Python 2.3 Quick Reference

 25 Jan 2003  upgraded by Raymond Hettinger for Python 2.3

 16 May 2001  upgraded by Richard Gruet and Simon Brunning for Python 2.0

 2000/07/18  upgraded by Richard Gruet, rgruet@intraware.com for Python 1.5.2

from V1.3 ref

1995/10/30, by Chris Hoffmann, choffman@vicorp.com

Based on:

    Python Bestiary, Author: Ken Manheimer, ken.manheimer@nist.gov

    Python manuals, Authors: Guido van Rossum and Fred Drake

    What's new in Python 2.0, Authors: A.M. Kuchling and Moshe Zadka

    python-mode.el, Author: Tim Peters, tim_one@email.msn.com

    and the readers of comp.lang.python

Python's nest: http://www.python.org     Developement: http://

python.sourceforge.net/    ActivePython : http://www.ActiveState.com/ASPN/

Python/

newsgroup: comp.lang.python  Help desk: help@python.org

Resources: http://starship.python.net/

           http://www.vex.net/parnassus/

           http://aspn.activestate.com/ASPN/Cookbook/Python

FAQ:       http://www.python.org/cgi-bin/faqw.py

Full documentation: http://www.python.org/doc/

Excellent reference books:

           Python Essential Reference by David Beazley (New Riders)

           Python Pocket Reference by Mark Lutz (O'Reilly)

Invocation Options

python [-diOStuUvxX?] [-c command | script | - ] [args]

                              Invocation Options

Option                                  Effect

-c cmd  program passed in as string (terminates option list)

-d      Outputs parser debugging information (also PYTHONDEBUG=x)

-E      ignore environment variables (such as PYTHONPATH)

-h      print this help message and exit

-i      Inspect interactively after running script (also PYTHONINSPECT=x) and

        force prompts, even if stdin appears not to be a terminal

-m mod  run library module as a script (terminates option list

-O      optimize generated bytecode (a tad; also PYTHONOPTIMIZE=x)

-OO     remove doc-strings in addition to the -O optimizations

-Q arg  division options: -Qold (default), -Qwarn, -Qwarnall, -Qnew

-S      Don't perform 'import site' on initialization

-t      Issue warnings about inconsistent tab usage (-tt: issue errors)

-u      Unbuffered binary stdout and stderr (also PYTHONUNBUFFERED=x).

-v      Verbose (trace import statements) (also PYTHONVERBOSE=x)

-W arg : warning control (arg is action:message:category:module:lineno)

-x      Skip first line of source, allowing use of non-unix Forms of #!cmd

-?      Help!

-3      warn about Python 3.x incompatibilities

-c      Specify the command to execute (see next section). This terminates the

command option list (following options are passed as arguments to the command).

        the name of a python file (.py) to execute read from stdin.

script  Anything afterward is passed as options to python script or command,

        not interpreted as an option to interpreter itself.

args    passed to script or command (in sys.argv[1:])

        If no script or command, Python enters interactive mode.

  * Available IDEs in std distrib: IDLE (tkinter based, portable), Pythonwin

    (Windows).

Environment variables

                             Environment variables

    Variable                                 Effect

PYTHONHOME       Alternate prefix directory (or prefix;exec_prefix). The

                 default module search path uses prefix/lib

                 Augments the default search path for module files. The format

                 is the same as the shell's $PATH: one or more directory

                 pathnames separated by ':' or ';' without spaces around

                 (semi-)colons!

PYTHONPATH       On Windows first search for Registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\

                 Software\Python\PythonCore\x.y\PythonPath (default value). You

                 may also define a key named after your application with a

                 default string value giving the root directory path of your

                 app.

                 If this is the name of a readable file, the Python commands in

PYTHONSTARTUP    that file are executed before the first prompt is displayed in

                 interactive mode (no default).

