A Byte of Python - A very good Python tutorial for beginners

http://www.byteofpython.info/

A Byte of Python

Swaroop C H

   www.byteofpython.info

   Version 1.20

   Copyright © 2003-2005 Swaroop C H

   This   book   is   released   under   the   Creative   Commons
   Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License 2.0 .

   Abstract

   This book will help you to learn the Python programming language,
   whether you are new to computers or are an experienced programmer.
     _________________________________________________________

   Table of Contents

   Preface

        Who This Book Is For
        History Lesson
        Status of the book
        Official Website
        License Terms
        Feedback
        Something To Think About

   1. Introduction

        Introduction
        Features of Python

              Summary

        Why not Perl?
        What Programmers Say

   2. Installing Python

        For Linux/BSD users
        For Windows Users
        Summary

   3. First Steps

        Introduction
        Using the interpreter prompt
        Choosing an Editor
        Using a Source File

              Output
              How It Works

        Executable Python programs
        Getting Help
        Summary

   4. The Basics

        Literal Constants
        Numbers
        Strings
        Variables
        Identifier Naming
        Data Types
        Objects

              Output
              How It Works

        Logical and Physical Lines
        Indentation
        Summary

   5. Operators and Expressions

        Introduction
        Operators
        Operator Precedence

              Order of Evaluation
              Associativity

        Expressions

              Using Expressions

        Summary

   6. Control Flow

        Introduction
        The if statement

              Using the if statement
              How It Works

        The while statement

              Using the while statement

        The for loop

              Using the for statement

        The break statement

              Using the break statement

        The continue statement

              Using the continue statement

        Summary

   7. Functions

        Introduction

              Defining a Function

        Function Parameters

              Using Function Parameters

        Local Variables

              Using Local Variables
              Using the global statement

        Default Argument Values

              Using Default Argument Values

        Keyword Arguments

              Using Keyword Arguments

        The return statement

              Using the literal statement

        DocStrings

              Using DocStrings

        Summary

   8. Modules

        Introduction

              Using the sys module

        Byte-compiled .pyc files
        The from..import statement
        A module's __name__

              Using a module's __name__

        Making your own Modules

              Creating your own Modules
              from..import

        The dir() function

              Using the dir function

        Summary

   9. Data Structures

        Introduction
        List

              Quick introduction to Objects and Classes
              Using Lists

        Tuple

              Using Tuples
              Tuples and the print statement

        Dictionary

              Using Dictionaries

        Sequences

              Using Sequences

        References

              Objects and References

        More about Strings

              String Methods

        Summary

   10. Problem Solving - Writing a Python Script

        The Problem
        The Solution

              First Version
              Second Version
              Third Version
              Fourth Version
              More Refinements

        The Software Development Process
        Summary

   11. Object-Oriented Programming

        Introduction
        The self
        Classes

              Creating a Class

        object Methods

              Using Object Methds

        The __init__ method

              Using the __init__ method

        Class and Object Variables

              Using Class and Object Variables

        Inheritance

              Using Inheritance

        Summary

   12. Input/Output

        Files

              Using file

        Pickle

              Pickling and Unpickling

        Summary

   13. Exceptions

        Errors
        Try..Except

              Handling Exceptions

        Raising Exceptions

              How To Raise Exceptions

        Try..Finally

              Using Finally

        Summary

   14. The Python Standard Library

        Introduction
        The sys module

              Command Line Arguments
              More sys

        The os module
        Summary

   15. More Python

        Special Methods
        Single Statement Blocks
        List Comprehension

              Using List Comprehensions

        Receiving Tuples and Lists in Functions
        Lambda Forms

              Using Lambda Forms

        The exec and eval statements
        The assert statement
        The repr function
        Summary

   16. What Next?

        Graphical Software

              Summary of GUI Tools

        Explore More
        Summary

   A. Free/Libré and Open Source Software (FLOSS)
   B. About

        Colophon
        About the Author

   C. Revision History

        Timestamp

   List of Tables

   5.1. Operators and their usage
   5.2. Operator Precedence
   15.1. Some Special Methods

   List of Examples

   3.1. Using the python interpreter prompt
   3.2. Using a Source File
   4.1. Using Variables and Literal constants
   5.1. Using Expressions
   6.1. Using the if statement
   6.2. Using the while statement
   6.3. Using the for statement
   6.4. Using the break statement
   6.5. Using the continue statement
   7.1. Defining a function
   7.2. Using Function Parameters
   7.3. Using Local Variables
   7.4. Using the global statement
   7.5. Using Default Argument Values
   7.6. Using Keyword Arguments
   7.7. Using the literal statement
   7.8. Using DocStrings
   8.1. Using the sys module
   8.2. Using a module's __name__
   8.3. How to create your own module
   8.4. Using the dir function
   9.1. Using lists
   9.2. Using Tuples
   9.3. Output using tuples
   9.4. Using dictionaries
   9.5. Using Sequences
   9.6. Objects and References
   9.7. String Methods
   10.1. Backup Script - The First Version
   10.2. Backup Script - The Second Version
   10.3. Backup Script - The Third Version (does not work!)
   10.4. Backup Script - The Fourth Version
   11.1. Creating a Class
   11.2. Using Object Methods
   11.3. Using the __init__ method
   11.4. Using Class and Object Variables
   11.5. Using Inheritance
   12.1. Using files
   12.2. Pickling and Unpickling
   13.1. Handling Exceptions
   13.2. How to Raise Exceptions
   13.3. Using Finally
   14.1. Using sys.argv
   15.1. Using List Comprehensions
   15.2. Using Lambda Forms

Preface

   Table of Contents

   Who This Book Is For
   History Lesson
   Status of the book
   Official Website
   License Terms
   Feedback
   Something To Think About

   Python is probably one of the few programming languages which is
   both simple and powerful. This is good for both and beginners as
   well as experts, and more importantly, is fun to program with. This
   book aims to help you learn this wonderful language and show how to
   get things done quickly and painlessly - in effect 'The Perfect
   Anti-venom to your programming problems'.

Who This Book Is For

   This book serves as a guide or tutorial to the Python programming
   language.  It  is mainly targeted at newbies. It is useful for
   experienced programmers as well.

   The aim is that if all you know about computers is how to save text
   files,  then  you can learn Python from this book. If you have
   previous programming experience, then you can also learn Python from
   this book.

   If  you  do  have previous programming experience, you will be
   interested in the differences between Python and your favorite
   programming language - I have highlighted many such differences. A
   little warning though, Python is soon going to become your favorite
   programming language!

History Lesson

   I first started with Python when I needed to write an installer for
   my software Diamond so that I could make the installation easy. I
   had to choose between Python and Perl bindings for the Qt library. I
   did some research on the web and I came across an article where Eric
   S. Raymond, the famous and respected hacker, talked about how Python
   has become his favorite programming language. I also found out that
   the PyQt bindings were very good compared to Perl-Qt. So, I decided
   that Python was the language for me.

   Then, I started searching for a good book on Python. I couldn't find
   any!  I  did find some O'Reilly books but they were either too
   expensive or were more like a reference manual than a guide. So, I
   settled for the documentation that came with Python. However, it was
   too brief and small. It did give a good idea about Python but was
   not complete. I managed with it since I had previous programming
   experience, but it was unsuitable for newbies.

   About six months after my first brush with Python, I installed the
   (then) latest Red Hat 9.0 Linux and I was playing around with KWord.
   I got excited about it and suddenly got the idea of writing some
   stuff on Python. I started writing a few pages but it quickly became
   30 pages long. Then, I became serious about making it more useful in
   a book form. After a lot of rewrites, it has reached a stage where
   it has become a useful guide to learning the Python language. I
   consider this book to be my contribution and tribute to the open
   source community.

   This book started out as my personal notes on Python and I still
   consider it in the same way, although I've taken a lot of effort to
   make it more palatable to others :)

   In  the  true  spirit  of open source, I have received lots of
   constructive suggestions, criticisms and feedback from enthusiastic
   readers which has helped me improve this book a lot.

Status of the book

   This book is a work-in-progress. Many chapters are constantly being
   changed and improved. However, the book has matured a lot. You
   should be able to learn Python easily from this book. Please do tell
   me  if  you  find  any  part  of  the  book to be incorrect or
   incomprehensible.

   More chapters are planned for the future, such as on wxPython,
   Twisted and maybe even Boa Constructor.

Official Website

   The official website of the book is www.byteofpython.info . From the
   website, you can read the whole book online or you can download the
   latest versions of the book, and also send me feedback.

License Terms

   This   book   is   licensed   under   the   Creative   Commons
   Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License 2.0 .

   Basically, you are free to copy, distribute, and display the book,
   as long as you give credit to me. The restrictions are that you
   cannot use the book for commercial purposes without my permission.
   You are free to modify and build upon this work, provided that you
   clearly mark all changes and release the modified work under the
   same license as this book.

   Please visit the Creative Commons website for the full and exact
   text of the license, or for an easy-to-understand version. There is
   even a comic strip explaining the terms of the license.

Feedback

   I have put in a lot of effort to make this book as interesting and
   as accurate as possible. However, if you find some material to be
   inconsistent or incorrect, or simply needs improvement, then please
   do inform me, so that I can make suitable improvements. You can
   reach me at <swaroop@byteofpython.info> .

