER

TEN

BRIEF TOUR OF THE STANDARD LIBRARY

10.1 Operating System Interface

The os module provides dozens of functions for interacting with the

operating system:
Be sure to use the import os style instead of from os import *. This
will keep [Link]() from shadowing the built-in open() function
which operates much differently.
82 Chapter 9. Classes
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
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
>>>
[Link]('[Link]',
'[Link]') '[Link]'
>>>
[Link]('/build/executables'
, 'installdir') 'installdir'

10.2 File Wildcards

>>> import glob

>>> [Link]('*.py')
['[Link]', '[Link]', '[Link]']

9.10. Generator Expressions 79

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
The glob module provides a function for making file lists from
directory wildcard searches:

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
>>> import sys
>>> print([Link])
['[Link]', 'one', 'two', 'three']

instance the following output results from running python [Link]

one two three at the command line:
The getopt module processes [Link] using the conventions of the Unix
getopt() function. More powerful and flexible command line
processing is provided by the argparse module.

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:
>>> [Link]('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 [Link]().

84 Chapter 9. Classes
 >>> import math
>>> [Link]([Link] / 4) 0.70710678118654757
Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> [Link](1024, 2)
10.0

>>> import re
>>> [Link](r'\bf[a-z]*', 'which
foot or hand fell fastest') ['foot',
'fell', 'fastest']
>>> [Link](r'(\b[a-z]+) \1',
r'\1', 'cat in the the hat') 'cat
in the hat'
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:
When only simple capabilities are needed, string methods are preferred
because they are easier to read and debug:
>>> 'tea for
too'.replace('too',
'two') 'tea for two'

10.6 Mathematics

The math module gives access to the underlying C library functions for
floating point math:
The random module provides tools for making random selections:

9.10. Generator Expressions 79

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> from [Link] import urlopen

>>> with urlopen('[Link] as response:

... for line in response:

... line = [Link]('utf-8') # Decoding the binary data to text.

... if 'EST' in line or 'EDT' in line: # look for Eastern Time

... print(line)

>>> import statistics

<BR>Nov. 25, 09:43:32 PM EST

>>> data
>>> import = [2.75, 1.75, 1.25, 0.25, 0.5, 1.25, 3.5]
smtplib

>>> [Link](data)
>>> server = [Link]('localhost')

1.6071428571428572
>>> [Link]('soothsayer@[Link]', 'jcaesar@[Link]',

... """To: jcaesar@[Link]

>>>
[Link]
... From: soothsayer@[Link]

(data) 1.25
...

... Beware the Ides of March.

>>>
[Link](data)
... """)

1.3720238095238095
>>> [Link]()
>>> import random

>>> [Link](['apple', 'pear', 'banana'])

'apple'

>>> [Link](range(100), 10) # sampling without replacement

[30, 83, 16, 4, 8, 81, 41, 50, 18, 33]

>>> [Link]() # random float

The statistics module calculates basic statistical properties (the mean,

0.17970987693706186

median, variance, etc.)

>>> [Link](6) of numeric
# random data:from range(6)
integer chosen

The
4 SciPy project <[Link] has many other modules for
numerical computations.

10.7 Internet Access

There are a number of modules for accessing the internet and processing
internet
86 protocols. Two of the simplest are [Link] for9. Classes
Chapter
retrieving data from URLs and smtplib for sending mail:
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
(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 extrac-

10.7. Internet Access 83

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

tion for output formatting and manipulation. The module also supports
>>> # dates are easily constructed and formatted
>>> from datetime import date
>>> now = [Link]()
>>> now
[Link](2
003, 12, 2)
>>> [Link]("%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
>>>
[Link]
s 14368

objects that are timezone aware.

10.9 Data Compression

Common data archiving and compression formats are directly

supported by modules including: zlib, gzip, bz2, lzma, zipfile and

tarfile.

84 Chapter 10. Brief Tour of the Standard Library

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

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 tradi- tional approach to swapping arguments. The
>>> 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

timeit module quickly demonstrates a modest performance advantage:

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.

>>> import zlib

>>> s = b'witch which has which witches wrist watch'
>>> len(s) 41
>>> t = [Link](s)
>>> len(t) 37
>>> [Link](t)
b'witch which has which witches wrist watch'
>>> zlib.crc32(s) 226805979
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

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

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
[Link]() # automatically validate the embedded
tests
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:
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:

86 Chapter 10. Brief Tour of the Standard Library

 import unittest

class TestStatisticalFunctions([Link]): def

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

[Link]() # Calling from the command line

invokes all tests

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 [Link] and [Link] modules make implementing
remote procedure calls into an almost 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 message 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 implementing 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 sup- ported by databases and
spreadsheets. XML processing is supported by the
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

• [Link], [Link] and [Link] packages. Together,

these modules and packages greatly simplify data inter- change between
Python applications and other tools.

10.11. Quality Control 85

• The sqlite3 module is a wrapper for the SQLite database library, providing a
persistent database that can be updated and accessed using slightly
nonstandard SQL syntax.
• Internationalization is supported by a number of modules including gettext,
locale, and the codecs
package.

88 Chapter 10. Brief Tour of the Standard Library

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

CHAPTER

ELEVEN

BRIEF TOUR OF THE STANDARD LIBRARY — PART II

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

11.1 Output Formatting

The reprlib module provides a version of repr() customized for

>>> import reprlib

>>>
[Link](set('supercalifragilis
ticexpialidocious')) "{'a', 'c',
'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', ...}"

abbreviated displays of large or deeply nested containers:

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:

11.3. Working with Binary Data Record Layouts 89

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
>>> import pprint
>>> t = [[[['black', 'cyan'], 'white', ['green',
'red']], [['magenta',
... 'yellow'], 'blue']]]
...
>>> [Link](t, width=30) [[[['black', 'cyan'],
'white', ['green', 'red']],
[['magenta', 'yellow'], 'blue']]]

>>> 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([Link](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 textwrap module formats paragraphs of text to fit a given screen

width:
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:

90 Chapter 11. Brief Tour of the Standard Library — Part II

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> import locale

>>> [Link](locale.LC_ALL, 'English_United
States.1252') 'English_United States.1252'
>>> conv = [Link]() # get a mapping of
conventions
>>> x = 1234567.8
>>> [Link]("%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
>>> from string import Template
>>> t = Template('${village}folk send $$10 to $cause.')
>>>
[Link](village='Nottingham',
cause='the ditch fund')
'Nottinghamfolk send $10 to the
ditch fund.'

placeholder with braces allows it to be followed by more alphanumeric

letters with no intervening spaces. Writing $$ creates a single escaped $:
The substitute() method raises a KeyError when a placeholder is
11.3. Working with Binary Data Record Layouts 89
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
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')
>>> [Link](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
>>> import time, [Link]
>>> 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 = [Link]('%d%b%y')
>>> for i, filename in enumerate(photofiles):
... base, ext = [Link](filename)
... newname = [Link](d=date, n=i, f=ext)

signs for placeholders such as the current date, image sequence number,
or file format:
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 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

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 formats. 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
11.3. Working with Binary Data Record Layouts 89
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
two and four byte unsigned numbers respectively. The "<" indicates that
they are standard size and in little-endian byte order:

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

import threading, zipfile

class AsyncZip([Link]):
def init (self,
infile, outfile):
[Link].
init (self)
[Link] =
infile
[Link] =
outfile

tasks in background while the main program continues to run:

94 Chapter 11. Brief Tour of the Standard Library — Part II

 def run(self):

f = [Link]([Link],
'w', zipfile.ZIP_DEFLATED)
[Link]([Link])
[Link]()
print('Finished background zip of:',
[Link])
background =
AsyncZip('[Link]',
'[Link]')
[Link]()
print('The main program continues to run in
foreground.')

[Link]() # 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.

11.7. Tools for Working with Lists 91

11.5 Logging

The logging module offers a full featured and flexible logging system.
import logging
[Link]('Debuggin
g information')
[Link]('Informat
ional message')
[Link]('Warning:config file
%s not found', '[Link]')
[Link]('Error occurred')
[Link]('Critical error -- shutting down')

At its simplest, log messages are sent to a file or to [Link]:

This produces the following output:
WARNING:root:Warning:config
file [Link] 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 er- ror. Other output options include
routing messages through email, datagrams, sockets, or to an HTTP
Server. New filters can select different routing based on message priority:
DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, and CRITICAL.
The logging system can be configured directly from Python or can be
loaded from a user editable configuration file for customized logging
without altering the application.

92 Chapter 11. Brief Tour of the Standard Library — Part II

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

11.7. Tools for Working with Lists 91

 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:

11.6 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
>>> from array import array
>>> a = array('H', [4000, 10, 700, 22222])
>>> sum(a) 26932
>>> a[1:3] array('H', [10, 700])
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:
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:
>>> from collections import deque
>>> d = deque(["task1", "task2", "task3"])
>>> [Link]("task4")
>>> print("Handling", [Link]()) Handling task1

92 Chapter 11. Brief Tour of the Standard Library — Part II

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

In addition to alternative list implementations, the library also offers other

>>> import bisect

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

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

11.8. Decimal Floating Point Arithmetic 93

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

11.7 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

>>> from decimal import *

>>> round(Decimal('0.70') *
Decimal('1.05'), 2)
Decimal('0.74')
>>> round(.70 * 1.05, 2)
0.73 results in decimal floating point and binary floating point. The
different
94 Chapter 11. Brief Tour of the Standard Library — Part II
difference becomes significant if the results are rounded to the nearest
cent:
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
>>> sum([0.1]*10) == 1.0
False

>>> getcontext().prec = 36
>>> Decimal(1) / Decimal(7)
Decimal('0.142857142857142857142
857142857142857')

The decimal module provides arithmetic with as much precision as

needed:

11.8. Decimal Floating Point Arithmetic 93

 CHAPTER

TWELVE

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 requirements, application A can
have its own virtual environment with version 1.0 installed while
application B has another virtual environment with version 2.0. If
application B requires a library be upgraded to version 3.0, this will not
affect application A’s environment.

96 Chapter 12. Virtual Environments and Packages

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
python3 -m venv tutorial-env

module as a script with the directory path:

This will create the tutorial-env directory if it doesn’t exist, and also
create directories inside it containing a copy of the Python interpreter, the
standard library, and various supporting files.
Once you’ve created a virtual environment, you may activate it. On

tutorial-env\Scripts\[Link]

Windows, run:
On Unix or MacOS, run:
source tutorial-env/bin/activate

95
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

(This script is written for the bash shell. If you use the csh or fish shells,
there are alternate [Link]
and [Link] 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
$ source
~/envs/tutorial-
env/bin/activate
(tutorial-env) $
python
Python 3.5.1 (default, May 6 2016, 10:59:36)
...
>>> import sys
>>> [Link]
['',
'/usr/local/lib/[Link]
p', ..., '~/envs/tutorial-
env/lib/python3.5/site-
packages']
>>>
environment so that running python will get you that particular version
and instal- lation of Python. For example:

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

96 Chapter 12. Virtual Environments and Packages

Index, <[Link] You can browse the Python
Package Index by going to it in your web browser, or you can use pip’s
limited search feature:
pip has a number of subcommands: “search”, “install”, “uninstall”,
“freeze”, etc. (Consult the installing- index guide for complete
documentation for pip.)

