14. Generic Operating System Services

The modules described in this chapter provide interfaces to operating system features that are available on (almost) all operating systems, such as files and a clock. The interfaces are generally modeled after the Unix or C interfaces, but they are available on most other systems as well. Here's an overview:

os		Miscellaneous operating system interfaces.
time		Time access and conversions.
optparse		More convenient, flexible, and powerful command-line parsing library.
getopt		Portable parser for command line options; support both short and long option names.
logging		Logging module for Python based on PEP 282.
getpass		Portable reading of passwords and retrieval of the userid.
curses		An interface to the curses library, providing portable terminal handling.
curses.textpad		Emacs-like input editing in a curses window.
curses.wrapper		Terminal configuration wrapper for curses programs.
curses.ascii		Constants and set-membership functions for ASCII characters.
curses.panel		A panel stack extension that adds depth to curses windows.
platform		Retrieves as much platform identifying data as possible.
errno		Standard errno system symbols.
ctypes		A foreign function library for Python.

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