Something To Think About

     There are two ways of constructing a software design: one way is
   to make it so simple that there are obviously no deficiencies; the
   other is to make it so complicated that there are no obvious
      deficiencies.
   --C. A. R. Hoare
     Success in life is a matter not so much of talent and opportunity
      as of concentration and perseverance.
   --C. W. Wendte

Chapter 1. Introduction

   Table of Contents

   Introduction
   Features of Python

        Summary

   Why not Perl?
   What Programmers Say

Introduction

   Python is one of those rare languages which can claim to be both
   simple and powerful. You will find that you will be pleasantly
   surprised on how easy it is to concentrate on the solution to the
   problem rather than the syntax and structure of the language you are
   programming in.

   The official introduction to Python is

     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.

   I will discuss most of these features in more detail in the next
   section.

Note

   Guido van Rossum, the creator of the Python language, named the
   language after the BBC show "Monty Python's Flying Circus ". He
   doesn't particularly like snakes that kill animals for food by
   winding their long bodies around them and crushing them.

Features of Python

   Simple
          Python is a simple and minimalistic language. Reading a good
          Python program feels almost like reading English, although
          very strict English! This pseudo-code nature of Python is one
          of its greatest strengths. It allows you to concentrate on
          the solution to the problem rather than the language itself.

   Easy to Learn
          As you will see, Python is extremely easy to get started
          with. Python has an extraordinarily simple syntax, as already
          mentioned.

   Free and Open Source
          Python is an example of a FLOSS (Free/Libré and Open Source
          Software). In simple terms, you can freely distribute copies
          of this software, read it's source code, make changes to it,
          use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you
          can do these things. FLOSS is based on the concept of a
          community which shares knowledge. This is one of the reasons
          why Python is so good - it has been created and is constantly
          improved by a community who just want to see a better Python.

   High-level Language
          When you write programs in Python, you never need to bother
          about the low-level details such as managing the memory used
          by your program, etc.

   Portable
          Due to its open-source nature, Python has been ported (i.e.
          changed to make it work on) to many platforms. All your
          Python programs can work on any of these platforms without
          requiring any changes at all if you are careful enough to
          avoid any system-dependent features.

          You can use Python on Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, Macintosh,
          Solaris, OS/2, Amiga, AROS, AS/400, BeOS, OS/390, z/OS, Palm
          OS, QNX, VMS, Psion, Acorn RISC OS, VxWorks, PlayStation,
          Sharp Zaurus, Windows CE and even PocketPC !

   Interpreted
          This requires a bit of explanation.

          A program written in a compiled language like C or C++ is
          converted from the source language i.e. C or C++ into a
          language that is spoken by your computer (binary code i.e. 0s
          and 1s) using a compiler with various flags and options. When
          you run the program, the linker/loader software copies the
          program from hard disk to memory and starts running it.

          Python, on the other hand, does not need compilation to
          binary. You just run the program directly from the source
          code. Internally, Python converts the source code into an
          intermediate form called bytecodes and then translates this
          into the native language of your computer and then runs it.
          All this, actually, makes using Python much easier since you
          don't have to worry about compiling the program, making sure
          that the proper libraries are linked and loaded, etc, etc.
          This also makes your Python programs much more portable,
          since you can just copy your Python program onto another
          computer and it just works!

   Object Oriented
          Python supports procedure-oriented programming as well as
          object-oriented programming. In procedure-oriented languages,
          the program is built around procedures or functions which are
          nothing but reusable pieces of programs. In object-oriented
          languages, the program is built around objects which combine
          data  and functionality. Python has a very powerful but
          simplistic way of doing OOP, especially when compared to big
          languages like C++ or Java.

   Extensible
          If you need a critical piece of code to run very fast or want
          to have some piece of algorithm not to be open, you can code
          that part of your program in C or C++ and then use them from
          your Python program.

   Embeddable
          You can embed Python within your C/C++ programs to give
          'scripting' capabilities for your program's users.

   Extensive Libraries
          The Python Standard Library is huge indeed. It can help you
          do   various   things  involving  regular  expressions,
          documentation generation, unit testing, threading, databases,
          web browsers, CGI, ftp, email, XML, XML-RPC, HTML, WAV files,
          cryptography, GUI (graphical user interfaces), Tk, and other
          system-dependent  stuff.  Remember,  all this is always
          available wherever Python is installed. This is called the
          'Batteries Included' philosophy of Python.

          Besides,  the standard library, there are various other
          high-quality libraries such as wxPython, Twisted, Python
          Imaging Library and many more.

Summary

   Python is indeed an exciting and powerful language. It has the right
   combination of performance and features that make writing programs
   in Python both fun and easy.

Why not Perl?

   If you didn't know already, Perl is another extremely popular open
   source interpreted programming language.

   If you have ever tried writing a large program in Perl, you would
   have answered this question yourself! In other words, Perl programs
   are  easy when they are small and it excels at small hacks and
   scripts to 'get work done'. However, they quickly become unwieldy
   once you start writing bigger programs and I am speaking this out of
   experience of writing large Perl programs at Yahoo!

   When compared to Perl, Python programs are definitely simpler,
   clearer,  easier  to  write  and hence more understandable and
   maintainable. I do admire Perl and I do use it on a daily basis for
   various  things but whenever I write a program, I always start
   thinking in terms of Python because it has become so natural for me.
   Perl has undergone so many hacks and changes, that it feels like it
   is one big (but one hell of a) hack. Sadly, the upcoming Perl 6 does
   not seem to be making any improvements regarding this.

   The only and very significant advantage that I feel Perl has, is its
   huge CPAN library - the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network. As the
   name suggests, this is a humongous collection of Perl modules and it
   is simply mind-boggling because of its sheer size and depth - you
   can do virtually anything you can do with a computer using these
   modules. One of the reasons that Perl has more libraries than Python
   is that it has been around for a much longer time than Python. Maybe
   I  should  suggest  a port-Perl-modules-to-Python hackathon on
   comp.lang.python :)

   Also, the new Parrot virtual machine is designed to run both the
   completely redesigned Perl 6 as well as Python and other interpreted
   languages like Ruby, PHP and Tcl. What this means to you is that
   maybe you will be able to use all Perl modules from Python in the
   future, so that will give you the best of both worlds - the powerful
   CPAN library combined with the powerful Python language. However, we
   will have to just wait and see what happens.

What Programmers Say

   You may find it interesting to read what great hackers like ESR have
   to say about Python:
     * Eric S. Raymond is the author of 'The Cathedral and the Bazaar'
       and is also the person who coined the term 'Open Source'. He
       says that Python has become his favorite programming language.
       This article was the real inspiration for my first brush with
       Python.
     * Bruce Eckel is the author of the famous 'Thinking in Java' and
       'Thinking in C++' books. He says that no language has made him
       more productive than Python. He says that Python is perhaps the
       only language that focuses on making things easier for the
       programmer. Read the complete interview for more details.
     * Peter Norvig is a well-known Lisp author and Director of Search
       Quality at Google (thanks to Guido van Rossum for pointing that
       out). He says that Python has always been an integral part of
       Google. You can actually verify this statement by looking at the
       Google Jobs page which lists Python knowledge as a requirement
       for software engineers.
     * Bruce Perens is a co-founder of OpenSource.org and the UserLinux
       project.  UserLinux  aims  to  create a standardized Linux
       distribution supported by multiple vendors. Python has beaten
       contenders like Perl and Ruby to become the main programming
       language that will be supported by UserLinux.

Chapter 2. Installing Python

   Table of Contents

   For Linux/BSD users
   For Windows Users
   Summary

For Linux/BSD users

   If you are using a Linux distribution such as Fedora or Mandrake or
   {put your choice here}, or a BSD system such as FreeBSD, then you
   probably already have Python installed on your system.

   To test if you have Python already installed on your Linux box, open
   a shell program (like konsole or gnome-terminal) and enter the
   command python -V as shown below.
$ python -V
Python 2.3.4

Note

   $ is the prompt of the shell. It will be different for you depending
   on the settings of your OS, hence I will indicate the prompt by just
   the $ symbol.

   If you see some version information like the one shown above, then
   you have Python installed already.

   However, if you get a message like this one:
$ python -V
bash: python: command not found

   then, you don't have Python installed. This is highly unlikely but
   possible.

   In this case, you have two ways of installing Python on your system.
     * Install  the  binary packages using the package management
       software that comes with your OS, such as yum in Fedora Linux,
       urpmi in Mandrake Linux, apt-get in Debian Linux, pkg_add in
       FreeBSD, etc. Note that you will need an internet connection to
       use this method.
       Alternatively, you can download the binaries from somewhere else
       and then copy to your PC and install it.
     * You can compile Python from the source code and install it. The
       compilation instructions are provided at the website.

For Windows Users

   Visit Python.org/download and download the latest version from this
   website (which was 2.3.4 as of this writing. This is just 9.4 MB
   which  is  very  compact compared to most other languages. The
   installation is just like any other Windows-based software.

Caution

   When you are given the option of unchecking any optional components,
   don't uncheck any! Some of these components can be useful for you,
   especially IDLE.

   An interesting fact is that about 70% of Python downloads are by
   Windows users. Of course, this doesn't give the complete picture
   since almost all Linux users will have Python installed already on
   their systems by default.

Using Python in the Windows command line

   If you want to be able to use Python from the Windows command line,
   then you need to set the PATH variable appropriately.

   For Windows 2000, XP, 2003 , click on Control Panel -> System ->
   Advanced -> Environment Variables. Click on the variable named PATH
   in  the  'System  Variables' section, then select Edit and add
   ;C:/Python23 (without the quotes) to the end of what is already
   there. Of course, use the appropriate directory name.