(tutorial-env) $ pip install novas Collecting novas

Downloading [Link] (136kB) Installing
collected packages: novas
Running [Link] install for novas Successfully installed
novas-[Link]

You can install the latest version of a package by specifying a package’s

name:
You can also install a specific version of a package by giving the package
name followed by == and the version number:
(tutorial-env) $ pip install requests==2.6.0 Collecting
requests==2.6.0
Using cached [Link]
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 pip install --upgrade to
upgrade the package to the latest version:

95
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Python Tutorial,
Release 3.6.4

(tutorial-env) $ 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

pip uninstall followed by one or more package names will remove the
packages from the virtual environ- ment.

(tutorial-env) $ pip show requests

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

pip show will display information about a particular package:

pip list will display all of the packages installed in the virtual
environment:
96 Chapter 12. Virtual Environments and Packages
(tutorial-
env) $ pip list
novas CHAPTER
([Link])
numpy (1.9.2)
pip (7.0.3)
requests (2.7.0)
setuptools (16.0)

pip freeze will produce a similar list of the installed packages, but

(tutorial-env) $ pip freeze

> [Link]
(tutorial-env) $ cat
[Link]
novas==[Link]
numpy==1.
9.2
requests==2
.7.0
the output uses the format that pip install expects. A common
convention is to put this list in a [Link] file:
The [Link] 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:

95
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
(tutorial-env) $ pip install -r [Link]
Collecting novas==[Link] (from -r [Link]
(line 1))
...
Collecting numpy==1.9.2 (from -r [Link]
(line 2))
...
Collecting requests==2.7.0 (from -r [Link]
(line 3))
...
Installing collected packages: novas, numpy, requests
Running [Link] install for novas
Successfully installed novas-[Link] numpy-1.9.2
requests-2.7.0

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

96 Chapter 12. Virtual Environments and Packages

 THIRTEEN

WHAT NOW?
Reading this tutorial has probably reinforced your interest in using
Python — you should be eager to apply Python to solving your real-
world problems. Where should you go to learn more?
This tutorial is part of Python’s documentation set. Some other
documents in the set are:
• library-index:
You should browse through this manual, which gives complete (though
terse) reference material about types, functions, and the modules in the
standard library. The standard Python distribution includes a lot of
additional code. There are modules to read Unix mailboxes, retrieve
documents via HTTP, generate random numbers, parse command-line
options, write CGI programs, compress data, and many other tasks.
Skimming through the Library Reference will give you an idea of what’s
available.
• installing-index explains how to install additional modules written by other
Python users.
• reference-index: A detailed explanation of Python’s syntax and semantics. It’s
heavy reading, but is useful as a complete guide to the language itself.
More Python resources:
• [Link] The major Python Web site. It contains code,
documentation, and pointers to Python-related pages around the Web. This
Web site is mirrored in various places around the world, such as Europe, Japan,
and Australia; a mirror may be faster than the main site, depending on your
geographical location.
• [Link] Fast access to Python’s documentation.
• [Link] The Python Package Index, previously also
nicknamed the Cheese Shop, is an index of user-created Python modules that
are available for download. Once you begin releasing code, you can register it
here so that others can find it.
109
• [Link] 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.)
• [Link] collects links to Python-related videos from conferences
and user-group meet- ings.
• [Link] 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 [Link], or send them to the mailing list at
python-list@[Link]. 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 [Link]
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.

110 Chapter 13. What Now?

 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
completions 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
111
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.

112 Chapter 13. What Now?

 FIFTEEN

FLOATING POINT ARITHMETIC: ISSUES AND LIMITATIONS

Floating-point numbers are represented in computer hardware as base 2

0.125

(binary) fractions. For example, the decimal fraction

has value 1/10 + 2/100 + 5/1000, and in the same way the binary
fraction
0.001
has value 0/2 + 0/4 + 1/8. These two fractions have identical values, the
only real difference being that the first is written in base 10 fractional
notation, and the second in base 2.
Unfortunately, most decimal fractions cannot be represented exactly as
binary fractions. A consequence is that, in general, the decimal floating-
point numbers you enter are only approximated by the binary floating-
point numbers actually stored in the machine.
The problem is easier to understand at first in base 10. Consider the

0.3
fraction 1/3. You can approximate that as a base 10 fraction:
or, better,
0.33

0.333
or, better,
113
and so on. No matter how many digits you’re willing to write down, the
result will never be exactly 1/3, but will be an increasingly better
approximation of 1/3.
In the same way, no matter how many base 2 digits you’re willing to use,
0.0001100110011001100110011001100110011001100110011...

the decimal value 0.1 cannot be represented exactly as a base 2 fraction.

In base 2, 1/10 is the infinitely repeating fraction
Stop at any finite number of bits, and you get an approximation. On most
machines today, floats are approximated using a binary fraction with the
numerator using the first 53 bits starting with the most significant bit and
with the denominator as a power of two. In the case of 1/10, the binary
fraction is 3602879701896397 / 2 ** 55 which is close to but not
exactly equal to the true value of 1/10.
Many users are not aware of the approximation because of the way values
are displayed. Python only prints a decimal approximation to the true
decimal value of the binary approximation stored by the machine. On
most machines, if Python were to print the true decimal value of the
binary approximation stored for 0.1, it would have to display

114 Chapter 14. Interactive Input Editing and History Substitution

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> 0.1

0.10000000000000000555111512312578270211815834045410
15625

That is more digits than most people find useful, so Python keeps the

>>> 1 / 10
0.1

number of digits manageable by displaying a rounded value instead

Just remember, even though the printed result looks like the exact value
of 1/10, the actual stored value is the nearest representable binary
fraction.
Interestingly, there are many different decimal numbers that share
the same nearest ap- proximate binary fraction. For example, the
numbers 0.1 and 0.10000000000000001 and
0.1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015
625 are all approximated by
3602879701896397 / 2 ** 55. Since all of these decimal values
share the same approximation, any one of them could be displayed
while still preserving the invariant eval(repr(x)) == x.
Historically, the Python prompt and built-in repr() function would
choose the one with 17 significant digits, 0.10000000000000001.
Starting with Python 3.1, Python (on most systems) is now able to choose
the shortest of these and simply display 0.1.
Note that this is in the very nature of binary floating-point: this is not a
bug in Python, and it is not a bug in your code either. You’ll see the
same kind of thing in all languages that support your hardware’s
floating-point arithmetic (although some languages may not display the
difference by default, or in all output modes).

115
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
For more pleasant output, you may wish to use string formatting to

>>> format([Link], '.12g') # give 12 significant

digits
'3.14159265359'

>>> format([Link], '.2f') # give 2 digits after the

point
'3.14'

>>>
produce a limited number of significant digits:
repr([Link]
) important to realize that this is, in a real sense, an illusion: you’re
It’s
'3.14159265358
simply rounding the display of the true machine value.
9793'
One illusion may beget another. For example, since 0.1 is not exactly 1/10,

>>> .1 + .1 + .1 == .3

False

summing three values of 0.1 may not yield exactly 0.3, either:
Also, since the 0.1 cannot get any closer to the exact value of 1/10 and 0.3
cannot get any closer to the exact value of 3/10, then pre-rounding with
round() function cannot help:
>>> round(.1, 1) + round(.1, 1) +
round(.1, 1) == round(.3, 1) False

Though the numbers cannot be made closer to their intended exact

>>> round(.1 + .1 + .1, 10) == round(.3, 10)

True

116 Chapter 14. Interactive Input Editing and History Substitution

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

values, the round() function can be useful for post-rounding so that

results with inexact values become comparable to one another:
Binary floating-point arithmetic holds many surprises like this. The
problem with “0.1” is explained in precise detail below, in the
“Representation Error” section. See The Perils of Floating Point for a
more complete account of other common surprises.
As that says near the end, “there are no easy answers.” Still, don’t be
unduly wary of floating-point! The errors in Python float operations are
inherited from the floating-point hardware, and on most machines are on
the order of no more than 1 part in 2**53 per operation. That’s more than
adequate for most tasks, but you do need to keep in mind that it’s not
decimal arithmetic and that every float operation can suffer a new
rounding error.
While pathological cases do exist, for most casual use of floating-point
arithmetic you’ll see the result you expect in the end if you simply round
the display of your final results to the number of decimal digits you
expect. str() usually suffices, and for finer control see the
[Link]() method’s format specifiers in formatstrings.
For use cases which require exact decimal representation, try using the
decimal module which implements decimal arithmetic suitable for
accounting applications and high-precision applications.
Another form of exact arithmetic is supported by the fractions module
which implements arithmetic based on rational numbers (so the numbers
like 1/3 can be represented exactly).
If you are a heavy user of floating point operations you should take a look
at the Numerical Python package and many other packages for
mathematical and statistical operations supplied by the SciPy project.
See
<[Link]
Python provides tools that may help on those rare occasions when you
>>> x = 3.14159
117
>>> x.as_integer_ratio()
(3537115888337719, 1125899906842624)
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
really do want to know the exact value of a float. The
float.as_integer_ratio() method expresses the value of a float as
a fraction:
Since the ratio is exact, it can be used to losslessly recreate the original
value:
>>> x == 3537115888337719 / 1125899906842624
True

The [Link]() method expresses a float in hexadecimal (base 16),

>>> [Link]()
'0x1.921f9f01b
866ep+1'

again giving the exact value stored by your computer:

This precise hexadecimal representation can be used to reconstruct the
float value exactly:
>>> x ==
[Link]('0x1.921f9f0
1b866ep+1') True

Since the representation is exact, it is useful for reliably porting values

across different versions of Python (platform independence) and
exchanging data with other languages that support the same format
(such as Java and C99).
Another helpful tool is the [Link]() function which helps mitigate
loss-of-precision during summation. It tracks “lost digits” as values are
>>> sum([0.1] * 10) == 1.0

False
>>> [Link]([0.1] * 10) == 1.0 True

118 Chapter 14. Interactive Input Editing and History Substitution

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
added onto a running total. That can make a difference in overall accuracy
so that the errors do not accumulate to the point where they affect the
final total:

15.1 Representation Error

This section explains the “0.1” example in detail, and shows how you can
perform an exact analysis of cases like this yourself. Basic familiarity with
binary floating-point representation is assumed.
Representation error refers to the fact that some (most, actually) decimal
fractions cannot be represented exactly as binary (base 2) fractions. This
is the chief reason why Python (or Perl, C, C++, Java, Fortran, and many
others) often won’t display the exact decimal number you expect.
Why is that? 1/10 is not exactly representable as a binary fraction. Almost
all machines today (November 2000) use IEEE-754 floating point

1 / 10 ~= J / (2**N)
arithmetic, and almost all platforms map Python floats to IEEE-754
“double precision”. 754 doubles contain 53 bits of precision, so on input
the computer strives to convert 0.1 to the closest fraction it can of the
form J/2**N where J is an integer containing exactly 53 bits. Rewriting
as
J ~= 2**N / 10

>>> 2**52 <= 2**56 // 10 < 2**53

True
and recalling that J has exactly 53 bits (is >= 2**52 but < 2**53), the
best value for N is 56:
That is, 56 is the only value for N that leaves J with exactly 53 bits. The
best possible value for J is then that quotient rounded:
>>> q, r = divmod(2**56, 10)

>>> r
6

119
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Since the remainder is more than half of 10, the best approximation is
>>> q+1
7205759403792794

obtained by rounding up:

