Python Essential Reference by David Beazley

From the Publisher

The goal of the Python Essential Reference is to concisely describe the Python programming language and its large library of standard modules, collectively known as the Python programming "environment." It is arranged into four major parts. First a brief tutorial and introduction is presented, then an informal language reference will cover lexical conventions, functions, statements, control flow, datatypes, classes, and execution models. The third part will cover the Python library, and the final section covers the Python C API that is used to write Python extensions. This book is for the professional who has experience with other systems programming language such as C or C++, and is looking for content that is not embellished with basic introductory material on the Python programming environment.

Product Details

• ISBN: 0672328623
  
• ISBN-13: 9780672328626
• Format: Paperback, 648pp
• Publisher: Sams
• Pub. Date: February 2006
• Edition Description: Revised Edition
• Edition Number: 3
• Sales Rank: 183,415
• Series: Developer's Library

• Table of Contents
• Forewords & Introductions

Table of Contents

Forewords & Introductions

Python is freely available for download at http:// www. python.org.Versions are available for Unix, Windows, Macintosh, and Java. In addition, this site includes links to documentation, how-to guides, and a wide assortment of extension modules.

The contents of this book are based on Python 1.5.2. However, readers should be aware that Python is a constantly evolving language. Most of the topics described herein are likely to be applicable to future versions of Python 1.x. In addition, most topics are applicable to earlier releases. To a lesser extent, the topics in this book also apply to JPython, an implementation of Python entirely in Java. However, as of this writing, JPython is still in beta release and undergoing active development-making it a difficult target for up-to-date reference material.

Finally, it should be noted that Python is distributed with well over 500 pages of reference documentation. The contents of thisbook are largely based on this documentation, but with a number of enhancements, additions, and omissions. First, this reference presents most of the same material in a more compact form with different examples and alternative descriptions of many topics. Second, a number of topics in the library reference have been expanded to include additional outside reference material. This is especially true for low-level system and networking modules in which effective use of a module normally relies on a myriad of options listed in Unix manual pages and outside reference material. In addition, in order to produce a more concise reference, a number of deprecated and relatively obscure library modules have been omitted. Finally, this reference doesn't attempt to cover large frameworks such as Tkinter or the COM extension, as these topics are beyond the scope of this book and are described in books of their own.

In writing this book, it has been my goal to produce a reference containing virtually everything I have needed to use Python and its large collection of modules. To do this, I have incorporated and condensed a considerable amount of information from manual pages, online documentation, and several thousand pages of systems programming books. Although this is by no means a gentle introduction to the Python language, I hope that you find the contents of this book to be a useful addition to your programming reference library for many years to come. I welcome your comments.