PYTHONDEBUG      If non-empty, same as -d option

PYTHONINSPECT    If non-empty, same as -i option

PYTHONSUPPRESS   If non-empty, same as -s option

PYTHONUNBUFFERED If non-empty, same as -u option

PYTHONVERBOSE    If non-empty, same as -v option

PYTHONCASEOK     If non-empty, ignore case in file/module names (imports)

Notable lexical entities

Keywords

    and       del       for       is        raise

    assert    elif      from      lambda    return

    break     else      global    not       try

    class     except    if        or        while

    continue  exec      import    pass      yield

    def       finally   in        print

  * (list of keywords in std module: keyword)

  * Illegitimate Tokens (only valid in strings): @ $ ?

  * A statement must all be on a single line. To break a statement over

    multiple lines use "\", as with the C preprocessor.

    Exception: can always break when inside any (), [], or {} pair, or in

    triple-quoted strings.

  * More than one statement can appear on a line if they are separated with

    semicolons (";").

  * Comments start with "#" and continue to end of line.

Identifiers

        (letter | "_")  (letter | digit | "_")*

  * Python identifiers keywords, attributes, etc. are case-sensitive.

  * Special forms: _ident (not imported by 'from module import *'); __ident__

    (system defined name);

               __ident (class-private name mangling)

Strings

    "a string enclosed by double quotes"

    'another string delimited by single quotes and with a " inside'

    '''a string containing embedded newlines and quote (') marks, can be

    delimited with triple quotes.'''

    """ may also use 3- double quotes as delimiters """

    u'a unicode string'   U"Another unicode string"

    r'a raw string where \ are kept (literalized): handy for regular

    expressions and windows paths!'

    R"another raw string"    -- raw strings cannot end with a \

    ur'a unicode raw string'   UR"another raw unicode"

        Use \ at end of line to continue a string on next line.

        adjacent strings are concatened, e.g. 'Monty' ' Python' is the same as

        'Monty Python'.

        u'hello' + ' world'  --> u'hello world'   (coerced to unicode)

    String Literal Escapes

     \newline  Ignored (escape newline)

     \\ Backslash (\)        \e Escape (ESC)        \v Vertical Tab (VT)

     \' Single quote (')     \f Formfeed (FF)       \OOO char with octal value OOO

     \" Double quote (")     \n Linefeed (LF)

     \a Bell (BEL)           \r Carriage Return (CR) \xHH  char with hex value HH

     \b Backspace (BS)       \t Horizontal Tab (TAB)

     \uHHHH  unicode char with hex value HHHH, can only be used in unicode string

     \UHHHHHHHH  unicode char with hex value HHHHHHHH, can only be used in unicode string

     \AnyOtherChar is left as-is

  * NUL byte (\000) is NOT an end-of-string marker; NULs may be embedded in

    strings.

  * Strings (and tuples) are immutable: they cannot be modified.

Numbers

    Decimal integer: 1234, 1234567890546378940L        (or l)

    Octal integer: 0177, 0177777777777777777 (begin with a 0)

    Hex integer: 0xFF, 0XFFFFffffFFFFFFFFFF (begin with 0x or 0X)

    Long integer (unlimited precision): 1234567890123456

    Float (double precision): 3.14e-10, .001, 10., 1E3

    Complex: 1J, 2+3J, 4+5j (ends with J or j, + separates (float) real and

    imaginary parts)

Sequences

  * String of length 0, 1, 2 (see above)

    '', '1', "12", 'hello\n'

  * Tuple of length 0, 1, 2, etc:

    () (1,) (1,2)     # parentheses are optional if len > 0

  * List of length 0, 1, 2, etc:

    [] [1] [1,2]

Indexing is 0-based. Negative indices (usually) mean count backwards from end

of sequence.

Sequence slicing [starting-at-index : but-less-than-index]. Start defaults to

'0'; End defaults to 'sequence-length'.

a = (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7)

    a[3] ==> 3

    a[-1] ==> 7

    a[2:4] ==> (2, 3)

    a[1:] ==> (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7)

    a[:3] ==> (0, 1, 2)

    a[:] ==> (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7)  # makes a copy of the sequence.