Therefore the best possible approximation to 1/10 in 754 double precision
is:
7205759403792794 / 2 ** 56

3602879701896397 / 2 ** 55
Dividing both the numerator and denominator by two reduces the
fraction to:
Note that since we rounded up, this is actually a little bit larger than 1/10;
if we had not rounded up, the quotient would have been a little bit
smaller than 1/10. But in no case can it be exactly 1/10!
So the computer never “sees” 1/10: what it sees is the exact fraction given
>>> 0.1 * 2 ** 55
3602879701896397.0

above, the best 754 double approximation it can get:

If we multiply that fraction by 10**55, we can see the value out to 55
decimal digits:
>>> 3602879701896397 * 10 ** 55 // 2 ** 55

1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015
625

120 Chapter 14. Interactive Input Editing and History Substitution

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

meaning that the exact number stored in the computer is equal to the
decimal value
>>> format(0.1, '.17f') '0.10000000000000001'

0.1000000000000000055511151231257827021181583404541015625. Instead
of displaying the full decimal value, many languages (including older
versions of Python), round the result to 17 significant digits:
The fractions and decimal modules make these calculations easy:
>>> from decimal import Decimal
>>> from fractions import Fraction

>>>
Fraction.from_float(0.1)
Fraction(3602879701896397,
36028797018963968)

>>>
(0.1).as_integer_ratio
() (3602879701896397,
36028797018963968)

>>> Decimal.from_float(0.1)
Decimal('0.10000000000000000555111512312578270
21181583404541015625')

>>> format(Decimal.from_float(0.1), '.17')

'0.10000000000000001'

108 Chapter 15. Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and Limitations

15.1. Representation Error 107

109
 CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

APPENDIX

16.1 Interactive Mode

16.1.1 Error Handling

When an error occurs, the interpreter prints an error message and a stack
trace. In interactive mode, it then returns to the primary prompt; when
input came from a file, it exits with a nonzero exit status after printing
the stack trace. (Exceptions handled by an except clause in a try
statement are not errors in this context.) Some errors are unconditionally
fatal and cause an exit with a nonzero exit; this applies to internal
inconsistencies and some cases of running out of memory. All error
messages are written to the standard error stream; normal output from
executed commands is written to standard output.
Typing the interrupt character (usually Control-C or Delete) to the
primary or secondary prompt cancels the input and returns to the
primary prompt.1 Typing an interrupt while a command is executing
raises the KeyboardInterrupt exception, which may be handled by a
try statement.
16.1.2 Executable Python Scripts

On BSD’ish Unix systems, Python scripts can be made directly

#!/usr/bin/env python3.5

executable, like shell scripts, by putting the line

(assuming that the interpreter is on the user’s PATH) at the beginning of
110 Chapter 15. Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and Limitations
 the script and giving the file an executable mode. The #! must be the
first two characters of the file. On some platforms, this first line must end
with a Unix-style line ending ('\n'), not a Windows ('\r\n') line
ending. Note that the hash, or pound, character, '#', is used to start a
comment in Python.

$ chmod +x [Link]

The script can be given an executable mode, or permission, using the

chmod command.
On Windows systems, there is no notion of an “executable mode”. The
Python installer automatically associates .py files with [Link]
so that a double-click on a Python file will run it as a script. The
extension can also be .pyw, in that case, the console window that
normally appears is suppressed.

16.1.3 The Interactive Startup File

When you use Python interactively, it is frequently handy to have some

standard commands executed every time the interpreter is started. You

can do this by setting an environment variable named PYTHONSTARTUP
A problem with the GNU Readline package may prevent this.

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to the name of a file containing your start-up commands. This is similar to

the .profile feature of the Unix shells.
This file is only read in interactive sessions, not when Python reads
commands from a script, and not when
/dev/tty is given as the explicit source of commands (which otherwise
behaves like an interactive session). It is executed in the same namespace
where interactive commands are executed, so that objects that it defines
or imports can be used without qualification in the interactive session.
You can also change the prompts sys.ps1 and sys.ps2 in this file.
If you want to read an additional start-up file from the current directory,
you can program this in the global start-up file using code like if
import os

filename = [Link]('PYTHONSTARTUP')
if filename and [Link](filename):
with open(filename) as fobj: startup_file = [Link]()
exec(startup_file)
[Link]('.[Link]'): exec(open('.[Link]').
read()). If you want to use the startup file in a script, you must do this
explicitly in the script:

16.1.4 The Customization Modules

Python provides two hooks to let you customize it: sitecustomize

and usercustomize. To see how it works, you need first to find the
>>> import site
>>> [Link]()
'/home/user/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages'
location of your user site-packages directory. Start Python and run this
code:

110 Chapter 16. Appendix

Now you can create a file named [Link] in that directory
and put anything you want in it. It will affect every invocation of Python,
unless it is started with the -s option to disable the automatic import.
sitecustomize works in the same way, but is typically created by an
administrator of the computer in the global site-packages directory, and is
imported before usercustomize. See the documentation of the site
module for more details.

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APPENDIX

GLOSSARY

>>> The default Python prompt of the interactive shell. Often seen for code
examples which can be executed interactively in the interpreter.
... The default Python prompt of the interactive shell when entering code
for an indented code block or within a pair of matching left and right
delimiters (parentheses, square brackets or curly braces).
2to3 A tool that tries to convert Python 2.x code to Python 3.x code by
handling most of the incompati- bilities which can be detected by parsing
the source and traversing the parse tree.
2to3 is available in the standard library as lib2to3; a standalone entry
point is provided as Tools/ scripts/2to3. See 2to3-reference.
abstract base class Abstract base classes complement duck-typing by
providing a way to define interfaces when other techniques like
hasattr() would be clumsy or subtly wrong (for example with magic
methods). ABCs introduce virtual subclasses, which are classes that don’t
inherit from a class but are still recognized by isinstance() and
issubclass(); see the abc module documentation. Python comes with
many built-in ABCs for data structures (in the [Link]
module), numbers (in the numbers module), streams (in the io module),
import finders and loaders (in the [Link] module). You can
create your own ABCs with the abc module.

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argument A value passed to a function (or method) when calling the function. There
are two kinds of argument:
• keyword argument: an argument preceded by an identifier (e.g. name=) in a
function call or passed as a value in a dictionary preceded by **. For example, 3
complex(real=3,
imag=5)
complex(**{'real':
3, 'imag': 5})

and 5 are both keyword arguments in the following calls to complex():

• positional argument: an argument that is not a keyword argument. Positional
arguments can appear at the beginning of an argument list and/or be passed as
elements of an iterable preceded by *. For example, 3 and 5 are both
positional arguments in the following calls:
complex(3, 5)
complex(*(3, 5))

Arguments are assigned to the named local variables in a function body.

See the calls section for the rules governing this assignment.
Syntactically, any expression can be used to represent an argument; the
evaluated value is assigned to the local variable.
See also the parameter glossary entry, the FAQ question on the difference
between arguments and parameters, and PEP 362.
asynchronous context manager An object which controls the environment
seen in an async with

statement by defining aenter () and aexit () methods.

Introduced by PEP 492.

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asynchronous generator A function which returns an asynchronous generator
iterator. It looks like a coroutine function defined with async def except that
it contains yield expressions for producing a series of values usable in an
async for loop.

Usually refers to a asynchronous generator function, but may refer to an

asynchronous generator iterator in some contexts. In cases where the
intended meaning isn’t clear, using the full terms avoids ambiguity.
An asynchronous generator function may contain await expressions as
well as async for, and async with statements.
asynchronous generator iterator An object created by a asynchronous
generator function.

This is an asynchronous iterator which when called using the anext ()

method returns an awaitable object which will execute that the body of
the asynchronous generator function until the next yield expression.
Each yield temporarily suspends processing, remembering the location
execution state (including local variables and pending try-statements).
When the asynchronous generator iterator effectively resumes with
another awaitable returned by anext (), it picks-up where it left-off.
See PEP 492 and PEP 525.
asynchronous iterable An object, that can be used in an async for
statement. Must return an asyn- chronous iterator from its aiter ()
method. Introduced by PEP 492.
asynchronous iterator An object that implements aiter () and
anext () methods. anext

must return an awaitable object. async for resolves awaitable returned

from asynchronous iterator’s
anext () method until it raises StopAsyncIteration exception.
Introduced by PEP 492.
attribute A value associated with an object which is referenced by name
using dotted expressions. For example, if an object o has an attribute a it
would be referenced as o.a.

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awaitable An object that can be used in an await expression. Can be a
coroutine or an object with an
await () method. See also PEP 492.
BDFL Benevolent Dictator For Life, a.k.a. Guido van Rossum, Python’s
creator.
binary file A file object able to read and write bytes-like objects. Examples of
binary files are files opened in binary mode ('rb', 'wb' or 'rb+'),
[Link], [Link], and instances of
[Link] and [Link].
See also:
A text file reads and writes str objects.
bytes-like object An object that supports the bufferobjects and can export a
C-contiguous buffer. This includes all bytes, bytearray, and
[Link] objects, as well as many common memoryview ob- jects.
Bytes-like objects can be used for various operations that work with
binary data; these include compression, saving to a binary file, and
sending over a socket.
Some operations need the binary data to be mutable. The documentation
often refers to these as “read- write bytes-like objects”. Example mutable
buffer objects include bytearray and a memoryview of a bytearray.
Other operations require the binary data to be stored in immutable
objects (“read-only bytes-like objects”); examples of these include bytes
and a memoryview of a bytes object.
bytecode Python source code is compiled into bytecode, the internal
representation of a Python program in the CPython interpreter. The
bytecode is also cached in .pyc files so that executing the same file is
faster the second time (recompilation from source to bytecode can be
avoided). This “intermediate language” is said to run on a virtual machine
that executes the machine code corresponding to each bytecode. Do note
that bytecodes are not expected to work between different Python virtual
machines, nor to be stable between Python releases.
A list of bytecode instructions can be found in the documentation for the
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dis module.

class A template for creating user-defined objects. Class definitions normally

contain method definitions which operate on instances of the class.
coercion The implicit conversion of an instance of one type to another during
an operation which involves two arguments of the same type. For
example, int(3.15) converts the floating point number to the integer
3, but in 3+4.5, each argument is of a different type (one int, one float),
and both must be converted to the same type before they can be added or
it will raise a TypeError. Without coercion, all arguments of even
compatible types would have to be normalized to the same value by the
programmer, e.g., float(3)+4.5 rather than just 3+4.5.
complex number An extension of the familiar real number system in which
all numbers are expressed as a sum of a real part and an imaginary part.
Imaginary numbers are real multiples of the imaginary unit (the square
root of -1), often written i in mathematics or j in engineering. Python
has built-in support for complex numbers, which are written with this
latter notation; the imaginary part is written with a j suffix, e.g., 3+1j. To
get access to complex equivalents of the math module, use cmath. Use
of complex numbers is a fairly advanced mathematical feature. If you’re
not aware of a need for them, it’s almost certain you can safely ignore
them.
context manager An object which controls the environment seen in
a with statement by defining
enter () and exit () methods. See PEP 343.
contiguous A buffer is considered contiguous exactly if it is either C-
contiguous or Fortran contiguous. Zero-dimensional buffers are C and
Fortran contiguous. In one-dimensional arrays, the items must be laid out
in memory next to each other, in order of increasing indexes starting
from zero. In multidimensional C-contiguous arrays, the last index varies
the fastest when visiting items in order of memory address. However, in
Fortran contiguous arrays, the first index varies the fastest.