   For older versions of Windows, add the following line to the file
   C:/AUTOEXEC.BAT : 'PATH=%PATH%;C:/Python23' (without the quotes) and
   restart the system. For Windows NT, use the AUTOEXEC.NT file.

Summary

   For a Linux system, you most probably already have Python installed
   on your system. Otherwise, you can install it using the package
   management software that comes with your distribution. For a Windows
   system, installing Python is as easy as downloading the installer
   and double-clicking on it. From now on, we will assume that you have
   Python installed on your system.

   Next, we will write our first Python program.

Chapter 3. First Steps

   Table of Contents

   Introduction
   Using the interpreter prompt
   Choosing an Editor
   Using a Source File

        Output
        How It Works

   Executable Python programs
   Getting Help
   Summary

Introduction

   We will now see how to run a traditional 'Hello World' program in
   Python.  This will teach you how to write, save and run Python
   programs.

   There are two ways of using Python to run your program - using the
   interactive interpreter prompt or using a source file. We will now
   see how to use both the methods.

Using the interpreter prompt

   Start the intepreter on the command line by entering python at the
   shell prompt. Now enter print 'Hello World' followed by the Enter
   key. You should see the words Hello World as output.

   For Windows users, you can run the interpreter in the command line
   if you have set the PATH variable appropriately. Alternatively, you
   can use the IDLE program. IDLE is short for Integrated DeveLopment
   Environment.  Click on Start -> Programs -> Python 2.3 -> IDLE
   (Python GUI). Linux users can use IDLE too.

   Note  that  the  <<<  signs are the prompt for entering Python
   statements.

   Example 3.1. Using the python interpreter prompt

$ python
Python 2.3.4 (#1, Oct 26 2004, 16:42:40)
[GCC 3.4.2 20041017 (Red Hat 3.4.2-6.fc3)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> print 'hello world'
hello world
>>>

                           Notice    that    Python    gives    you    the    output   of
   the line immediately! What you just entered is a single Python
   statement. We use print to (unsurprisingly) print any value that you
   supply to it. Here, we are supplying the text Hello World and this
   is promptly printed to the screen.

How to quit the Python prompt

   To exit the prompt, press Ctrl-d if you are using IDLE or are using
   a Linux/BSD shell. In case of the Windows command prompt, press
   Ctrl-z followed by Enter.

Choosing an Editor

   Before we move on to writing Python programs in source files, we
   need an editor to write the source files. The choice of an editor is
   crucial indeed. You have to choose an editor as you would choose a
   car you would buy. A good editor will help you write Python programs
   easily, making your journey more comfortable and helps you reach
   your destination (achieve your goal) in a much faster and safer way.

   One of the very basic requirements is syntax highlighting where all
   the different parts of your Python program are colorized so that you
   can see your program and visualize its running.

   If you are using Windows, then I suggest that you use IDLE. IDLE
   does syntax highlighting and a lot more such as allowing you to run
   your programs within IDLE among other things. A special note: don't
   use Notepad - it is a bad choice because it does not do syntax
   highlighting and also importantly it does not support indentation of
   the text which is very important in our case as we will see later.
   Good editors such as IDLE (and also VIM) will automatically help you
   do this.

   If you are using Linux/FreeBSD, then you have a lot of choices for
   an editor. If you are an experienced programmer, then you must be
   already using VIM or Emacs. Needless to say, these are two of the
   most powerful editors and you will be benefitted by using them to
   write your Python programs. I personally use VIM for most of my
   programs. If you are a beginner programmer, then you can use Kate
   which is one of my favorites. In case you are willing to take the
   time to learn VIM or Emacs, then I highly recommend that you do
   learn to use either of them as it will be very useful for you in the
   long run.

   If you still want to explore other choices of an editor, see the
   comprehensive list of Python editors and make your choice. You can
   also choose an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for Python.
   See the comprehensive list of IDEs that support Python for more
   details. Once you start writing large Python programs, IDEs can be
   very useful indeed.

   I repeat once again, please choose a proper editor - it can make
   writing Python programs more fun and easy.

Using a Source File

   Now  let's  get back to programming. There is a tradition that
   whenever you learn a new programming language, the first program
   that you write and run is the 'Hello World' program - all it does is
   just say 'Hello World' when you run it. As Simon Cozens ^[1] puts
   it, it is the 'traditional incantation to the programming gods to
   help you learn the language better' :) .

   Start your choice of editor, enter the following program and save it
   as helloworld.py

   Example 3.2. Using a Source File

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename : helloworld.py
print 'Hello World'

                           (Source file: code/helloworld.py)

   Run this program by opening a shell (Linux terminal or DOS prompt)
   and entering the command python helloworld.py. If you are using
   IDLE, use the menu Edit -> Run Script or the keyboard shortcut
   Ctrl-F5. The output is as shown below.

Output


$ python helloworld.py
Hello World

                           If you got the output as shown above,
   congratulations! - you have successfully run your first Python
   program.

   In case you got an error, please type the above program exactly as
   shown and above and run the program again. Note that Python is
   case-sensitive  i.e. print is not the same as Print - note the
   lowercase p in the former and the uppercase P in the latter. Also,
   ensure there are no spaces or tabs before the first character in
   each line - we will see why this is important later.

How It Works

   Let us consider the first two lines of the program. These are called
   comments - anything to the right of the # symbol is a comment and is
   mainly useful as notes for the reader of the program.

   Python does not use comments except for the special case of the
   first line here. It is called the shebang line - whenever the first
   two characters of the source file are #! followed by the location of
   a program, this tells your Linux/Unix system that this program
   should be run with this interpreter when you execute the program.
   This is explained in detail in the next section. Note that you can
   always run the program on any platform by specifying the interpreter
   directly  on  the  command  line  such  as  the command python
   helloworld.py .

Important

   Use comments sensibly in your program to explain some important
   details of your program - this is useful for readers of your program
   so  that they can easily understand what the program is doing.
   Remember, that person can be yourself after six months!

   The comments are followed by a Python statement - this just prints
   the text 'Hello World'. The print is actually an operator and 'Hello
   World' is referred to as a string - don't worry, we will explore
   these terminologies in detail later.

Executable Python programs

   This applies only to Linux/Unix users but Windows users might be
   curious as well about the first line of the program. First, we have
   to give the program executable permission using the chmod command
   then run the source program.

$ chmod a+x helloworld.py
$ ./helloworld.py
Hello World

                   The  chmod  command  is  used  here  to  change  the  mode  of
   the file by giving execute permission to all users of the system.
   Then, we execute the program directly by specifying the location of
   the source file. We use the ./ to indicate that the program is
   located in the current directory.

   To make things more fun, you can rename the file to just helloworld
   and run it as ./helloworld and it will still work since the system
   knows that it has to run the program using the interpreter whose
   location is specified in the first line in the source file.

   You are now able to run the program as long as you know the exact
   path of the program - but what if you wanted to be able to run the
   program from anywhere? You can do this by storing the program in one
   of the directories listed in the PATH environment variable. Whenever
   you run any program, the system looks for that program in each of
   the directories listed in the PATH environment variable and then
   runs that program. We can make this program available everywhere by
   simply copying this source file to one of the directories listed in
   PATH.

$ echo $PATH
/opt/mono/bin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/X11R6/bin:/home/swaroop
/bin
$ cp helloworld.py /home/swaroop/bin/helloworld
$ helloworld
Hello World

                   We   can   display   the   PATH   variable   using   the  echo
   command and prefixing the variable name by $ to indicate to the
   shell  that  we  need  the value of this variable. We see that
   /home/swaroop/bin is one of the directories in the PATH variable
   where swaroop is the username I am using in my system. There will
   usually be a similar directory for your username on your system.
   Alternatively, you can add a directory of your choice to the PATH
   variable - this can be done by running
   PATH=$PATH:/home/swaroop/mydir where '/home/swaroop/mydir' is the
   directory I want to add to the PATH variable.

   This method is very useful if you want to write useful scripts that
   you want to run the program anytime, anywhere. It is like creating
   your own commands just like cd or any other commands that you use in
   the Linux terminal or DOS prompt.

Caution

   W.r.t. Python, a program or a script or software all mean the same
   thing.

Getting Help

   If you need quick information about any function or statement in
   Python, then you can use the built-in help functionality. This is
   very  useful especially when using the interpreter prompt. For
   example, run help(str) - this displays the help for the str class
   which is used to store all text (strings) that you use in your
   program. Classes will be explained in detail in the chapter on
   object-oriented programming.

Note

   Press q to exit the help.

   Similarly, you can obtain information about almost anything in
   Python. Use help() to learn more about using help itself!

   In case you need to get help for operators like print, then you need
   to set the PYTHONDOCS environment variable appropriately. This can
   be done easily on Linux/Unix using the env command.

$ env PYTHONDOCS=/usr/share/doc/python-docs-2.3.4/html/ python
Python 2.3.4 (#1, Oct 26 2004, 16:42:40)
[GCC 3.4.2 20041017 (Red Hat 3.4.2-6.fc3)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> help('print')

                   You   will   notice   that  I  have  used  quotes  to  specify
   'print' so that Python can understand that I want to fetch help
   about 'print' and I am not asking it to print something.

   Note that the location I have used is the location in Fedora Core 3
   Linux  -  it  may be different for different distributions and
   versions.