Dictionaries (Mappings)

    {}                              # Zero length empty dictionary

    {1 : 'first'}                   # Dictionary with one (key, value) pair

    {1 : 'first',  'next': 'second'}

    dict([('one',1),('two',2)])     # Construct a dict from an item list

    dict('one'=1, 'two'=2)          # Construct a dict using keyword args

    dict.fromkeys(['one', 'keys'])  # Construct a dict from a sequence

Operators and their evaluation order

                     Operators and their evaluation order

Highest             Operator                             Comment

        (...) [...] {...} `...`           Tuple, list & dict. creation; string

                                          conv.

        s[i]  s[i:j]  s.attr f(...)       indexing & slicing; attributes, fct

                                          calls

        +x, -x, ~x                        Unary operators

        x**y                              Power

        x*y  x/y  x%y x//y                mult, division, modulo, floor division

        x+y  x-y                          addition, subtraction

        x<<y   x>>y                       Bit shifting

        x&y                               Bitwise and

        x^y                               Bitwise exclusive or

        x|y                               Bitwise or

        x<y  x<=y  x>y  x>=y  x==y x!=y   Comparison,

        x<>y                              identity,

        x is y   x is not y               membership

        x in s   x not in s

        not x                             boolean negation

        x and y                           boolean and

        x or y                            boolean or

Lowest  lambda args: expr                 anonymous function

Alternate names are defined in module operator (e.g. __add__ and add for +)

Most operators are overridable.

Many binary operators also support augmented assignment:

        x += 1                            # Same as x = x + 1

Basic Types and Their Operations

Comparisons (defined between *any* types)

               Comparisons

Comparison         Meaning          Notes

<          strictly less than        (1)

<=         less than or equal to

>          strictly greater than

>=         greater than or equal to

==         equal to

!= or <>   not equal to

is         object identity           (2)

is not     negated object identity   (2)

Notes :

    Comparison behavior can be overridden for a given class by defining special

method __cmp__.

    The above comparisons return True or False which are of type bool

(a subclass of int) and behave exactly as 1 or 0 except for their type and

that they print as True or False instead of 1 or 0.

    (1) X < Y < Z < W has expected meaning, unlike C

    (2) Compare object identities (i.e. id(object)), not object values.

Boolean values and operators

                         Boolean values and operators

              Value or Operator                         Returns           Notes

None, numeric zeros, empty sequences and      False

mappings

all other values                              True

not x                                         True if x is False, else

                                              True

x or y                                        if x is False then y, else   (1)

                                              x

x and y                                       if x is False then x, else   (1)

                                              y

Notes :

    Truth testing behavior can be overridden for a given class by defining

special method __nonzero__.

    (1) Evaluate second arg only if necessary to determine outcome.

None

    None is used as default return value on functions. Built-in single object

    with type NoneType.

    Input that evaluates to None does not print when running Python

    interactively.

Numeric types

Floats, integers and long integers.

    Floats are implemented with C doubles.

    Integers are implemented with C longs.

    Long integers have unlimited size (only limit is system resources)

Operators on all numeric types

           Operators on all numeric types

 Operation                    Result

abs(x)       the absolute value of x

int(x)       x converted to integer

long(x)      x converted to long integer

float(x)     x converted to floating point

-x           x negated

+x           x unchanged

x + y        the sum of x and y

x - y        difference of x and y

x * y        product of x and y

x / y        quotient of x and y

x % y        remainder of x / y

divmod(x, y) the tuple (x/y, x%y)

x ** y       x to the power y (the same as pow(x, y))

Bit operators on integers and long integers

              Bit operators

Operation             >Result

~x        the bits of x inverted

x ^ y     bitwise exclusive or of x and y

x & y     bitwise and of x and y

x | y     bitwise or of x and y

x << n    x shifted left by n bits

x >> n    x shifted right by n bits

Complex Numbers

  * represented as a pair of machine-level double precision floating point

    numbers.

  * The real and imaginary value of a complex number z can be retrieved through

    the attributes z.real and z.imag.