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coroutine Coroutines is a more generalized form of subroutines. Subroutines
are entered at one point and exited at another point. Coroutines can be
entered, exited, and resumed at many different points. They can be
implemented with the async def statement. See also PEP 492.
coroutine function A function which returns a coroutine object. A
coroutine function may be defined with the async def statement, and
may contain await, async for, and async with keywords. These were
introduced by PEP 492.
CPython The canonical implementation of the Python programming
language, as distributed on [Link]. The term “CPython” is used
when necessary to distinguish this implementation from others such as
Jython or IronPython.
decorator A function returning another function, usually applied as a
function transformation using the
@wrapper syntax. Common examples for decorators are
classmethod() and staticmethod().

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The decorator syntax is merely syntactic sugar, the following two function

def f(...):

...
f = staticmethod(f)

@staticmethod def f(...):

...

definitions are semantically equivalent:

The same concept exists for classes, but is less commonly used there. See
the documentation for function definitions and class definitions for more
about decorators.
descriptor Any object which defines the methods get (), set (), or
delete (). When a class attribute is a descriptor, its special binding
behavior is triggered upon attribute lookup. Normally, using a.b to get,
set or delete an attribute looks up the object named b in the class
dictionary for a, but if b is a descriptor, the respective descriptor method
gets called. Understanding descriptors is a key

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 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

to a deep understanding of Python because they are the basis for many
features including functions, methods, properties, class methods, static
methods, and reference to super classes.
For more information about descriptors’ methods, see descriptors.
dictionary An associative array, where arbitrary keys are mapped to values.
The keys can be any object with hash () and eq () methods. Called
a hash in Perl.
dictionary view The objects returned from [Link](), [Link](),
and [Link]() are called dictionary views. They provide a dynamic
view on the dictionary’s entries, which means that when the dictionary
changes, the view reflects these changes. To force the dictionary view to
become a full list use list(dictview). See dict-views.
docstring A string literal which appears as the first expression in a class,
function or module. While ignored when the suite is executed, it is
recognized by the compiler and put into the doc attribute of the
enclosing class, function or module. Since it is available via introspection,
it is the canonical place for documentation of the object.
duck-typing A programming style which does not look at an object’s type to
determine if it has the right interface; instead, the method or attribute is
simply called or used (“If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it
must be a duck.”) By emphasizing interfaces rather than specific types,
well-designed code improves its flexibility by allowing polymorphic
substitution. Duck-typing avoids tests using type() or isinstance().
(Note, however, that duck-typing can be complemented with abstract base
classes.) Instead, it typically employs hasattr() tests or EAFP
programming.
EAFP Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. This common Python
coding style assumes the existence of valid keys or attributes and catches
exceptions if the assumption proves false. This clean and fast style is
characterized by the presence of many try and except statements.
The technique contrasts with the LBYL style common to many other
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languages such as C.
expression A piece of syntax which can be evaluated to some value. In
other words, an expression is an accumulation of expression elements
like literals, names, attribute access, operators or function calls which all
return a value. In contrast to many other languages, not all language
constructs are expressions. There are also statements which cannot be
used as expressions, such as if. Assignments are also statements, not
expressions.
extension module A module written in C or C++, using Python’s C API to
interact with the core and with user code.
f-s tring String literals prefixed with 'f' or 'F' are commonly called “f-strings”
which is short for formatted string literals. See also PEP 498.
file object An object exposing a file-oriented API (with methods such as
read() or write()) to an underlying resource. Depending on the way
it was created, a file object can mediate access to a real on-disk file or to
another type of storage or communication device (for example standard
input/output, in-memory buffers, sockets, pipes, etc.). File objects are also
called file-like objects or streams.
There are actually three categories of file objects: raw binary files, buffered
binary files and text files. Their interfaces are defined in the io module.
The canonical way to create a file object is by using the open() function.
file-like object A synonym for file object.
finder An object that tries to find the loader for a module that is being
imported.
Since Python 3.3, there are two types of finder: meta path finders for use
with sys.meta_path, and
path entry finders for use with sys.path_hooks.
See PEP 302, PEP 420 and PEP 451 for much more detail.
floor division Mathematical division that rounds down to nearest
integer. The floor division operator is
//. For example, the expression 11 // 4 evaluates to 2 in contrast to
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the 2.75 returned by float true division. Note that (-11) // 4 is -3
because that is -2.75 rounded downward. See PEP 238.

function A series of statements which returns some value to a caller. It can

also be passed zero or more arguments which may be used in the
execution of the body. See also parameter, method, and the function
section.
function annotation An arbitrary metadata value associated with a function
parameter or return value. Its syntax is explained in section function.
Annotations may be accessed via the annotations special attribute of
a function object.
Python itself does not assign any particular meaning to function
annotations. They are intended to be interpreted by third-party libraries
or tools. See PEP 3107, which describes some of their potential uses.
future A pseudo-module which programmers can use to enable new
language features which are
not compatible with the current interpreter.
By importing the future module and evaluating its variables, you
>>> import __future__
>>> future .division
_Feature((2, 2, 0, 'alpha', 2), (3, 0, 0, 'alpha',
0), 8192)
can see when a new feature was first added to the language and when it
becomes the default:
garbage collection The process of freeing memory when it is not used
anymore. Python performs garbage collection via reference counting and
a cyclic garbage collector that is able to detect and break reference cycles.
The garbage collector can be controlled using the gc module.
generator A function which returns a generator iterator. It looks like a normal
function except that it contains yield expressions for producing a series
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of values usable in a for-loop or that can be retrieved one at a time with
the next() function.
Usually refers to a generator function, but may refer to a generator iterator
in some contexts. In cases where the intended meaning isn’t clear, using
the full terms avoids ambiguity.
generator iterator An object created by a generator function.
Each yield temporarily suspends processing, remembering the
location execution state (including local variables and pending try-
statements). When the generator iterator resumes, it picks-up where it
left-off (in contrast to functions which start fresh on every invocation).
generator expression An expression that returns an iterator. It looks like a
normal expression followed by a for expression defining a loop

variable, range, and an optional if expression. The combined

expression generates values for an enclosing function:
generic function A function composed of multiple functions implementing
the same operation for different types. Which implementation should be
used during a call is determined by the dispatch algorithm.
See also the single dispatch glossary entry, the
[Link]() decorator, and PEP 443.
GIL See global interpreter lock.
global interpreter lock The mechanism used by the CPython interpreter to
assure that only one thread executes Python bytecode at a time. This
simplifies the CPython implementation by making the object model
(including critical built-in types such as dict) implicitly safe against
concurrent access. Locking the entire interpreter makes it easier for the
interpreter to be multi-threaded, at the expense of much of the
122 Appendix A. Glossary
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
parallelism afforded by multi-processor machines.
However, some extension modules, either standard or third-party, are
designed so as to release the GIL when doing computationally-intensive
tasks such as compression or hashing. Also, the GIL is always released
when doing I/O.
Past efforts to create a “free-threaded” interpreter (one which locks
shared data at a much finer granularity) have not been successful because
performance suffered in the common single-processor case. It is believed
that overcoming this performance issue would make the implementation
much more complicated and therefore costlier to maintain.
hashable An object is hashable if it has a hash value which never changes
during its lifetime (it needs a
hash () method), and can be compared to other objects (it needs an
eq () method). Hashable objects which compare equal must have the
same hash value.
Hashability makes an object usable as a dictionary key and a set member,
because these data structures use the hash value internally.
All of Python’s immutable built-in objects are hashable; mutable
containers (such as lists or dictio- naries) are not. Objects which are
instances of user-defined classes are hashable by default. They all
compare unequal (except with themselves), and their hash value is
derived from their id().
IDLE An Integrated Development Environment for Python. IDLE is a basic
editor and interpreter envi- ronment which ships with the standard
distribution of Python.
immutable An object with a fixed value. Immutable objects include
numbers, strings and tuples. Such an object cannot be altered. A new
object has to be created if a different value has to be stored. They play an
important role in places where a constant hash value is needed, for
example as a key in a dictionary.
import path A list of locations (or path entries) that are searched by the path
based finder for modules to import. During import, this list of locations
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usually comes from [Link], but for subpackages it may also come
from the parent package’s path attribute.
importing The process by which Python code in one module is made
available to Python code in another module.
importer An object that both finds and loads a module; both a finder and
loader object.
interactive Python has an interactive interpreter which means you can enter
statements and expressions at the interpreter prompt, immediately
execute them and see their results. Just launch python with no
arguments (possibly by selecting it from your computer’s main menu). It
is a very powerful way to test out new ideas or inspect modules and
packages (remember help(x)).
interpreted Python is an interpreted language, as opposed to a compiled
one, though the distinction can be blurry because of the presence of the
bytecode compiler. This means that source files can be run directly
without explicitly creating an executable which is then run. Interpreted
languages typically have a shorter development/debug cycle than
compiled ones, though their programs generally also run more slowly. See
also interactive.
interpreter shutdown When asked to shut down, the Python interpreter
enters a special phase where it gradually releases all allocated resources,
such as modules and various critical internal structures. It also makes
several calls to the garbage collector. This can trigger the execution of code
in user-defined destructors or weakref callbacks. Code executed during
the shutdown phase can encounter various exceptions as the resources it
relies on may not function anymore (common examples are library
modules or the warnings machinery).
The main reason for interpreter shutdown is that the main module or
the script being run has finished executing.
iterable An object capable of returning its members one at a time. Examples
of iterables include all sequence types (such as list, str, and tuple)
and some non-sequence types like dict, file objects, and objects of any
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classes you define with an iter () method or with a getitem ()
method that implements Sequence semantics.
Iterables can be used in a for loop and in many other places where a
sequence is needed (zip(), map(),
…). When an iterable object is passed as an argument to the built-in
function iter(), it returns an iterator for the object. This iterator is
good for one pass over the set of values. When using iterables,
it is usually not necessary to call iter() or deal with iterator objects
yourself. The for statement does that automatically for you, creating a
temporary unnamed variable to hold the iterator for the duration of the
loop. See also iterator, sequence, and generator.
iterator An object representing a stream of data. Repeated calls to the
iterator’s next () method (or passing it to the built-in function
next()) return successive items in the stream. When no more data are
available a StopIteration exception is raised instead. At this point,
the iterator object is exhausted and any further calls to its next ()
method just raise StopIteration again. Iterators are required to have
an iter () method that returns the iterator object itself so every
iterator is also iterable and may be used in most places where other
iterables are accepted. One notable exception is code which attempts
multiple iteration passes. A container object (such as a list) produces a
fresh new iterator each time you pass it to the iter() function or use it
in a for loop. Attempting this with an iterator will just return the same
exhausted iterator object used in the previous iteration pass, making it
appear like an empty container.
More information can be found in typeiter.
key function A key function or collation function is a callable that returns a
value used for sorting or ordering. For example, [Link]() is
used to produce a sort key that is aware of locale specific sort conventions.
A number of tools in Python accept key functions to control how
elements are ordered or grouped. They include min(), max(), sorted(),
[Link](), [Link](), [Link](), heapq.