Summary

   You should now be able to write, save and run Python programs at
   ease. Now that you are a Python user, let's learn some more Python
   concepts.
   _________________________________________________________

   ^[1] one of the leading Perl6/Parrot hackers and the author of the
   amazing 'Beginning Perl' book

Chapter 4. The Basics

   Table of Contents

   Literal Constants
   Numbers
   Strings
   Variables
   Identifier Naming
   Data Types
   Objects

        Output
        How It Works

   Logical and Physical Lines
   Indentation
   Summary

   Just printing 'Hello World' is not enough, is it? You want to do
   more than that - you want to take some input, manipulate it and get
   something out of it. We can achieve this in Python using constants
   and variables.

Literal Constants

   An example of a literal constant is a number like 5, 1.23, 9.25e-3
   or a string like 'This is a string' or "It's a string!". It is
   called  a  literal  because  it is literal - you use its value
   literally. The number 2 always represents itself and nothing else -
   it is a constant because its value cannot be changed. Hence, all
   these are referred to as literal constants.

Numbers

   Numbers in Python are of four types - integers, long integers,
   floating point and complex numbers.
     * Examples of integers are 2 which are just whole numbers.
     * Long integers are just bigger whole numbers.
     * Examples of floating point numbers (or floats for short) are
       3.23 and 52.3E-4. The E notation indicates powers of 10. In this
       case, 52.3E-4 means 52.3 * 10^-4.
     * Examples of complex numbers are (-5+4j) and (2.3 - 4.6j)

Strings

   A string is a sequence of characters. Strings are basically just a
   bunch of words.

   I can almost guarantee that you will be using strings in almost
   every  Python  program that you write, so pay attention to the
   following part. Here's how you use strings in Python:
         * Using Single Quotes (')
       You can specify strings using single quotes such as 'Quote me on
       this' . All white space i.e. spaces and tabs are preserved
       as-is.
         * Using Double Quotes (")
       Strings in double quotes work exactly the same way as strings in
       single quotes. An example is "What's your name?"
         * Using Triple Quotes (''' or """)
       You can specify multi-line strings using triple quotes. You can
       use single quotes and double quotes freely within the triple
       quotes. An example is

'''This is a multi-line string. This is the first line.
This is the second line.
"What's your name?," I asked.
He said "Bond, James Bond."
'''

                                         * Escape Sequences
       Suppose, you want to have a string which contains a single quote
       ('), how will you specify this string? For example, the string
       is What's your name?. You cannot specify 'What's your name?'
       because Python will be confused as to where the string starts
       and ends. So, you will have to specify that this single quote
       does not indicate the end of the string. This can be done with
       the help of what is called an escape sequence. You specify the
       single quote as /' - notice the backslash. Now, you can specify
       the string as 'What/'s your name?'.
       Another way of specifying this specific string would be "What's
       your name?" i.e. using double quotes. Similarly, you have to use
       an escape sequence forusing a double quote itself in a double
       quoted string. Also, you have to indicate the backslash itself
       using the escape sequence //.
       What if you wanted to specify a two-line string? One way is to
       use a triple-quoted string as shown above or you can use an
       escape sequence for the newline character - /n to indicate the
       start of a new line. An example is This is the first line/nThis
       is the second line . Another useful escape sequence to know is
       the tab - /t. There are many more escape sequences but I have
       mentioned only the most useful ones here.
       One thing to note is that in a string, a single backslash at the
       end of the line indicates that the string is continued in the
       next line, but no newline is added. For example,

"This is the first sentence./
This is the second sentence."

                                       is equivalent to "This is the
       first sentence. This is the second sentence."
         * Raw Strings
       If you need to specify some strings where no special processing
       such as escape sequences are handled, then what you need is to
       specify a raw string by prefixing r or R to the string. An
       example is r"Newlines are indicated by /n".
         * Unicode Strings
       Unicode is a standard way of writing international text. If you
       want to write text in your native language such as Hindi or
       Arabic, then you need to have a Unicode-enabled text editor.
       Similarly, Python allows you to handle Unicode text - all you
       need to do is prefix u or U. For example, u"This is a Unicode
       string.".
       Remember to use Unicode strings when you are dealing with text
       files, especially when you know that the file will contain text
       written in languages other than English.
         * Strings are immutable
       This means that once you have created a string, you cannot
       change it. Although this might seem like a bad thing, it really
       isn't. We will see why this is not a limitation in the various
       programs that we see later on.
         * String literal concatenation
       If  you  place  two string literals side by side, they are
       automatically concatenated by Python. For example, 'What/'s'
       'your name?' is automatically converted in to "What's your
       name?".

Note for C/C++ Programmers

   There is no separate char data type in Python. There is no real need
   for it and I am sure you won't miss it.

Note for Perl/PHP Programmers

   Remember that single-quoted strings and double-quoted strings are
   the same - they do not differ in any way.

Note for Regular Expression Users

   Always  use raw strings when dealing with regular expressions.
   Otherwise, a lot of backwhacking may be required. For example,
   backreferences can be referred to as '//1' or r'/1'.

Variables

   Using just literal constants can soon become boring - we need some
   way of storing any information and manipulate them as well. This is
   where variables come into the picture. Variables are exactly what
   they mean - their value can vary i.e. you can store anything using a
   variable. Variables are just parts of your computer's memory where
   you store some information. Unlike literal constants, you need some
   method of accessing these variables and hence you give them names.

Identifier Naming

   Variables are examples of identifiers. Identifiers are names given
   to identify something. There are some rules you have to follow for
   naming identifiers:
     * The first character of the identifier must be a letter of the
       alphabet (upper or lowercase) or an underscore ('_').
     * The rest of the identifier name can consist of letters (upper or
       lowercase), underscores ('_') or digits (0-9).
     * Identifier names are case-sensitive. For example, myname and
       myName are not the same. Note the lowercase n in the former and
       the uppercase N in te latter.
     * Examples of valid identifier names are i, __my_name, name_23 and
       a1b2_c3.
     * Examples of invalid identifier names are 2things, this is spaced
       out and my-name.

Data Types

   Variables can hold values of different types called data types. The
   basic  types  are  numbers  and strings, which we have already
   discussed. In later chapters, we will see how to create our own
   types using classes.

Objects

   Remember, Python refers to anything used in a program as an object.
   This  is  meant  in  the generic sense. Instead of saying 'the
   something', we say 'the object'.

Note for Object Oriented Programming users

   Python is strongly object-oriented in the sense that everything is
   an object including numbers, strings and even functions.

   We will now see how to use variables along with literal constants.
   Save the following example and run the program.

How to write Python programs

   Henceforth, the standard procedure to save and run a Python program
   is as follows:
    1. Open your favorite editor.
    2. Enter the program code given in the example.
    3. Save it as a file with the filename mentioned in the comment. I
       follow the convention of having all Python programs saved with
       the extension .py.
    4. Run the interpreter with the command python program.py or use
       IDLE to run the programs. You can also use the executable method
       as explained earlier.

   Example 4.1. Using Variables and Literal constants

# Filename : var.py

i = 5
print i
i = i + 1
print i

s = '''This is a multi-line string.
This is the second line.'''
print s

                        Output


$ python var.py
5
6
This is a multi-line string.
This is the second line.

                        How It Works

   Here's how this program works. First, we assign the literal constant
   value 5 to the variable i using the assignment operator (=). This
   line is called a statement because it states that something should
   be done and in this case, we connect the variable name i to the
   value 5. Next, we print the value of i using the print statement
   which, unsurprisingly, just prints the value of the variable to the
   screen.

   The we add 1 to the value stored in i and store it back. We then
   print it and expectedly, we get the value 6.

   Similarly, we assign the literal string to the variable s and then
   print it.

Note for C/C++ Programmers

   Variables are used by just assigning them a value. No declaration or
   data type definition is needed/used.

Logical and Physical Lines

   A  physical line is what you see when you write the program. A
   logical line is what Python sees as a single statement. Python
   implicitly assumes that each physical line corresponds to a logical
   line.

   An example of a logical line is a statement like print 'Hello World'
   - if this was on a line by itself (as you see it in an editor), then
   this also corresponds to a physical line.

   Implicitly, Python encourages the use of a single statement per line
   which makes code more readable.

   If  you want to specify more than one logical line on a single
   physical line, then you have to explicitly specify this using a
   semicolon (;) which indicates the end of a logical line/statement.
   For example,

i = 5
print i

                   is effectively same as

i = 5;
print i;

                   and the same can be written as

i = 5; print i;

                   or even

i = 5; print i

                   However,    I   strongly   recommend   that   you   stick   to
   writing a single logical line in a single physical line only. Use
   more than one physical line for a single logical line only if the
   logical line is really long. The idea is to avoid the semicolon as
   far as possible since it leads to more readable code. In fact, I
   have never used or even seen a semicolon in a Python program.

   An example of writing a logical line spanning many physical lines
   follows. This is referred to as explicit line joining.

s = 'This is a string. /
This continues the string.'
print s

                   This gives the output:

This is a string. This continues the string.

                   Similarly,

print /
i

                   is the same as

print i

                   Sometimes,   there   is   an  implicit  assumption  where  you
   don't need to use a backslash. This is the case where the logical
   line uses parentheses, square brackets or curly braces. This is is
   called implicit line joining. You can see this in action when we
   write programs using lists in later chapters.

Indentation

   Whitespace is important in Python. Actually, whitespace at the
   beginning of the line is important. This is called indentation.
   Leading whitespace (spaces and tabs) at the beginning of the logical
   line is used to determine the indentation level of the logical line,
   which in turn is used to determine the grouping of statements.