Numeric exceptions

TypeError

    raised on application of arithmetic operation to non-number

OverflowError

     numeric bounds exceeded

ZeroDivisionError

     raised when zero second argument of div or modulo op

FloatingPointError

     raised when a floating point operation fails

Operations on all sequence types (lists, tuples, strings)

                Operations on all sequence types

Operation                     Result                     Notes

x in s     True if an item of s is equal to x, else False

x not in s False if an item of s is equal to x, else True

for x in s: loops over the sequence

s + t      the concatenation of s and t

s * n, n*s n copies of s concatenated

s[i]       i'th item of s, origin 0                       (1)

s[i:j]     slice of s from i (included) to j (excluded) (1), (2)

len(s)     length of s

min(s)     smallest item of s

max(s)     largest item of (s)

iter(s)    returns an iterator over s.  iterators define __iter__ and next()

Notes :

    (1) if i or j is negative, the index is relative to the end of the string,

ie len(s)+ i or len(s)+j is

         substituted. But note that -0 is still 0.

    (2) The slice of s from i to j is defined as the sequence of items with

index k such that i <= k < j.

          If i or j is greater than len(s), use len(s). If i is omitted, use

len(s). If i is greater than or

          equal to j, the slice is empty.

Operations on mutable (=modifiable) sequences (lists)

                 Operations on mutable sequences

   Operation                      Result                   Notes

s[i] =x          item i of s is replaced by x

s[i:j] = t       slice of s from i to j is replaced by t

del s[i:j]       same as s[i:j] = []

s.append(x)      same as s[len(s) : len(s)] = [x]

s.count(x)       return number of i's for which s[i] == x

s.extend(x)      same as s[len(s):len(s)]= x

s.index(x)       return smallest i such that s[i] == x      (1)

s.insert(i, x)   same as s[i:i] = [x] if i >= 0

s.pop([i])       same as x = s[i]; del s[i]; return x       (4)

s.remove(x)      same as del s[s.index(x)]                  (1)

s.reverse()      reverse the items of s in place            (3)

s.sort([cmpFct]) sort the items of s in place             (2), (3)

Notes :

    (1) raise a ValueError exception when x is not found in s (i.e. out of

range).

     (2) The sort() method takes an optional argument specifying a comparison

fct of 2 arguments (list items) which should

          return -1, 0, or 1 depending on whether the 1st argument is

considered smaller than, equal to, or larger than the 2nd

          argument. Note that this slows the sorting process down considerably.

     (3) The sort() and reverse() methods modify the list in place for economy

of space when sorting or reversing a large list.

           They don't return the sorted or reversed list to remind you of this

side effect.

     (4) [New 1.5.2] The optional  argument i defaults to -1, so that by default the last

item is removed and returned.

Operations on mappings (dictionaries)

                         Operations on mappings

        Operation                          Result                  Notes

len(d)                     the number of items in d

d[k]                       the item of d with key k                 (1)

d[k] = x                   set d[k] to x

del d[k]                   remove d[k] from d                       (1)

d.clear()                  remove all items from d

d.copy()                   a shallow copy of d

d.get(k,defaultval)        the item of d with key k                 (4)

d.has_key(k)               True if d has key k, else False

d.items()                  a copy of d's list of (key, item) pairs  (2)

d.iteritems()              an iterator over (key, value) pairs      (7)

d.iterkeys()               an iterator over the keys of d           (7)

d.itervalues()             an iterator over the values of d         (7)

d.keys()                   a copy of d's list of keys               (2)

d1.update(d2)              for k, v in d2.items(): d1[k] = v        (3)

d.values()                 a copy of d's list of values             (2)

d.pop(k)                   remove d[k] and return its value

d.popitem()                remove and return an arbitrary           (6)

                           (key, item) pair

d.setdefault(k,defaultval) the item of d with key k                 (5)

    Notes :

      TypeError is raised if key is not acceptable

      (1) KeyError is raised if key k is not in the map

      (2) Keys and values are listed in random order

      (3) d2 must be of the same type as d1

      (4) Never raises an exception if k is not in the map, instead it returns

    defaultVal.

          defaultVal is optional, when not provided and k is not in the map,

    None is returned.

      (5) Never raises an exception if k is not in the map, instead it returns

    defaultVal, and adds k to map with value defaultVal. defaultVal is

    optional. When not provided and k is not in the map, None is returned and

    added to map.