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nlargest(), and [Link]().
There are several ways to create a key function. For example. the
[Link]() method can serve as a key function for case insensitive
sorts. Alternatively, a key function can be built from a lambda
expression such as lambda r: (r[0], r[2]). Also, the operator
module provides three key function constructors: attrgetter(),
itemgetter(), and methodcaller(). See the Sorting HOW TO for
examples of how to create and use key functions.
keyword argument See argument.
lambda An anonymous inline function consisting of a single expression which
is evaluated when the function is called. The syntax to create a lambda
function is lambda [arguments]: expression
LBYL Look before you leap. This coding style explicitly tests for pre-
conditions before making calls or lookups. This style contrasts with the
EAFP approach and is characterized by the presence of many if
statements.
In a multi-threaded environment, the LBYL approach can risk
introducing a race condition between “the looking” and “the leaping”. For
example, the code, if key in mapping: return mapping[key] can
fail if another thread removes key from mapping after the test, but before
the lookup. This issue can be solved with locks or by using the EAFP
approach.
list A built-in Python sequence. Despite its name it is more akin to an array in
other languages than to a linked list since access to elements are O(1).
list comprehension A compact way to process all or part of the elements in
a sequence and return a list with the results. result =
['{:#04x}'.format(x) for x in range(256) if x % 2 == 0]
generates a list of strings containing even hex numbers (0x..) in the range
from 0 to 255. The if clause is optional. If omitted, all elements in
range(256) are processed.
loader An object that loads a module. It must define a method named
load_module(). A loader is typically returned by a finder. See PEP 302
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for details and [Link] for an abstract base class.
mapping A container object that supports arbitrary key lookups and
implements the methods specified in the Mapping or MutableMapping
abstract base classes. Examples include dict, collections.
defaultdict, [Link] and
[Link].

meta path finder A finder returned by a search of sys.meta_path. Meta path

finders are related to, but different from path entry finders.

See [Link] for the methods that meta

path finders implement.
metaclass The class of a class. Class definitions create a class name, a class
dictionary, and a list of base classes. The metaclass is responsible for
taking those three arguments and creating the class. Most object oriented
programming languages provide a default implementation. What makes
Python special is that it is possible to create custom metaclasses. Most
users never need this tool, but when the need arises, metaclasses can
provide powerful, elegant solutions. They have been used for logging
attribute access, adding thread-safety, tracking object creation,
implementing singletons, and many other tasks.
More information can be found in metaclasses.
method A function which is defined inside a class body. If called as an
attribute of an instance of that class, the method will get the instance
object as its first argument (which is usually called self). See function
and nested scope.
method resolution order Method Resolution Order is the order in which
base classes are searched for a member during lookup. See The Python
2.3 Method Resolution Order for details of the algorithm used by the
Python interpreter since the 2.3 release.
module An object that serves as an organizational unit of Python code.
Modules have a namespace containing arbitrary Python objects. Modules
are loaded into Python by the process of importing.
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See also package.
module spec A namespace containing the import-related information used
to load a module. An instance of
[Link].
MRO See method resolution order.
mutable Mutable objects can change their value but keep their id(). See
also immutable.
named tuple Any tuple-like class whose indexable elements are also
accessible using named attributes (for example, [Link]()
returns a tuple-like object where the year is accessible either with an index
such as t[0] or with a named attribute like t.tm_year).
A named tuple can be a built-in type such as time.struct_time, or it
can be created with a regular class definition. A full featured named tuple
can also be created with the factory function collections.
namedtuple(). The latter approach automatically provides extra
features such as a self-documenting representation like
Employee(name='jones', title='programmer').
namespace The place where a variable is stored. Namespaces are
implemented as dictionaries. There are the local, global and built-in
namespaces as well as nested namespaces in objects (in methods).
Namespaces support modularity by preventing naming conflicts. For
instance, the functions builtins. open and [Link]() are
distinguished by their namespaces. Namespaces also aid readability and
maintainability by making it clear which module implements a function.
For instance, writing random. seed() or [Link]()
makes it clear that those functions are implemented by the random and
itertools modules, respectively.
namespace package A PEP 420 package which serves only as a container for
subpackages. Namespace packages may have no physical representation, and
specifically are not like a regular package because they have no init .py
file.
See also module.
128 Appendix A. Glossary
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
nested scope The ability to refer to a variable in an enclosing definition. For
instance, a function defined inside another function can refer to variables
in the outer function. Note that nested scopes by default work only for
reference and not for assignment. Local variables both read and write in
the innermost scope. Likewise, global variables read and write to the
global namespace. The nonlocal allows writing to outer scopes.

129
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

new-style class Old name for the flavor of classes now used for all class
objects. In earlier Python versions, only new-style classes could use
Python’s newer, versatile features like slots , descriptors, properties,
getattribute (), class methods, and static methods.
object Any data with state (attributes or value) and defined behavior
(methods). Also the ultimate base class of any new-style class.
package A Python module which can contain submodules or recursively,
subpackages. Technically, a package is a Python module with an path
attribute.
See also regular package and namespace package.
parameter A named entity in a function (or method) definition that specifies
an argument (or in some cases, arguments) that the function can accept.
There are five kinds of parameter:
• positional-or-keyword: specifies an argument that can be passed either

def func(foo, bar=None): ...

positionally or as a keyword argument. This is the default kind of parameter,

for example foo and bar in the following:
• positional-only: specifies an argument that can be supplied only by position.
Python has no syntax for defining positional-only parameters. However, some
built-in functions have positional- only parameters (e.g. abs()).
• keyword-only: specifies an argument that can be supplied only by keyword.
Keyword-only pa- rameters can be defined by including a single var-positional
def func(arg, *, kw_only1, kw_only2): ...
parameter or bare * in the parameter list of the function definition before
them, for example kw_only1 and kw_only2 in the following:
• var-positional: specifies that an arbitrary sequence of positional arguments can
be provided (in addition to any positional arguments already accepted by other
parameters). Such a parameter can be defined by prepending the parameter
name with *, for example args in the following:

130 Appendix A. Glossary

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
def func(*args, **kwargs): ...

• var-keyword: specifies that arbitrarily many keyword arguments can be

provided (in addition to any keyword arguments already accepted by other
parameters). Such a parameter can be defined by prepending the parameter
name with **, for example kwargs in the example above.
Parameters can specify both optional and required arguments, as well as
default values for some optional arguments.
See also the argument glossary entry, the FAQ question on the difference
between arguments and parameters, the [Link] class,
the function section, and PEP 362.
path entry A single location on the import path which the path based finder
consults to find modules for importing.
path entry finder A finder returned by a callable on sys.path_hooks (i.e. a
path entry hook) which knows how to locate modules given a path entry.

See [Link] for the methods that path

entry finders implement.
path entry hook A callable on the sys.path_hook list which returns a path
entry finder if it knows how to find modules on a specific path entry.
path based finder One of the default meta path finders which searches an
import path for modules.
path-like object An object representing a file system path. A path-like object
is either a str or bytes object representing a path, or an object
implementing the [Link] protocol. An object that supports the
[Link] protocol can be converted to a str or bytes file system
path by calling the

131
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

[Link]() function; [Link]() and [Link]() can be

used to guarantee a str or bytes
result instead, respectively. Introduced by PEP 519.
portion A set of files in a single directory (possibly stored in a zip file)
that contribute to a namespace package, as defined in PEP 420.
positional argument See argument.
provisional API A provisional API is one which has been deliberately
excluded from the standard library’s backwards compatibility
guarantees. While major changes to such interfaces are not expected, as
long as they are marked provisional, backwards incompatible changes
(up to and including removal of the interface) may occur if deemed
necessary by core developers. Such changes will not be made
gratuitously – they will occur only if serious fundamental flaws are
uncovered that were missed prior to the inclusion of the API.
Even for provisional APIs, backwards incompatible changes are seen as a
“solution of last resort” - every attempt will still be made to find a
backwards compatible resolution to any identified problems.
This process allows the standard library to continue to evolve over time,
without locking in problematic design errors for extended periods of
time. See PEP 411 for more details.
provisional package See provisional API .
Python 3000 Nickname for the Python 3.x release line (coined long ago when
the release of version 3 was something in the distant future.) This is also
abbreviated “Py3k”.
Pythonic An idea or piece of code which closely follows the most common
idioms of the Python language, rather than implementing code using
concepts common to other languages. For example, a

for i in range(len(food)): print(food[i])

common idiom in Python is to loop over all elements of an iterable using a for
132 Appendix A. Glossary
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
statement. Many other languages don’t have this type of construct, so
people unfamiliar with Python sometimes use a numerical counter
instead:
As opposed to the cleaner, Pythonic method:
for piece in food: print(piece)

qualified name A dotted name showing the “path” from a module’s

global scope to a class, function or method defined in that module, as

defined in PEP 3155. For top-level functions and classes, the qualified
name is the same as the object’s name:
When used to refer to modules, the fully qualified name means the entire
dotted path to the module, including any parent packages, e.g.
[Link]:

133
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

>>> import [Link]

>>> [Link]. name '[Link]'

reference count The number of references to an object. When the reference

count of an object drops to zero, it is deallocated. Reference counting is
generally not visible to Python code, but it is a key element of the
CPython implementation. The sys module defines a getrefcount()
function that programmers can call to return the reference count for a
particular object.
regular package A traditional package, such as a directory containing an init
.py file.
See also namespace package.
slots A declaration inside a class that saves memory by pre-
declaring space for instance attributes
and eliminating instance dictionaries. Though popular, the technique is
somewhat tricky to get right and is best reserved for rare cases where
there are large numbers of instances in a memory-critical application.
sequence An iterable which supports efficient element access using integer
indices via the getitem () special method and defines a len ()
method that returns the length of the sequence. Some built-in sequence
types are list, str, tuple, and bytes. Note that dict also supports
getitem () and
len (), but is considered a mapping rather than a sequence
because the lookups use arbitrary
immutable keys rather than integers.
The [Link] abstract base class defines a much
richer interface that goes beyond just getitem () and len (),
134 Appendix A. Glossary
 APPENDIX
adding count(), index(), contains (), and
reversed (). Types that implement this expanded interface can be
registered explicitly using
register().
single dispatch A form of generic function dispatch where the implementation is
chosen based on the type of a single argument.
slice An object usually containing a portion of a sequence. A slice is created
using the subscript notation, [] with colons between numbers when
several are given, such as in variable_name[1:3:5]. The bracket
(subscript) notation uses slice objects internally.
special method A method that is called implicitly by Python to execute a
certain operation on a type, such as addition. Such methods have names
starting and ending with double underscores. Special methods are
documented in specialnames.
statement A statement is part of a suite (a “block” of code). A statement is
either an expression or one of several constructs with a keyword, such as
if, while or for.
struct sequence A tuple with named elements. Struct sequences expose an
interface similar to named tuple in that elements can either be accessed
either by index or as an attribute. However, they do not have any of the
named tuple methods like _make() or _asdict(). Examples of struct
sequences include sys.float_info and the return value of
[Link]().
text encoding A codec which encodes Unicode strings to bytes.
text file A file object able to read and write str objects. Often, a text file
actually accesses a byte-oriented datastream and handles the text encoding
automatically. Examples of text files are files opened in text mode ('r'
or 'w'), [Link], [Link], and instances of [Link].