   This means that statements which go together must have the same
   indentation. Each such set of statements is called a block. We will
   see examples of how blocks are important in later chapters.

   One thing you should remember is how wrong indentation can give rise
   to errors. For example:

i = 5
 print 'Value is', i # Error! Notice a single space at the start of the
 line
print 'I repeat, the value is', i

                   When you run this, you get the following error:

  File "whitespace.py", line 4
    print 'Value is', i # Error! Notice a single space at the start of
the line
    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

                   Notice   that  there  is  a  single  space  at  the  beginning
   of the second line. The error indicated by Python tells us that the
   syntax of the program is invalid i.e. the program was not properly
   written. What this means to you is that you cannot arbitrarily start
   new blocks of statements (except for the main block which you have
   been using all along, of course). Cases where you can use new blocks
   will be detailed in later chapters such as the control flow chapter.

How to indent

   Do not use a mixture of tabs and spaces for the indentation as it
   does  not work across different platforms properly. I strongly
   recommend that you use a single tab or two or four spaces for each
   indentation level.

   Choose any of these three indentation styles. More importantly,
   choose one and use it consistently i.e. use that indentation style
   only.

Summary

   Now that we have gone through many nitty-gritty details, we can move
   on to more interesting stuff such as control flow statements. Be
   sure to become comfortable with what you have read in this chapter.

Chapter 5. Operators and Expressions

   Table of Contents

   Introduction
   Operators
   Operator Precedence

        Order of Evaluation
        Associativity

   Expressions

        Using Expressions

   Summary

Introduction

   Most  statements  (logical  lines) that you write will contain
   expressions.  A  simple  example of an expression is 2 + 3. An
   expression can be broken down into operators and operands.

   Operators are functionality that do something and can be represented
   by symbols such as + or by special keywords. Operators require some
   data to operate on and such data are called operands. In this case,
   2 and 3 are the operands.

Operators

   We will briefly take a look at the operators and their usage:

Tip

   You can evaluate the expressions given in the examples using the
   interpreter interactively. For example, to test the expression 2 +
   3, use the interactive Python interpreter prompt:

>>> 2 + 3
5
>>> 3 * 5
15
>>>

                           Table 5.1. Operators and their usage
   Operator Name Explanation Examples
   + Plus Adds the two objects 3 + 5 gives 8. 'a' + 'b' gives 'ab'.
   - Minus Either gives a negative number or gives the subtraction of
   one number from the other -5.2 gives a negative number. 50 - 24
   gives 26.
   * Multiply Gives the multiplication of the two numbers or returns
   the string repeated that many times. 2 * 3 gives 6. 'la' * 3 gives
   'lalala'.
   ** Power Returns x to the power of y 3 ** 4 gives 81 (i.e. 3 * 3 * 3
   * 3)
   / Divide Divide x by y 4/3 gives 1 (division of integers gives an
   integer). 4.0/3 or 4/3.0 gives 1.3333333333333333
   // Floor Division Returns the floor of the quotient 4 // 3.0 gives
   1.0
   %  Modulo  Returns  the remainder of the division 8%3 gives 2.
   -25.5%2.25 gives 1.5 .
   << Left Shift Shifts the bits of the number to the left by the
   number of bits specified. (Each number is represented in memory by
   bits  or  binary  digits  i.e. 0 and 1) 2 << 2 gives 8. - 2 is
   represented by 10 in bits. Left shifting by 2 bits gives 1000 which
   represents the decimal 8.
   >> Right Shift Shifts the bits of the number to the right by the
   number of bits specified. 11 >> 1 gives 5 - 11 is represented in
   bits by 1011 which when right shifted by 1 bit gives 101 which is
   nothing but decimal 5.
   & Bitwise AND Bitwise AND of the numbers 5 & 3 gives 1.
   | Bit-wise OR Bitwise OR of the numbers 5 | 3 gives 7
   ^ Bit-wise XOR 5 ^ 3 gives 6
   ~ Bit-wise invert The bit-wise inversion of x is -(x+1) ~5 gives -6.
   <  Less  Than Returns whether x is less than y. All comparison
   operators return 1 for true and 0 for false. This is equivalent to
   the  special  variables  True and False respectively. Note the
   capitalization of these variables' names. 5 < 3 gives 0 (i.e. False)
   and  3  <  5  gives  1 (i.e. True). Comparisons can be chained
   arbitrarily: 3 < 5 < 7 gives True.
   > Greater Than Returns whether x is greater than y 5 < 3 returns
   True. If both operands are numbers, they are first converted to a
   common type. Otherwise, it always returns False.
   <= Less Than or Equal To Returns whether x is less than or equal to
   y x = 3; y = 6; x <= y returns True.
   >= Greater Than or Equal To Returns whether x is greater than or
   equal to y x = 4; y = 3; x >= 3 returns True.
   == Equal To Compares if the objects are equal x = 2; y = 2; x == y
   returns True. x = 'str'; y = 'stR'; x == y returns False. x = 'str';
   y = 'str'; x == y returns True.
   != Not Equal To Compares if the objects are not equal x = 2; y = 3;
   x != y returns True.
   not Boolean NOT If x is True, it returns False. If x is False, it
   returns True. x = True; not y returns False.
   and Boolean AND x and y returns False if x is False, else it returns
   evaluation of y x = False; y = True; x and y returns False since x
   is False. In this case, Python will not evaluate y since it knows
   that the value of the expression will has to be false (since x is
   False). This is called short-circuit evaluation.
   or  Boolean  OR If x is True, it returns True, else it returns
   evaluation  of  y  x  =  True; y = False; x or y returns True.
   Short-circuit evaluation applies here as well.

Operator Precedence

   If you had an expression such as 2 + 3 * 4, is the addition done
   first or the multiplication? Our high school maths tells us that the
   multiplication  should  be  done  first  - this means that the
   multiplication operator has higher precedence than the addition
   operator.

   The following table gives the operator precedence table for Python,
   from the lowest precedence (least binding) to the highest precedence
   (most binding). This means that in a given expression, Python will
   first evaluate the operators lower in the table before the operators
   listed higher in the table.

   The following table (same as the one in the Python reference manual)
   is provided for the sake of completeness. However, I advise you to
   use parentheses for grouping of operators and operands in order to
   explicitly  specify  the precedence and to make the program as
   readable as possible. For example, 2 + (3 * 4) is definitely more
   clearer than 2 + 3 * 4. As with everything else, the parentheses
   shold be used sensibly and should not be redundant (as in 2 + (3 +
   4)).

   Table 5.2. Operator Precedence
         Operator                    Description
   lambda               Lambda Expression
   or                   Boolean OR
   and                  Boolean AND
   not x                Boolean NOT
   in, not in           Membership tests
   is, is not           Identity tests
   <, <=, >, >=, !=, == Comparisons
   |                    Bitwise OR
   ^                    Bitwise XOR
   &                    Bitwise AND
   <<, >>               Shifts
   +, -                 Addition and subtraction
   *, /, %              Multiplication, Division and Remainder
   +x, -x               Positive, Negative
   ~x                   Bitwise NOT
   **                   Exponentiation
   x.attribute          Attribute reference
   x[index]             Subscription
   x[index:index]       Slicing
   f(arguments ...)     Function call
   (expressions, ...)   Binding or tuple display
   [expressions, ...]   List display
   {key:datum, ...}     Dictionary display
   `expressions, ...`   String conversion

   The  operators  which  we have not already come across will be
   explained in later chapters.

   Operators with the same same precedence are listed in the same row
   in the above table. For example, + and - have the same precedence.

Order of Evaluation

   By default, the operator precedence table decides which operators
   are evaluated before others. However, if you want to change the orer
   in which they are evaluated, you can use parentheses. For example,
   if you want addition to be evaluated before multiplication in an
   expression, then you can write something like (2 + 3) * 4.

Associativity

   Operators are usually associated from left to right i.e. operators
   with same precedence are evaluated in a left to right manner. For
   example, 2 + 3 + 4 is evaluated as (2 + 3) + 4. Some operators like
   assignment operators have right to left associativity i.e. a = b = c
   is treated as a = (b = c).

Expressions

Using Expressions

   Example 5.1. Using Expressions

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: expression.py

length = 5
breadth = 2

area = length * breadth
print 'Area is', area
print 'Perimeter is', 2 * (length + breadth)

                                Output


$ python expression.py
Area is 10
Perimeter is 14

                                How It Works

   The length and breadth of the rectangle are stored in variables by
   the same name. We use these to calculate the area and perimieter of
   the rectangle with the help of expressions. We store the result of
   the expression length * breadth in the variable area and then print
   it using the print statement. In the second case, we directly use
   the value of the expression 2 * (length + breadth) in the print
   statement.

   Also, notice how Python 'pretty-prints' the output. Even though we
   have not specified a space between 'Area is' and the variable area,
   Python puts it for us so that we get a clean nice output and the
   program is much more readable this way (since we don't need to worry
   about spacing in the output). This is an example of how Python makes
   life easy for the programmer.

Summary

   We have seen how to use operators, operands and expressions - these
   are the basic building blocks of any program. Next, we will see how
   to make use of these in our programs using statements.

Chapter 6. Control Flow

   Table of Contents

   Introduction
   The if statement

        Using the if statement
        How It Works

   The while statement

        Using the while statement

   The for loop

        Using the for statement

   The break statement

        Using the break statement

   The continue statement

        Using the continue statement

   Summary

Introduction

   In the programs we have seen till now, there has always been a
   series of statements and Python faithfully executes them in the same
   order. What if you wanted to change the flow of how it works? For
   example,  you  want  the program to take some decisions and do
   different things depending on different situations such as printing
   'Good Morning' or 'Good Evening' depending on the time of the day?

