Contents

• 1. Whetting Your Appetite
• 2. Using the Python Interpreter
  • 2.1 Invoking the Interpreter
    • 2.1.1 Argument Passing
    • 2.1.2 Interactive Mode
  • 2.2 The Interpreter and Its Environment
    • 2.2.1 Error Handling
    • 2.2.2 Executable Python Scripts
    • 2.2.3 Source Code Encoding
    • 2.2.4 The Interactive Startup File
• 3. An Informal Introduction to Python
  • 3.1 Using Python as a Calculator
    • 3.1.1 Numbers
    • 3.1.2 Strings
    • 3.1.3 Unicode Strings
    • 3.1.4 Lists
  • 3.2 First Steps Towards Programming
• 4. More Control Flow Tools
  • 4.1 if Statements
  • 4.2 for Statements
  • 4.3 The range() Function
  • 4.4 break and continue Statements, and else Clauses on Loops
  • 4.5 pass Statements
  • 4.6 Defining Functions
  • 4.7 More on Defining Functions
    • 4.7.1 Default Argument Values
    • 4.7.2 Keyword Arguments
    • 4.7.3 Arbitrary Argument Lists
    • 4.7.4 Unpacking Argument Lists
    • 4.7.5 Lambda Forms
    • 4.7.6 Documentation Strings
• 5. Data Structures
  • 5.1 More on Lists
    • 5.1.1 Using Lists as Stacks
    • 5.1.2 Using Lists as Queues
    • 5.1.3 Functional Programming Tools
    • 5.1.4 List Comprehensions
  • 5.2 The del statement
  • 5.3 Tuples and Sequences
  • 5.4 Sets
  • 5.5 Dictionaries
  • 5.6 Looping Techniques
  • 5.7 More on Conditions
  • 5.8 Comparing Sequences and Other Types
• 6. Modules
  • 6.1 More on Modules
    • 6.1.1 The Module Search Path
    • 6.1.2 ``Compiled'' Python files
  • 6.2 Standard Modules
  • 6.3 The dir() Function
  • 6.4 Packages
    • 6.4.1 Importing * From a Package
    • 6.4.2 Intra-package References
    • 6.4.3 Packages in Multiple Directories
• 7. Input and Output
  • 7.1 Fancier Output Formatting
  • 7.2 Reading and Writing Files
    • 7.2.1 Methods of File Objects
    • 7.2.2 The pickle Module
• 8. Errors and Exceptions
  • 8.1 Syntax Errors
  • 8.2 Exceptions
  • 8.3 Handling Exceptions
  • 8.4 Raising Exceptions
  • 8.5 User-defined Exceptions
  • 8.6 Defining Clean-up Actions
  • 8.7 Predefined Clean-up Actions
• 9. Classes
  • 9.1 A Word About Terminology
  • 9.2 Python Scopes and Name Spaces
  • 9.3 A First Look at Classes
    • 9.3.1 Class Definition Syntax
    • 9.3.2 Class Objects
    • 9.3.3 Instance Objects
    • 9.3.4 Method Objects
  • 9.4 Random Remarks
  • 9.5 Inheritance
    • 9.5.1 Multiple Inheritance
  • 9.6 Private Variables
  • 9.7 Odds and Ends
  • 9.8 Exceptions Are Classes Too
  • 9.9 Iterators
  • 9.10 Generators
  • 9.11 Generator Expressions
• 10. Brief Tour of the Standard Library
  • 10.1 Operating System Interface
  • 10.2 File Wildcards
  • 10.3 Command Line Arguments
  • 10.4 Error Output Redirection and Program Termination
  • 10.5 String Pattern Matching
  • 10.6 Mathematics
  • 10.7 Internet Access
  • 10.8 Dates and Times
  • 10.9 Data Compression
  • 10.10 Performance Measurement
  • 10.11 Quality Control
  • 10.12 Batteries Included
• 11. Brief Tour of the Standard Library - Part II
  • 11.1 Output Formatting
  • 11.2 Templating
  • 11.3 Working with Binary Data Record Layouts
  • 11.4 Multi-threading
  • 11.5 Logging
  • 11.6 Weak References
  • 11.7 Tools for Working with Lists
  • 11.8 Decimal Floating Point Arithmetic
• 12. What Now?
• A. Interactive Input Editing and History Substitution
  • A.1 Line Editing
  • A.2 History Substitution
  • A.3 Key Bindings
  • A.4 Commentary
• B. Floating Point Arithmetic: Issues and Limitations
  • B.1 Representation Error
• C. History and License
  • C.1 History of the software
  • C.2 Terms and conditions for accessing or otherwise using Python
  • C.3 Licenses and Acknowledgements for Incorporated Software
    • C.3.1 Mersenne Twister
    • C.3.2 Sockets
    • C.3.3 Floating point exception control
    • C.3.4 MD5 message digest algorithm
    • C.3.5 Asynchronous socket services
    • C.3.6 Cookie management
    • C.3.7 Profiling
    • C.3.8 Execution tracing
    • C.3.9 UUencode and UUdecode functions
    • C.3.10 XML Remote Procedure Calls
• D. Glossary
• Index

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