135
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

See also:
A binary file reads and write bytes objects.
triple-quoted string A string which is bound by three instances of either a
quotation mark (“) or an apostrophe (‘). While they don’t provide any
functionality not available with single-quoted strings, they are useful for
a number of reasons. They allow you to include unescaped single and
double quotes
‘within a string and they can span multiple lines without the use of the
continuation character, making them especially useful when writing docstrings.
type The type of a Python object determines what kind of object it is; every
object has a type. An object’s type is accessible as its class attribute or
can be retrieved with type(obj).
universal newlines A manner of interpreting text streams in which all of the
following are recognized as ending a line: the Unix end-of-line
convention '\n', the Windows convention '\r\n', and the old
Macintosh convention '\r'. See PEP 278 and PEP 3116, as well as
[Link]() for an additional use.
variable annotation A type metadata value associated with a module global
variable or a class attribute. Its syntax is explained in section annassign.
Annotations are stored in the annotations special attribute of a class
or module object and can be accessed using
typing.get_type_hints().
Python itself does not assign any particular meaning to variable
annotations. They are intended to be interpreted by third-party
libraries or type checking tools. See PEP 526, PEP 484 which describe
some of their potential uses.
virtual environment A cooperatively isolated runtime environment that
allows Python users and appli- cations to install and upgrade Python
distribution packages without interfering with the behaviour of other
136 Appendix A. Glossary
 APPENDIX
Python applications running on the same system.
See also venv.
virtual machine A computer defined entirely in software. Python’s virtual
machine executes the bytecode

emitted by the bytecode compiler.

Zen of Python Listing of Python design principles and philosophies that are
helpful in understanding and using the language. The listing can be
found by typing “import this” at the interactive prompt.

137
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

ABOUT THESE DOCUMENTS

These documents are generated from reStructuredText sources by Sphinx,

a document processor specifically written for the Python documentation.
Development of the documentation and its toolchain is an entirely
volunteer effort, just like Python itself. If you want to contribute, please
take a look at the reporting-bugs page for information on how to do so.
New volunteers are always welcome!
Many thanks go to:
• Fred L. Drake, Jr., the creator of the original Python documentation toolset and
writer of much of the content;
• the Docutils project for creating reStructuredText and the Docutils suite;
• Fredrik Lundh for his Alternative Python Reference project from which Sphinx
got many good ideas.

B.1 Contributors to the Python Documentation

Many people have contributed to the Python language, the Python

standard library, and the Python docu- mentation. See Misc/ACKS in the
Python source distribution for a partial list of contributors.
It is only with the input and contributions of the Python community that
Python has such wonderful documentation – Thank You!

138 Appendix A. Glossary

 HISTORY AND LICENSE

C.1 History of the software

Python was created in the early 1990s by Guido van Rossum at Stichting
Mathematisch Centrum (CWI, see [Link] in the
Netherlands as a successor of a language called ABC. Guido remains
Python’s principal author, although it includes many contributions from
others.
In 1995, Guido continued his work on Python at the Corporation for
National Research Initiatives (CNRI, see [Link]
in Reston, Virginia where he released several versions of the software.
In May 2000, Guido and the Python core development team moved to
[Link] to form the BeOpen PythonLabs team. In October of the
same year, the PythonLabs team moved to Digital Creations (now Zope
Corporation; see [Link] In 2001, the Python Software
Foundation (PSF, see https:
//[Link]/psf/) was formed, a non-profit organization created
specifically to own Python-related Intellectual Property. Zope
Corporation is a sponsoring member of the PSF.
All Python releases are Open Source (see [Link] for the
Open Source Definition). Histor- ically, most, but not all, Python releases
have also been GPL-compatible; the table below summarizes the various
releases.

Release Derived from Year Owner GPL compatible?

139
0.9.0 thru 1.2 n/a 1991-1995 CWI yes
1.3 thru 1.5.2 1.2 1995-1999 CNRI yes
1.6 1.5.2 2000 CNRI no
2.0 1.6 2000 [Link] no
1.6.1 1.6 2001 CNRI no
2.1 2.0+1.6.1 2001 PSF no
2.0.1 2.0+1.6.1 2001 PSF yes
2.1.1 2.1+2.0.1 2001 PSF yes
2.1.2 2.1.1 2002 PSF yes
2.1.3 2.1.2 2002 PSF yes
2.2 and above 2.1.1 2001-now PSF yes

Note: GPL-compatible doesn’t mean that we’re distributing Python

under the GPL. All Python licenses, unlike the GPL, let you distribute a
modified version without making your changes open source. The GPL-
compatible licenses make it possible to combine Python with other
software that is released under the GPL; the others don’t.

Thanks to the many outside volunteers who have worked under Guido’s
direction to make these releases possible.

140 Appendix B. About these documents

C.2 Terms and conditions for accessing or otherwise using Python

C.2.1 PSF LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PYTHON 3.6.4

1. This LICENSE AGREEMENT is between the Python Software
Foundation ("PSF"), and the Individual or Organization
("Licensee") accessing and otherwise using Python
3.6.4 software in source or binary form and its
associated documentation.

2. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License

Agreement, PSF hereby grants Licensee a nonexclusive,
royalty-free, world-wide license to reproduce, analyze,
test, perform and/or display publicly, prepare derivative
works, distribute, and otherwise use Python 3.6.4 alone
or in any derivative version, provided, however, that
PSF's License Agreement and PSF's notice of copyright, i.e.,
"Copyright © 2001-2018 Python Software Foundation; All Rights
Reserved" are retained in Python 3.6.4 alone or in any
derivative version prepared by Licensee.
3. In the event Licensee prepares a derivative work that is
based on or incorporates Python 3.6.4 or any part
thereof, and wants to make the derivative work available
to others as provided herein, then Licensee hereby
agrees to include in any such work a brief summary of the
changes made to Python 3.6.4.

4. PSF is making Python 3.6.4 available to Licensee on an "AS

IS" basis.
PSF MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED. BY WAY OF
EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, PSF MAKES NO AND DISCLAIMS ANY
REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS
FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF PYTHON 3.6.4
WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY RIGHTS.

5. PSF SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO LICENSEE OR ANY OTHER USERS OF

PYTHON 3.6.4
126 Appendix C. History and License
 FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR
LOSS AS A RESULT OF MODIFYING, DISTRIBUTING, OR OTHERWISE
USING PYTHON 3.6.4, OR ANY DERIVATIVE THEREOF, EVEN IF
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6. This License Agreement will automatically terminate upon a

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Agreement does not grant permission to use PSF trademarks
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8. By copying, installing or otherwise using Python 3.6.4,

Licensee agrees to be bound by the terms and conditions of
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C.2.2 [Link] LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PYTHON

2.0
1. This LICENSE AGREEMENT is between [Link]
("BeOpen"), having an office at
160 Saratoga Avenue, Santa Clara, CA 95051,
and the Individual or Organization
("Licensee") accessing and otherwise using
this software in source or binary
BEOPEN PYTHON OPEN SOURCE LICENSE AGREEMENT
VERSION 1

127
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

form and its associated documentation ("the Software").

2. Subject to the terms and conditions of this BeOpen Python

License Agreement, BeOpen hereby grants Licensee a non-
exclusive, royalty-free, world-wide license to reproduce,
analyze, test, perform and/or display publicly, prepare
derivative works, distribute, and otherwise use the
Software alone or in any derivative version, provided,
however, that the BeOpen Python License is retained in the
Software, alone or in any derivative version prepared by
Licensee.
3. BeOpen is making the Software available to Licensee on an
"AS IS" basis. BEOPEN MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR
WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. BY WAY OF
EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION, BEOPEN MAKES NO AND DISCLAIMS
ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR
FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR THAT THE USE OF THE
SOFTWARE WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY THIRD PARTY RIGHTS.
4. BEOPEN SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO LICENSEE OR ANY OTHER USERS
OF THE SOFTWARE FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR LOSS AS A RESULT OF USING,
MODIFYING OR DISTRIBUTING THE SOFTWARE, OR ANY DERIVATIVE
THEREOF, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF.

5. This License Agreement will automatically terminate upon a

material breach of its terms and conditions.

6. This License Agreement shall be governed by and interpreted

in all respects by the law of the State of California,
excluding conflict of law provisions.
Nothing in this License Agreement shall be deemed to create
any relationship of agency, partnership, or joint venture
between BeOpen and Licensee. This License Agreement does
not grant permission to use BeOpen trademarks or trade
names in a trademark sense to endorse or promote products
or services of Licensee, or any third party. As an
128 Appendix C. History and License
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
exception, the "BeOpen Python" logos available at
[Link] may be used according
to the permissions granted on that web page.

7. By copying, installing or otherwise using the software,

Licensee agrees to be bound by the terms and conditions of
this License Agreement.

C.2.3 CNRI LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PYTHON 1.6.1

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 129

Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

1. This LICENSE AGREEMENT is between the

Corporation for National Research
Initiatives, having an office at 1895
Preston White Drive, Reston, VA 20191
("CNRI"), and the Individual or
Organization ("Licensee") accessing and
otherwise using Python 1.6.1 software in
source or binary form and its associated
documentation.
2. Subject to the terms and conditions of this
License Agreement, CNRI hereby grants
Licensee a nonexclusive, royalty-free, world-
wide license to reproduce, analyze, test,
perform and/or display publicly, prepare
derivative works, distribute, and otherwise
use Python 1.6.1 alone or in any derivative
version, provided, however, that CNRI's
License Agreement and CNRI's notice of
copyright, i.e., "Copyright © 1995-2001
Corporation for National Research
Initiatives; All Rights Reserved" are
retained in Python 1.6.1 alone or in any
derivative version prepared by Licensee.
Alternately, in lieu of CNRI's License
Agreement, Licensee may substitute the
following text (omitting the quotes): "Python
1.6.1 is made available subject to the terms
and conditions in CNRI's License Agreement.
This Agreement together with Python 1.6.1 may
be located on the Internet using the
following unique, persistent identifier
(known as a handle):

130 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

C.2. Terms and conditions for accessing or otherwise using Python

1895.22/1013. This Agreement may also be obtained from a

proxy server on the Internet using the following URL:
[Link]

3. In the event Licensee prepares a derivative work that is

based on or incorporates Python 1.6.1 or any part thereof,
and wants to make the derivative work available to others
as provided herein, then Licensee hereby agrees to include
in any such work a brief summary of the changes made to
Python 1.6.1.
4. CNRI is making Python 1.6.1 available to Licensee on an "AS
IS" basis. CNRI MAKES NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. BY WAY OF EXAMPLE, BUT NOT LIMITATION,
CNRI MAKES NO AND DISCLAIMS ANY REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY
OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE
OR THAT THE USE OF PYTHON 1.6.1 WILL NOT INFRINGE ANY
THIRD PARTY RIGHTS.
5. CNRI SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO LICENSEE OR ANY OTHER USERS OF
PYTHON 1.6.1 FOR ANY INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES OR LOSS AS A RESULT OF MODIFYING, DISTRIBUTING, OR
OTHERWISE USING PYTHON 1.6.1, OR ANY DERIVATIVE THEREOF,
EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY THEREOF.

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7. This License Agreement shall be governed by the federal

intellectual property law of the United States, including
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conflict of law provisions. Notwithstanding the foregoing,
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C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 131
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
1.6.1 that incorporate non-separable material that was
previously distributed under the GNU General Public
License (GPL), the law of the Commonwealth of Virginia
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this License Agreement. Nothing in this License Agreement
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This License Agreement does not grant permission to use
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8. By clicking on the "ACCEPT" button where indicated, or by
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C.2.4 CWI LICENSE AGREEMENT FOR PYTHON 0.9.0

THROUGH 1.2

132 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

Copyright © 1991 - 1995, Stichting

Mathematisch Centrum Amsterdam, The
Netherlands. All rights reserved.