   As you might have guessed, this is achieved using control flow
   statements. There are three control flow statements in Python - if,
   for and while.

The if statement

   The if statement is used to check a condition and if the condition
   is true, we run a block of statements (called the if-block), else we
   process another block of statements (called the else-block). The
   else clause is optional.

Using the if statement

   Example 6.1. Using the if statement

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: if.py

number = 23
guess = int(raw_input('Enter an integer : '))

if guess == number:
        print 'Congratulations, you guessed it.' # New block starts her
e
        print "(but you do not win any prizes!)" # New block ends here
elif guess < number:
        print 'No, it is a little higher than that' # Another block
        # You can do whatever you want in a block ...
else:
        print 'No, it is a little lower than that'
        # you must have guess > number to reach here

print 'Done'
# This last statement is always executed, after the if statement is exe
cuted

                                Output


$ python if.py
Enter an integer : 50
No, it is a little lower than that
Done
$ python if.py
Enter an integer : 22
No, it is a little higher than that
Done
$ python if.py
Enter an integer : 23
Congratulations, you guessed it.
(but you do not win any prizes!)
Done

                                How It Works

   In this program, we take guesses from the user and check if it is
   the number that we have. We set the variable number to any integer
   we  want,  say  23.  Then,  we take the user's guess using the
   raw_input()  function.  Functions  are just reusable pieces of
   programs. We'll read more about them in the next chapter.

   We supply a string to the built-in raw_input function which prints
   it to the screen and waits for input from the user. Once we enter
   something and press enter, the function returns the input which in
   the case of raw_input is a string. We then convert this string to an
   integer using int and then store it in the variable guess. Actually,
   the int is a class but all you need to know right now is that you
   can use it to convert a string to an integer (assuming the string
   contains a valid integer in the text).

   Next, we compare the guess of the user with the number we have
   chosen. If they are equal, we print a success message. Notice that
   we use indentation levels to tell Python which statements belong to
   which block. This is why indentation is so important in Python. I
   hope you are sticking to 'one tab per indentation level' rule. Are
   you?

   Notice how the if statement contains a colon at the end - we are
   indicating to Python that a block of statements follows.

   Then, we check if the guess is less than the number, and if so, we
   inform the user to guess a little higher than that. What we have
   used here is the elif clause which actually combines two related if
   else-if else statements into one combined if-elif-else statement.
   This makes the program easier and reduces the amount of indentation
   required.

   The elif and else statements must also have a colon at the end of
   the logical line followed by their corresponding block of statements
   (with proper indentation, of course)

   You can have another if statement inside the if-block of an if
   statement and so on - this is called a nested if statement.

   Remember that the elif and else parts are optional. A minival valid
   if statement is

if True:
        print 'Yes, it is true'

                           After Python has finished executing the
   complete  if  statement along with the assocated elif and else
   clauses, it moves on to the next statement in the block containing
   the if statement. In this case, it is the main block where execution
   of the program starts and the next statement is the print 'Done'
   statement. After this, Python sees the ends of the program and
   simply finishes up.

   Although this is a very simple program, I have been pointing out a
   lot of things that you should notice even in this simple program.
   All these are pretty straightforward (and surprisingly simple for
   those of you from C/C++ backgrounds) and requires you to become
   aware  of all these initially, but after that, you will become
   comfortable with it and it'll feel 'natural' to you.

Note for C/C++ Programmers

   There  is  no  switch  statement  in  Python.  You  can use an
   if..elif..else statement to do the same thing (and in some cases,
   use a dictionary to do it quickly)

The while statement

   The while statement allows you to repeatedly execute a block of
   statements as long as a condition is true. A while statement is an
   example of what is called a looping statement. A while statement can
   have an optional else clause.

Using the while statement

   Example 6.2. Using the while statement

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: while.py

number = 23
running = True

while running:
        guess = int(raw_input('Enter an integer : '))

        if guess == number:
                print 'Congratulations, you guessed it.'
                running = False # this causes the while loop to stop
        elif guess < number:
                print 'No, it is a little higher than that.'
        else:
                print 'No, it is a little lower than that.'
else:
        print 'The while loop is over.'
        # Do anything else you want to do here

print 'Done'

                                Output


$ python while.py
Enter an integer : 50
No, it is a little lower than that.
Enter an integer : 22
No, it is a little higher than that.
Enter an integer : 23
Congratulations, you guessed it.
The while loop is over.
Done

                                How It Works

   In this program, we are still playing the guessing game, but the
   advantage is that the user is allowed to keep guessing until he
   guesses correctly - there is no need to repeatedly execute the
   program  for each guess as we have done previously. This aptly
   demonstrates the use of the while statement.

   We move the raw_input and if statements to inside the while loop and
   set the variable running to True before the while loop. First, we
   check if the variable running is True and then proceed to execute
   the corresponding while-block. After this block is executed, the
   condition  is  again checked which in this case is the running
   variable. If it is true, we execute the while-block again, else we
   continue to execute the optional else-block and then continue to the
   next statement.

   The else block is executed when the while loop condition becomes
   False  - this may even be the first time that the condition is
   checked. If there is an else clause for a while loop, it is always
   executed unless you have a while loop which loops forever without
   ever breaking out!

   The True and False are called Boolean types and you can consider
   them  to be equivalent to the value 1 and 0 respecitvely. It's
   important to use these where the condition or checking is important
   and not the actual value such as 1.

   The  else-block  is actually redundant since you can put those
   statements in the same block (as the while statement) after the
   while statement to get the same effect.

Note for C/C++ Programmers

   Remember that you can have an else clause for the while loop.

The for loop

   The for..in statement is another looping statement which iterates
   over a sequence of objects i.e. go through each item in a sequence.
   We will see more about sequences in detail in later chapters. What
   you need to know right now is that a sequence is just an ordered
   collection of items.

Using the for statement

   Example 6.3. Using the for statement

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: for.py

for i in range(1, 5):
        print i
else:
        print 'The for loop is over'

                                Output


$ python for.py
1
2
3
4
The for loop is over

                                How It Works

   In this program, we are printing a sequence of numbers. We generate
   this sequence of numbers using hte built-in range function.

   What  we  do here is supply it two numbers and range returns a
   sequence of numbers starting from the first number and up to the
   second number. For example, range(1,5) gives the sequence [1, 2, 3,
   4]. By default, range takes a step count of 1. If we supply a third
   number to range, then that becomes the step count. For example,
   range(1,5,2) gives [1,3]. Remember that the range extends up to the
   second number i.e. it does not include the second number.

   The for loop then iterates over this range - for i in range(1,5) is
   equivalent to for i in [1, 2, 3, 4] which is like assigning each
   number (or object) in the sequence to i, one at a time, and then
   executing the block of statements for each value of i. In this case,
   we just print the value in the block of statements.

   Remember that the else part is optional. When included, it is always
   executed once after the for loop is over unless a break statement is
   encountered.

   Remember that the for..in loop works for any sequence. Here, we have
   a list of numbers generated by the built-in range function, but in
   general we can use any kind of sequence of any kind of objects! We
   will explore this idea in detail in later chapters.

Note for C/C++/Java/C# Programmers

   The Python for loop is radically different from the C/C++ for loop.
   C# programmers will note that the for loop in Python is similar to
   the foreach loop in C#. Java programmers will note that the same is
   similar to for (int i : IntArray) in Java 1.5 .

   In C/C++, if you want to write for (int i = 0; i < 5; i++), then in
   Python you write just for i in range(0,5). As you can see, the for
   loop is simpler, more expressive and less error prone in Python.

The break statement

   The break statement is used to break out of a loop statement i.e.
   stop  the  execution  of a looping statement, even if the loop
   condition has not become False or the sequence of items has been
   completely iterated over.

   An important note is that if you break out of a for or while loop,
   any corresponding loop else block is not executed.

Using the break statement

   Example 6.4. Using the break statement

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: break.py

while True:
        s = raw_input('Enter something : ')
        if s == 'quit':
                break
        print 'Length of the string is', len(s)
print 'Done'

                                Output


$ python break.py
Enter something : Programming is fun
Length of the string is 18
Enter something : When the work is done
Length of the string is 21
Enter something : if you wanna make your work also fun:
Length of the string is 37
Enter something :       use Python!
Length of the string is 12
Enter something : quit
Done

                                How It Works

   In this program, we repeatedly take the user's input and print the
   length of each input each time. We are providing a special condition
   to stop the program by checking if the user input is 'quit'. We stop
   the program by breaking out of the loop and reach the end of the
   program.

   The length of the input string can be found out using the built-in
   len function.

   Remember that the break statement can be used with the for loop as
   well.

G2's Poetic Python

   The input I have used here is a mini poem I have written called G2's
   Poetic Python:
Programming is fun
When the work is done
if you wanna make your work also fun:
        use Python!

The continue statement

   The continue statement is used to tell Python to skip the rest of
   the statements in the current loop block and to continue to the next
   iteration of the loop.

Using the continue statement

   Example 6.5. Using the continue statement

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: continue.py

while True:
        s = raw_input('Enter something : ')
        if s == 'quit':
                break
        if len(s) < 3:
                continue
        print 'Input is of sufficient length'
        # Do other kinds of processing here...