      (6) Raises a KeyError if the dictionary is emtpy.

      (7) While iterating over a dictionary, the values may be updated but

          the keys cannot be changed.

Operations on strings

Note that these string methods largely (but not completely) supersede the

functions available in the string module.

                             Operations on strings

    Operation                             Result                          Notes

s.capitalize()    return a copy of s with only its first character

                  capitalized.

s.center(width)   return a copy of s centered in a string of length width  (1)

                  .

s.count(sub[      return the number of occurrences of substring sub in     (2)

,start[,end]])    string s.

s.decode(([       return a decoded version of s.                           (3)

  encoding

  [,errors]])

s.encode([        return an encoded version of s. Default encoding is the

  encoding        current default string encoding.                         (3)

  [,errors]])

s.endswith(suffix return true if s ends with the specified suffix,         (2)

  [,start[,end]]) otherwise return False.

s.expandtabs([    return a copy of s where all tab characters are          (4)

tabsize])         expanded using spaces.

s.find(sub[,start return the lowest index in s where substring sub is      (2)

[,end]])          found. Return -1 if sub is not found.

s.index(sub[      like find(), but raise ValueError when the substring is  (2)

,start[,end]])    not found.

s.isalnum()       return True if all characters in s are alphanumeric,     (5)

                  False otherwise.

s.isalpha()       return True if all characters in s are alphabetic,       (5)

                  False otherwise.

s.isdigit()       return True if all characters in s are digit             (5)

                  characters, False otherwise.

s.islower()       return True if all characters in s are lowercase, False  (6)

                  otherwise.

s.isspace()       return True if all characters in s are whitespace        (5)

                  characters, False otherwise.

s.istitle()       return True if string s is a titlecased string, False    (7)

                  otherwise.

s.isupper()       return True if all characters in s are uppercase, False  (6)

                  otherwise.

s.join(seq)       return a concatenation of the strings in the sequence

                  seq, seperated by 's's.

s.ljust(width)    return s left justified in a string of length width.    (1),

                                                                           (8)

s.lower()         return a copy of s converted to lowercase.

s.lstrip()        return a copy of s with leading whitespace removed.

s.replace(old,    return a copy of s with all occurrences of substring     (9)

new[, maxsplit])  old replaced by new.

s.rfind(sub[      return the highest index in s where substring sub is     (2)

,start[,end]])    found. Return -1 if sub is not found.

s.rindex(sub[     like rfind(), but raise ValueError when the substring    (2)

,start[,end]])    is not found.

s.rjust(width)    return s right justified in a string of length width.   (1),

                                                                           (8)

s.rstrip()        return a copy of s with trailing whitespace removed.

s.split([sep[     return a list of the words in s, using sep as the       (10)

,maxsplit]])      delimiter string.

s.splitlines([    return a list of the lines in s, breaking at line       (11)

keepends])        boundaries.

s.startswith      return true if s starts with the specified prefix,

(prefix[,start[   otherwise return false.                                  (2)

,end]])

s.strip()         return a copy of s with leading and trailing whitespace

                  removed.

s.swapcase()      return a copy of s with uppercase characters converted

                  to lowercase and vice versa.

                  return a titlecased copy of s, i.e. words start with

s.title()         uppercase characters, all remaining cased characters

                  are lowercase.

s.translate(table return a copy of s mapped through translation table     (12)

[,deletechars])   table.

s.upper()         return a copy of s converted to uppercase.

s.zfill(width)    return a string padded with zeroes on the left side and

                  sliding a minus sign left if necessary.  never truncates.

Notes :

    (1) Padding is done using spaces.

    (2) If optional argument start is supplied, substring s[start:] is

processed. If optional arguments start and end are supplied, substring s[start:

end] is processed.

    (3) Optional argument errors may be given to set a different error handling

scheme. The default for errors is 'strict', meaning that encoding errors raise

a ValueError. Other possible values are 'ignore' and 'replace'.

    (4) If optional argument tabsize is not given, a tab size of 8 characters

is assumed.

    (5) Returns false if string s does not contain at least one character.

    (6) Returns false if string s does not contain at least one cased