Permission to use, copy, modify, and

distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and without fee
is hereby granted, provided that the above
copyright notice appear in all copies and
that both that copyright notice and this
permission notice appear in supporting
documentation, and that the name of Stichting
Mathematisch Centrum or CWI not be used in
advertising or publicity pertaining to
distribution of the software without
specific, written prior permission.
STICHTING MATHEMATISCH CENTRUM DISCLAIMS ALL
WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE,
INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 133

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

EVENT SHALL STICHTING MATHEMATISCH CENTRUM BE

LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA
OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF
CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS
ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION
WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS
SOFTWARE.

C.3 Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software

This section is an incomplete, but growing list of licenses and

acknowledgements for third-party software incorporated in the Python
distribution.

C.3.1 Mersenne Twister

The _random module includes code based on a download from
[Link]
~m-mat/MT/MT2002/[Link]. The following are the verbatim
comments from the original code:
A C-program for MT19937, with initialization improved
2002/1/26. Coded by Takuji Nishimura and Makoto Matsumoto.

Before using, initialize the state by using

init_genrand(seed) or init_by_array(init_key, key_length).

Copyright (C) 1997 - 2002, Makoto Matsumoto and Takuji

Nishimura, All rights reserved.

134 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or
without modification, are permitted provided that the
following conditions are met:

1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above

copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer.

2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above

copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials
provided with the distribution.

3. The names of its contributors may not be used to endorse or

promote products derived from this software without
specific prior written permission.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND

CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR
A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
COPYRIGHT OWNER OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT,
INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO,
PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE,
DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON
ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF
ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

Any feedback is very welcome.

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 135

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

[Link]
[Link]/~m-mat/MT/[Link] email:
m-mat @ [Link]-
[Link] (remove space)

C.3.2 Sockets

The socket module uses the functions, getaddrinfo(), and

Copyright (C) 1995, 1996, 1997,

and 1998 WIDE Project. All
rights reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and
binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided
that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must
retain the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the
following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must
reproduce the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the
following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials
provided with the distribution.
3. Neither the name of the project nor the
names of its contributors may be used
to endorse or promote products derived
from this software without specific
prior written permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE PROJECT
AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN Appendix
136 NO C. History and License

EVENT SHALL THE PROJECT OR CONTRIBUTORS BE

LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
getnameinfo(), which are coded in separate source files from the WIDE
Project, [Link]

C.3.3 Floating point exception control

The source for the fpectl module includes the following notice:

---------------------------------------------
------------------------
/ Copyright (c) 1996. \
| The Regents of the University of
California. |
| All rights reserved. |
| |
| Permission to use, copy, modify, and |
distribute this software for
| any purpose without fee is hereby |
granted, provided that this en-
| tire notice is included in all copies |
of any software which is or
| includes a copy or modification of |
this software and in all
| copies of the supporting |
| documentation for such software. |
| This work was produced at the |
University of California, Lawrence
| Livermore National Laboratory under |
contract no. W-7405-ENG-48
| between the U.S. Department of Energy |
and The Regents of the
| University of California for the |
| operation of UC LLNL. |

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 137

Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

| DISCLAIMER
|
|

|
| This software was prepared as an |
account of work sponsored by an
| agency of the United States Government. |
Neither the United States
| Government nor the University of |
California nor any of their em-
| ployees, makes any warranty, express |
or implied, or assumes any
| liability or responsibility for the |
accuracy, completeness, or
| usefulness of any information, |
apparatus, product, or process
| disclosed, or represents that its |
use would not infringe
| privately-owned rights. Reference |
herein to any specific commer-
| cial products, process, or service by |
trade name, trademark,
| manufacturer, or otherwise, does not |
necessarily constitute or
| imply its endorsement, recommendation, |
or favoring by the United
| States Government or the University of |
California. The views and
| opinions of authors expressed herein |
do not necessarily state or
| reflect those of the United States |
Government or the University
| of California, and shall not be used
for advertising or product |
\ endorsement purposes. /
---------------------------------------------
138 Appendix C. History and License
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
------------------------

C.3.4 Asynchronous socket services

Copyright 1996 by Sam Rushing

All Rights Reserved
Permission to use, copy, modify, and
distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and
without fee is hereby granted,
provided that the above copyright
notice appear in all copies and that
both that copyright notice and this
permission notice appear in
supporting documentation, and that the
name of Sam Rushing not be used in
advertising or publicity pertaining
to distribution of the software
without specific, written prior
permission.
SAM RUSHING DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE,
INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS, IN NO
EVENT SHALL SAM RUSHING BE LIABLE FOR
ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE,
DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN
ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR
OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT
OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR
PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 139

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
The asynchat and asyncore modules contain the following notice:

C.3.5 Cookie management

Copyright 2000 by Timothy

O'Malley

<timo@[Link]>

All Rights Reserved

Permission to use, copy, modify, and

distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and
without fee is hereby

The [Link] module contains the following notice:

140 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

granted, provided that the above

copyright notice appear in all
copies and that both that copyright
notice and this permission notice
appear in supporting documentation,
and that the name of Timothy
O'Malley not be used in advertising
or publicity pertaining to
distribution of the software without
specific, written prior permission.
Timothy O'Malley DISCLAIMS ALL
WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS
SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL Timothy
C.3.6 Execution
O'Malley tracing
BE LIABLE FOR ANY
SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL
DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER
RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA
OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF
CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER
TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF
OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR
PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 141

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
The trace module contains the following notice:

portions copyright 2001, Autonomous Zones

Industries, Inc., all rights... err...
reserved and offered to the public under
the terms of the
Python 2.2
license.
Author: Zooko
O'Whielacronx
[Link]
om/
[Link]
[Link]
Copyright 2000, Mojam Media,
Inc., all rights reserved.
Author: Skip Montanaro
Copyright 1999, Bioreason,
Inc., all rights reserved.
Author: Andrew Dalke
Copyright 1995-1997, Automatrix,
Inc., all rights reserved. Author:
Skip Montanaro
Copyright 1991-1995, Stichting Mathematisch Centrum,
all rights reserved.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and
distribute this Python software and its
associated documentation for any purpose
without fee is hereby granted, provided
that the above copyright notice appears in
all copies, and that both that copyright
notice and this permission notice appear
in supporting documentation, and that
the name of neither Automatrix,
Bioreason or Mojam Media be used in
142 Appendix C. History and License
advertising or publicity pertaining to
distribution of the software without
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
C.3.7 UUencode and UUdecode functions
The uu module contains the following notice:
Copyright 1994 by Lance Ellinghouse
Cathedral City, California Republic, United States of
America.
All Rights Reserved
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this
software and its

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 143

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

documentation for any purpose and

without fee is hereby granted,
provided that the above copyright
notice appear in all copies and that
both that copyright notice and this
permission notice appear in
supporting documentation, and that
the name of Lance Ellinghouse
not be used in advertising or
publicity pertaining to distribution
of the software without specific,
written prior permission.
LANCE ELLINGHOUSE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH
REGARD TO
THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS, IN NO EVENT SHALL LANCE
ELLINGHOUSE CENTRUM BE LIABLE
FOR ANY SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE,
DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION
OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER
TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR
PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.
Modified by Jack Jansen, CWI, July 1995:
- Use binascii module to do the actual
line-by-line conversion between
ascii and binary. This results in a
1000-fold speedup. The C version is
still 5 times faster, though.
- Arguments more compliant with Python standard

144 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

C.3.8 XML Remote Procedure Calls

The XML-RPC client interface is
Copyright (c) 1999-2002 by Secret Labs AB Copyright (c)
1999-2002 by Fredrik Lundh

By obtaining, using, and/or copying this software

and/or its associated documentation, you agree that you
have read, understood, and will comply with the following
terms and conditions:

Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this

software and its associated documentation for any
purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that
the above copyright notice appears in all copies, and that
both that copyright notice and this permission notice
appear in supporting documentation, and that the name of
Secret Labs AB or the author not be used in advertising or
publicity pertaining to distribution of the software
without specific, written prior permission.

SECRET LABS AB AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES

WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE, INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANT- ABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT
SHALL SECRET LABS AB OR THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY
SPECIAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES
WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS,
WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER
TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 145

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

The [Link] module contains the following notice:

C.3.9 test_epoll
The test_epoll contains the following notice:

146 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
Copyright (c) 2001-2006 Twisted Matrix Laboratories.
Permission is hereby granted, free of
charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated
documentation files (the "Software"),
to deal in the Software without
restriction, including without
limitation the rights to use, copy,
modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of the
Software, and to permit persons to
whom the Software is furnished to do
so, subject to the following
conditions:
The above copyright notice and this
permission notice shall be included
in all copies or substantial portions
of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS",
WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE
FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF
CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE
SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS
IN THE SOFTWARE.

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 147

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

C.3.10 Select kqueue

C.3.11

The select and contains the following notice for the kqueue

148 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

Copyright (c) 2000 Doug White, 2006 James

Knight, 2007 Christian Heimes All rights
reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and
binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided
that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must
retain the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the
following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must
reproduce the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the
following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials
provided with the distribution.

THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR

AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND ANY EXPRESS
OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO
EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR CONTRIBUTORS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE
GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE
OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF
C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 149
THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED
OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
interface:

C.3.12 SipHash24

The file Python/pyhash.c contains Marek Majkowski’ implementation

of Dan Bernstein’s SipHash24 algo- rithm. The contains the following
note:

150 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
<MIT License>
Copyright (c) 2013 Marek Majkowski
<marek@[Link]>
Permission is hereby granted, free of
charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation
files (the "Software"), to deal in the
Software without restriction, including
without limitation the rights to use, copy,
modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of the
Software, and to permit persons to whom
the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this
permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of
the Software.
</MIT License>
Original location:
[Link]
/csiphash/
Solution inspired by code from:
Samuel Neves
(supercop/crypto_auth/siphash24/
little) djb
(supercop/crypto_auth/sipha
sh24/little2)
Jean-Philippe Aumasson
([Link]

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 151

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

C.3.13 strtod and dtoa

The file Python/dtoa.c, which supplies C functions dtoa and strtod for
conversion of C doubles to and from strings, is derived from the file of
the same name by David M. Gay, currently available from http:
//[Link]/fp/. The original file, as retrieved on March 16, 2009,

/******************************************************
**********
*
* The author of this software is David M. Gay.
*
* Copyright (c) 1991, 2000, 2001 by Lucent Technologies.
*
* Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this
software for any
* purpose without fee is hereby granted, provided that
this entire notice
* is included in all copies of any software which is or
includes a copy
* or modification of this software and in all copies of
the supporting
* documentation for such software.
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS BEING PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT ANY
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
* WARRANTY. IN PARTICULAR, NEITHER THE AUTHOR NOR
LUCENT MAKES ANY
* REPRESENTATION OR WARRANTY OF ANY KIND CONCERNING THE
MERCHANTABILITY
* OF THIS SOFTWARE OR ITS FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR
PURPOSE.
*
******************************************************
152 Appendix C. History and License
*********/
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
contains the following copyright and licensing notice:

C.3.14 OpenSSL

The modules hashlib, posix, ssl, crypt use the OpenSSL library for
added performance if made available by the operating system.
Additionally, the Windows and Mac OS X installers for Python may
include a copy of the OpenSSL libraries, so we include a copy of the
OpenSSL license here:

LICENSE ISSUES
==============

The OpenSSL toolkit stays under a dual license, i.e. both

the conditions of the OpenSSL License and the original
SSLeay license apply to the toolkit. See below for the
actual license texts. Actually both licenses are BSD-style
Open Source licenses. In case of any license issues
related to OpenSSL please contact openssl-
core@[Link].
OpenSSL License
---------------

/*
========================================================
============
* Copyright (c) 1998-2008 The OpenSSL Project. All rights
reserved.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or
without
C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 153
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
* modification, are permitted provided that the following
conditions
* are met:
*
* 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above
copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer.
*
* 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer in
* the documentation and/or other materials provided with
the
* distribution.
*
* 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use
of this
* software must display the following acknowledgment:
* "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL
Project
* for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit.
([Link]
*
* 4. The names "OpenSSL Toolkit" and "OpenSSL Project" must
not be used to
* endorse or promote products derived from this software
without
* prior written permission. For written permission, please
contact
* openssl-core@[Link].
*
* 5. Products derived from this software may not be called
"OpenSSL"
* nor may "OpenSSL" appear in their names without prior
written
154 Appendix C. History and License
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
* permission of the OpenSSL Project.
*
* 6. Redistributions of any form whatsoever must retain the
following
* acknowledgment:
* "This product includes software developed by the OpenSSL
Project
* for use in the OpenSSL Toolkit ([Link]
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE OpenSSL PROJECT ``AS IS''
AND ANY
* EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE
* IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR
* PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE OpenSSL
PROJECT OR
* ITS CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT,
INCIDENTAL,
* SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
* NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
SERVICES;
* LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
* HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
CONTRACT,
* STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR
OTHERWISE)
* ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN
IF ADVISED
* OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 155

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

*
========================================================
============
*
* This product includes cryptographic software written by
Eric Young
* (eay@[Link]). This product includes software
written by Tim
* Hudson (tjh@[Link]).
*
*/

Original SSLeay License

-----------------------

/* Copyright (C) 1995-1998 Eric Young

(eay@[Link])
* All rights reserved.
*
* This package is an SSL implementation written
* by Eric Young (eay@[Link]).
* The implementation was written so as to conform with
Netscapes SSL.
*
* This library is free for commercial and non-commercial
use as long as
* the following conditions are aheared to. The following
conditions
* apply to all code found in this distribution, be it the
RC4, RSA,
* lhash, DES, etc., code; not just the SSL code. The SSL
documentation
156 Appendix C. History and License
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
* included with this distribution is covered by the same
copyright terms
* except that the holder is Tim Hudson (tjh@[Link]).
*
* Copyright remains Eric Young's, and as such any Copyright
notices in
* the code are not to be removed.
* If this package is used in a product, Eric Young should be
given attribution
* as the author of the parts of the library used.
* This can be in the form of a textual message at program
startup or
* in documentation (online or textual) provided with the
package.
*
* Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or
without
* modification, are permitted provided that the following
conditions
* are met:
* 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the
copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer.
* 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above
copyright
* notice, this list of conditions and the following
disclaimer in the
* documentation and/or other materials provided with the
distribution.
* 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of
this software
* must display the following acknowledgement:
* "This product includes cryptographic software written by
* Eric Young (eay@[Link])"
* The word 'cryptographic' can be left out if the rouines
from the library
* being used are not cryptographic related :-).
C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 157
 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
* 4. If you include any Windows specific code (or a
derivative thereof) from
* the apps directory (application code) you must include an
acknowledgement:
* "This product includes software written by Tim Hudson
(tjh@[Link])"
*
* THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY ERIC YOUNG ``AS IS'' AND
* ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE
* IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE
* ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR OR
CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
* FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY,
OR CONSEQUENTIAL
* DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS
* OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION)
* HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
CONTRACT, STRICT
* LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR
OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
* OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF
THE POSSIBILITY OF
* SUCH DAMAGE.
*
* The licence and distribution terms for any
publically available version or
* derivative of this code cannot be changed. i.e.
this code cannot simply be
* copied and put under another distribution licence
* [including the GNU Public Licence.]
*/

158 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

C.3.15 expat
The pyexpat extension is built using an included copy of the expat
sources unless the build is configured

Copyright (c) 1998, 1999, 2000 Thai Open Source

Software Center Ltd
and Clark Cooper
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any
person obtaining a copy of this software and associated
documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the
Software without restriction, including without
limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge,
publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of
the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software
is furnished to do so, subject to the following
conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice
shall be included in all copies or substantial portions
of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF

ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED
TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM,
DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF
CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER
DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 159

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

--with-system-expat:

C.3.16 libffi

The _ctypes extension is built using an included copy of the libffi

sources unless the build is configured

Copyright (c) 1996-2008 Red Hat, Inc and others.

Permission is hereby granted, free of

charge, to any person obtaining a copy
of this software and associated
documentation files (the
``Software''), to deal in the Software
without restriction, including without
limitation the rights to use, copy,
modify, merge, publish, distribute,
sublicense, and/or sell copies of the
Software, and to permit persons to whom
the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this
permission notice shall be included in
all copies or substantial portions of
the Software.

--with-system-libffi:

160 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED ``AS IS'',

WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE
LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN
ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR
OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR
IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR
THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

C.3.17 zlib
The zlib extension is built using an included copy of the zlib sources

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 161

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
if the zlib version found on the system is too old to be used for the build:

C.3.18 cfuhash

Copyright (c)
2005 Don Owens
All rights
reserved.

This code is released under the BSD license:

Redistribution and use in source and

binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided
that the following conditions are met:

* Redistributions of source code must

retain the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the
following disclaimer.

* Redistributions in binary form

must reproduce the above
copyright notice, this list of
conditions and the following

The implementation of the hash table used by the tracemalloc is

based on the cfuhash project:

162 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

disclaimer in the documentation

and/or other materials provided
with the distribution.
* Neither the name of the author
nor the names of its contributors
may be used to endorse or promote
products derived from this software
without specific prior written
permission.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE
COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS
IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED
WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT
LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED.
IN NO EVENT SHALL THE COPYRIGHT OWNER
OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY
DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL,
SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR
CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING,
BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF
SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF
USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS
INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON
ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN
CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT
(INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE)
ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF
THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF
THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 163

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4
C.3.19 libmpdec
The _decimal Module is built using an included copy of the libmpdec
library unless the build is configured

164 Appendix C. History and License

 Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

Copyright (c) 2008-2016 Stefan Krah. All rights

reserved.
Redistribution and use in source and
binary forms, with or without
modification, are permitted provided
that the following conditions are met:
1. Redistributions of source code must
retain the above copyright notice,
this list of conditions and the
following disclaimer.
2. Redistributions in binary form must

reproduce the above copyright notice,

this list of conditions and the
following disclaimer in the
documentation and/or other materials
provided with the distribution.
THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR
AND CONTRIBUTORS "AS IS" AND ANY
EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES,
INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR
OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT,
INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY,
OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT
NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE
GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR
PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE
OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF
THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED
--with-system-libmpdec:
OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.
C.3. Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software 165
 APPENDIX

COPYRIGHT

Python and this documentation is:

Copyright © 2001-2018 Python Software Foundation. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2000 [Link]. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1995-2000 Corporation for National Research Initiatives. All
rights reserved. Copyright © 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch
Centrum. All rights reserved.

See History and License for complete license and permissions information.

141
 INDEX

Symbols asynchronous iterable, 112

* asynchronous iterator, 112
statement, 26 attribute, 112
**
awaitable, 112
statement, 27
(return B
annotation BDFL, 112
assignment), 28 binary file, 112 built-in function
..., 111 help, 81
all , 49 open, 54 builtins
future , 115 module, 47
slots , 121 bytecode, 112

>>>, 111 bytes-like object, 112

2to3, 111 C
C-contiguous, 113
A class, 113
abstract base class, 111
annotations coding
function, 28 style, 29
argument, 111

asynchronous context
manager, 111
asynchronous
generator, 112
asynchronous generator
iterator, 112
142 Appendix D. Copyright
 object, 54
coercion, 113
file object, 114
complex number, 113 file-like object, 114
context manager, 113 finder, 114
contiguous, 113
floor division, 114
coroutine, 113
for
coroutine function, 113 statement, 19
CPython, 113 Fortran contiguous, 113
D function, 115
decorator, 113 annotations, 28
descriptor, 113 function annotation, 115
dictionary, 114
dictionary view, 114
docstring, 114

docstrings, 22, 28
documentation strings,
22, 28
duck-typing, 114
E
EAFP, 114
environment variable
PATH, 45, 109
PYTHONPATH, 45, 46
PYTHONSTARTUP,
109
expression, 114
extension module, 114
F
f-string, 114

file
143
Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

G
module spec, 118
garbage collection,
115 MRO, 118
generator, 115, 115 mutable, 118
generator
expression, 115, N
115 named tuple, 118
generator iterator, namespace, 118
115 namespace package, 118
generic function, nested scope, 118
115 new-style class, 119
GIL, 115
O
global interpreter object, 119
lock, 115
file, 54
H method, 71
hashable, 116

help
built-in function,
81
I
IDLE, 116 J
json
immutable, 116
module, 56
import path, 116
importer, 116 K
key function, 117
importing, 116 keyword argument, 117
interactive, 116 L
interpreted, 116 lambda, 117
interpreter LBYL, 117
shutdown, 116
iterable, 116 list, 117

iterator, 117 list comprehension, 117

loader, 117
M open
mapping, 117 built-in function, 54
meta path finder, P
118 package, 119
metaclass, 118
parameter, 119
method, 118
PATH, 45, 109
object, 71 path
method module search, 45 path based
resolution order, finder, 119 path entry, 119
118 path entry finder, 119 path entry
module, 118 hook, 119 path-like object, 119
builtins, 47 portion, 120
json, 56 positional argument, 120
search path, 45 provisional API, 120
sys, 46 provisional package, 120
Python 3000, 120
Python Enhancement Proposals
PEP 238, 114
PEP 278, 122
PEP 302, 114, 117
PEP 3107, 115
PEP 3116, 122
PEP 3155, 120
PEP 343, 113
PEP 362, 111, 119
PEP 411, 120
PEP 420, 114, 118, 120
PEP 443, 115
PEP 451, 114
PEP 484, 28, 122

145
Python Tutorial, Release 3.6.4

PEP 525, 112

PEP 492, 111–113 PEP 526, 122
PEP 498, 114 PEP 8, 29
PEP 519, 120

144
Inde
x
Python Tutorial,
Release 3.6.4

Pythonic

PYTHONPATH,
PYTHONSTARTUP,
qualified name,
reference count,
regular package,
S
search
path, module,
sequence,

single dispatch,
slice,

special method,
statement,

for, strings, documentation,

struct sequence,
style
coding text encoding,
text file,
triple-quoted string,
type,
universal newlines,
variable annotation,
virtual environment, Virtual machine
virtual machine,
Zen of Python,