                                Output


$ python continue.py
Enter something : a
Enter something : 12
Enter something : abc
Input is of sufficient length
Enter something : quit

                                How It Works

   In this program, we accept input from the user, but we process them
   only if they are at least 3 characters long. So, we use the built-in
   len function to get the length and if the length is less than 3, we
   skip the rest of the statements in the block by using the continue
   statement. Otherwise, the rest of the statements in the loop are
   executed and we can do any kind of processing we want to do here.

   Note that the continue statement works with the for loop as well.

Summary

   We have seen how to use the three control flow statements - if,
   while  and  for along with their associated break and continue
   statements. These are some of the most often used parts of Python
   and hence, becoming comfortable with them is essential.

   Next, we will see how to create and use functions.

Chapter 7. Functions

   Table of Contents

   Introduction

        Defining a Function

   Function Parameters

        Using Function Parameters

   Local Variables

        Using Local Variables
        Using the global statement

   Default Argument Values

        Using Default Argument Values

   Keyword Arguments

        Using Keyword Arguments

   The return statement

        Using the literal statement

   DocStrings

        Using DocStrings

   Summary

Introduction

   Functions are reusable pieces of programs. They allow you to give a
   name to a block of statements and you can run that block using that
   name anywhere in your program and any number of times. This is known
   as  calling  the  function. We have already used many built-in
   functions such as the len and range.

   Functions are defined using the def keyword. This is followed by an
   identifier name for the function followed by a pair of parentheses
   which may enclose some names of variables and the line ends with a
   colon. Next follows the block of statements that are part of this
   function. An example will show that this is actually very simple:

Defining a Function

   Example 7.1. Defining a function

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: function1.py

def sayHello():
        print 'Hello World!' # block belonging to the function
# End of function

sayHello() # call the function

                                Output


$ python function1.py
Hello World!

                                How It Works

   We define a function called sayHello using the syntax as explained
   above. This function takes no parameters and hence there are no
   variables declared in the parentheses. Parameters to functions are
   just input to the function so that we can pass in different values
   to it and get back corresponding results.

Function Parameters

   A function can take parameters which are just values you supply to
   the function so that the function can do something utilising those
   values. These parameters are just like variables except that the
   values of these variables are defined when we call the function and
   are not assigned values within the function itself.

   Parameters are specified within the pair of parentheses in the
   function definition, separated by commas. When we call the function,
   we supply the values in the same way. Note the terminology used -
   the names given in the function definition are called parameters
   whereas  the values you supply in the function call are called
   arguments.

Using Function Parameters

   Example 7.2. Using Function Parameters

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_param.py

def printMax(a, b):
        if a > b:
                print a, 'is maximum'
        else:
                print b, 'is maximum'

printMax(3, 4) # directly give literal values

x = 5
y = 7

printMax(x, y) # give variables as arguments

                                Output


$ python func_param.py
4 is maximum
7 is maximum

                                How It Works

   Here,  we  define a function called printMax where we take two
   parameters called a and b. We find out the greater number using a
   simple if..else statement and then print the bigger number.

   In the first usage of printMax, we directly supply the numbers i.e.
   arguments.  In  the  second  usage, we call the function using
   variables. printMax(x, y) causes value of argument x to be assigned
   to parameter a and the value of argument y assigned to parameter b.
   The printMax function works the same in both the cases.

Local Variables

   When you declare variables inside a function definition, they are
   not related in any way to other variables with the same names used
   outside the function i.e. variable names are local to the function.
   This is called the scope of the variable. All variables have the
   scope of the block they are declared in starting from the point of
   definition of the name.

Using Local Variables

   Example 7.3. Using Local Variables

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_local.py

def func(x):
        print 'x is', x
        x = 2
        print 'Changed local x to', x

x = 50
func(x)
print 'x is still', x

                                Output


$ python func_local.py
x is 50
Changed local x to 2
x is still 50

                                How It Works

   In the function, the first time that we use the value of the name x,
   Python uses the value of the parameter declared in the function.

   Next,  we  assign the value 2 to x. The name x is local to our
   function. So, when we change the value of x in the function, the x
   defined in the main block remains unaffected.

   In the last print statement, we confirm that the value of x in the
   main block is actually unaffected.

Using the global statement

   If  you  want  to assign a value to a name defined outside the
   function, then you have to tell Python that the name is not local,
   but it is global. We do this using the global statement. It is
   impossible  to  assign a value to a variable defined outside a
   function without the global statement.

   You  can  use the values of such variables defined outside the
   function (assuming there is no variable with the same name within
   the function). However, this is not encouraged and should be avoided
   since it becomes unclear to the reader of the program as to where
   that variable's definition is. Using the global statement makes it
   amply clear that the variable is defined in an outer block.

   Example 7.4. Using the global statement

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_global.py

def func():
        global x

        print 'x is', x
        x = 2
        print 'Changed global x to', x

x = 50
func()
print 'Value of x is', x

                                Output


$ python func_global.py
x is 50
Changed global x to 2
Value of x is 2

                                How It Works

   The global statement is used to decare that x is a global variable -
   hence, when we assign a value to x inside the function, that change
   is reflected when we use the value of x in the main block.

   You can specify more than one global variable using the same global
   statement. For example, global x, y, z.

Default Argument Values

   For some functions, you may want to make some of its parameters as
   optional and use default values if the user does not want to provide
   values for such parameters. This is done with the help of default
   argument  values.  You can specify default argument values for
   parameters  by  following  the  parameter name in the function
   definition with the assignment operator (=) followed by the default
   value.

   Note that the default argument value should be a constant. More
   precisely, the default argument value should be immutable - this is
   explained in detail in later chapters. For now, just remember this.

Using Default Argument Values

   Example 7.5. Using Default Argument Values

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_default.py

def say(message, times = 1):
        print message * times

say('Hello')
say('World', 5)

                                Output


$ python func_default.py
Hello
WorldWorldWorldWorldWorld

                                How It Works

   The function named say is used to print a string as many times as
   want. If we don't supply a value, then by default, the string is
   printed just once. We achieve this by specifying a default argument
   value of 1 to the parameter times.

   In the first usage of say, we supply only the string and it prints
   the string once. In the second usage of say, we supply both the
   string and an argument 5 stating that we want to say the string
   message 5 times.

Important

   Only those parameters which are at the end of the parameter list can
   be given default argument values i.e. you cannot have a parameter
   with a default argument value before a parameter without a default
   argument value in the order of parameters declared in the function
   parameter list.

   This  is  because the values are assigned to the parameters by
   position. For example, def func(a, b=5) is valid, but def func(a=5,
   b) is not valid.

Keyword Arguments

   If you have some functions with many parameters and you want to
   specify  only  some of them, then you can give values for such
   parameters by naming them - this is called keyword arguments - we
   use the name (keyword) instead of the position (which we have been
   using all along) to specify the arguments to the function.

   There are two advantages - one, using the function is easier since
   we do not need to worry about the order of the arguments. Two, we
   can give values to only those parameters which we want, provided
   that the other parameters have default argument values.

Using Keyword Arguments

   Example 7.6. Using Keyword Arguments

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_key.py

def func(a, b=5, c=10):
        print 'a is', a, 'and b is', b, 'and c is', c

func(3, 7)
func(25, c=24)
func(c=50, a=100)

                                Output


$ python func_key.py
a is 3 and b is 7 and c is 10
a is 25 and b is 5 and c is 24
a is 100 and b is 5 and c is 50

                                How It Works

   The function named func has one parameter without default argument
   values, followed by two parameters with default argument values.

   In the first usage, func(3, 7), the parameter a gets the value 3,
   the parameter b gets the value 5 and c gets the default value of 10.

   In the second usage func(25, c=24), the variable a gets the value of
   25 due to the position of the argument. Then, the parameter c gets
   the value of 24 due to naming i.e. keyword arguments. The variable b
   gets the default value of 5.

   In the third usage func(c=50, a=100), we use keyword arguments
   completely to specify the values. Notice, that we are specifying
   value for parameter c before that for a even though a is defined
   before c in the function definition.

The return statement

   The return statement is used to return from a function i.e. break
   out of the function. We can optionally return a value from the
   function as well.

Using the literal statement

   Example 7.7. Using the literal statement

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_return.py

def maximum(x, y):
        if x > y:
                return x
        else:
                return y

print maximum(2, 3)

                                Output


$ python func_return.py
3

                                How It Works

   The maximum function returns the maximum of the parameters, in this
   case the numbers supplied to the function. It uses a simple if..else
   statement to find the greater value and then returns that value.

   Note that a return statement without a value is equivalent to return
   None. None is a special type in Python that represents nothingness.
   For example, it is used to indicate that a variable has no value if
   it has a value of None.

   Every function implicitly contains a return None statement at the
   end unless you have written your own return statement. You can see
   this by running print someFunction() where the function someFunction
   does not use the return statement such as:

def someFunction():
        pass

                                   The pass statement is used in Python
   to indicate an empty block of statements.

DocStrings

   Python has a nifty feature called documentation strings which is
   usually referred to by its shorter name docstrings. DocStrings are
   an important tool that you should make use of since it helps to
   document the program better and makes it more easy to understand.
   Amazingly, we can even get back the docstring from, say a function,
   when the program is actually running!

Using DocStrings

   Example 7.8. Using DocStrings

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: func_doc.py

def printMax(x, y):
        '''Prints the maximum of two numbers.

        The two values must be integers.'''
        x = int(x) # convert to integers, if possible
        y = int(y)

        if x > y:
                print x, 'is maximum'
        else:
                print y, 'is maximum'

printMax(3, 5)
print printMax.__doc__

                                Output


$ python func_doc.py
5 is maximum
Prints the maximum of two numbers.

        The two values must be integers.

                                How It Works

   A string on the first logical line of a function is the docstring
   for that function. Note that DocStrings also apply to modules and
   classes which we will learn about in the respective chapters.

   The convention followed for a docstring is a multi-line string where
   the first line starts with a capital letter and ends with a dot.
   Then the second line is blank followed by any detailed explanation
   starting from the third line. You are strongly advised to follow
   this convention for all your docstrings for all your non-trivial
   functions.

   We can access the docstring of the printMax function using the
   __doc__ (notice the double underscores) attribute (name belonging
   to) of the function. Just remember that Python treats everything as
   an  object and this includes functions. We'll learn more about
   objects in the chapter on classes.

   If you have used the help() in Python, then you have already seen
   the usage of docstrings! What it does is just fetch the __doc__
   attribute of that function and displays it in a neat manner for you.
   You  can  try  it  out  on  the  function above - just include
   help(printMax) in your program. Remember to press q to exit the
   help.

   Automated tools can retrieve the documentation from your program in
   this manner. Therefore, I strongly recommend that you use docstrings
   for any non-trivial function that you write. The pydoc command that
   comes with your Python distribution works similarly to help() using
   docstrings.

Summary

   We have seen so many aspects of functions but note that we still
   haven't covered all aspects of it. However, we have already covered
   most of what you'll use regarding Python functions on an everyday
   basis.

   Next, we will see how to use as well as create Python modules.

Chapter 8. Modules

   Table of Contents

   Introduction

        Using the sys module

   Byte-compiled .pyc files
   The from..import statement
   A module's __name__

        Using a module's __name__

   Making your own Modules

        Creating your own Modules
        from..import

   The dir() function

        Using the dir function

   Summary

Introduction

   You have seen how you can reuse code in your program by defining
   functions once. What if you wanted to reuse a number of functions in
   other programs that you write? As you might have guessed, the answer
   is  modules.  A module is basically a file containing all your
   functions and variables that you have defined. To reuse the module
   in  other programs, the filename of the module must have a .py
   extension.

   A module can be imported by another program to make use of its
   functionality. This is how we can use the Python standard library as
   well. First, we will see how to use the standard library modules.

Using the sys module

   Example 8.1. Using the sys module

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_sys.py

import sys

print 'The command line arguments are:'
for i in sys.argv:
        print i

print '/n/nThe PYTHONPATH is', sys.path, '/n'

                                Output


$ python using_sys.py we are arguments
The command line arguments are:
using_sys.py
we
are
arguments


The PYTHONPATH is ['/home/swaroop/byte/code', '/usr/lib/python23.zip',
'/usr/lib/python2.3', '/usr/lib/python2.3/plat-linux2',
'/usr/lib/python2.3/lib-tk', '/usr/lib/python2.3/lib-dynload',
'/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.3/site-packages/g
tk-2.0']

                                How It Works

   First,  we  import  the sys module using the import statement.
   Basically, this translates to us telling Python that we want to use
   this module. The sys module contains functionality related to the
   Python interpreter and its environment.

   When Python executes the import sys statement, it looks for the
   sys.py  module in one of the directores listed in its sys.path
   variable. If the file is found, then the statements in the main
   block of that module is run and then the module is made available
   for you to use. Note that the initialization is done only the first
   time that we import a module. Also, 'sys' is short for 'system'.

   The argv variable in the sys module is referred to using the dotted
   notation - sys.argv - one of the advantages of this approach is that
   the name does not clash with any argv variable used in your program.
   Also, it indicates clearly that this name is part of the sys module.

   The sys.argv variable is a list of strings (lists are explained in
   detail in later sections). Specifically, the sys.argv contains the
   list of command line arguments i.e. the arguments passed to your
   program using the command line.

   If you are using an IDE to write and run these programs, look for a
   way to specify command line arguments to the program in the menus.

   Here, when we execute python using_sys.py we are arguments, we run
   the module using_sys.py with the python command and the other things
   that follow are arguments passed to the program. Python stores it in
   the sys.argv variable for us.

   Remember,  the  name of the script running is always the first
   argument  in  the sys.argv list. So, in this case we will have
   'using_sys.py'  as  sys.argv[0], 'we' as sys.argv[1], 'are' as
   sys.argv[2] and 'arguments' as sys.argv[3] . Notice that Python
   starts counting from 0 and not 1.

   The sys.path contains the list of directory names where modules are
   imported from. Observe that the first string in sys.path is empty -
   this empty string indicates that the current directory is also part
   of  the  sys.path  which is same as the PYTHONPATH environment
   variable. This means that you can directly import modules located in
   the current directory. Otherwise, you will have to place your module
   in one of the directories listed in sys.path .

Byte-compiled .pyc files

   Importing a module is a relatively costly affair, so Python does
   some tricks to make it faster. One way is to create byte-compiled
   files with the extension .pyc which is related to the intermediate
   form that Python transforms the program into (remember the intro
   section on how Python works ?). This .pyc file is useful when you
   import the module the next time from a different program - it will
   be much faster since part of the processing required in importing a
   module  is  already  done. Also, these byte-compiled files are
   platform-independent. So, now you know what those .pyc files really
   are.

The from..import statement

   If you want to directly import the argv variable into your program
   (to avoid typing the sys. everytime for it), then you can use the
   from sys import argv statement. If you want to import all the names
   used in the sys module, then you can use the from sys import *
   statement. This works for any module. In general, avoid using the
   from..import statement and use the import statement instead since
   your program will be much more readable and will avoid any name
   clashes that way.

A module's __name__

   Every module has a name and statements in a module can find out the
   name of its module. This is especially handy in one particular
   situation - As mentioned previously, when a module is imported for
   the first time, the main block in that module is run. What if we
   want to run the block only if the program was used by itself and not
   when it was imported from another module? This can be achieved using
   the __name__ attribute of the module.

Using a module's __name__

   Example 8.2. Using a module's __name__

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_name.py

if __name__ == '__main__':
        print 'This program is being run by itself'
else:
        print 'I am being imported from another module'

                                Output


$ python using_name.py
This program is being run by itself

$ python
>>> import using_name
I am being imported from another module
>>>

                                How It Works

   Every  Python  module has it's __name__ defined and if this is
   '__main__', it implies that the module is being run standalone by
   the user and we can do corresponding appropriate actions.

Making your own Modules

   Creating your own modules is easy, you've been doing it all along!
   Every Python program is also a module. You just have to make sure it
   has a .py extension. The following example should make it clear.

Creating your own Modules

   Example 8.3. How to create your own module

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: mymodule.py

def sayhi():
        print 'Hi, this is mymodule speaking.'

version = '0.1'

# End of mymodule.py

                                   The above was a sample module. As
   you can see, there is nothing particularly special about compared to
   our usual Python program. We will next see how to use this module in
   our other Python programs.

   Remember that the module should be placed in the same directory as
   the program that we import it in, or the module should be in one of
   the directories listed in sys.path .

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: mymodule_demo.py

import mymodule

mymodule.sayhi()
print 'Version', mymodule.version

                        Output


$ python mymodule_demo.py
Hi, this is mymodule speaking.
Version 0.1

                                How It Works

   Notice that we use the same dotted notation to access members of the
   module. Python makes good reuse of the same notation to give the
   distinctive 'Pythonic' feel to it so that we don't have to keep
   learning new ways to do things.

from..import

   Here is a version utilising the from..import syntax.

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: mymodule_demo2.py

from mymodule import sayhi, version
# Alternative:
# from mymodule import *

sayhi()
print 'Version', version

                           The     output     of    mymodule_demo2.py    is    same    as
   the output of mymodule_demo.py.

The dir() function

   You can use the built-in dir function to list the identifiers that a
   module defines. The identifiers are the functions, classes and
   variables defined in that module.

   When you supply a module name to the dir() function, it returns the
   list  of the names defined in that module. When no argument is
   applied to it, it returns the list of names defined in the current
   module.

Using the dir function

   Example 8.4. Using the dir function

$ python
>>> import sys
>>> dir(sys) # get list of attributes for sys module
['__displayhook__', '__doc__', '__excepthook__', '__name__', '__stderr_
_',
'__stdin__', '__stdout__', '_getframe', 'api_version', 'argv',
'builtin_module_names', 'byteorder', 'call_tracing', 'callstats',
'copyright', 'displayhook', 'exc_clear', 'exc_info', 'exc_type',
'excepthook', 'exec_prefix', 'executable', 'exit', 'getcheckinterval',
'getdefaultencoding', 'getdlopenflags', 'getfilesystemencoding',
'getrecursionlimit', 'getrefcount', 'hexversion', 'maxint', 'maxunicode
',
'meta_path','modules', 'path', 'path_hooks', 'path_importer_cache',
'platform', 'prefix', 'ps1', 'ps2', 'setcheckinterval', 'setdlopenflags
',
'setprofile', 'setrecursionlimit', 'settrace', 'stderr', 'stdin', 'stdo
ut',
'version', 'version_info', 'warnoptions']
>>> dir() # get list of attributes for current module
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', 'sys']
>>>
>>> a = 5 # create a new variable 'a'
>>> dir()
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', 'a', 'sys']
>>>
>>> del a # delete/remove a name
>>>
>>> dir()
['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', 'sys']
>>>

                                How It Works

   First, we see the usage of dir on the imported sys module. We can
   see the huge list of attributes that it contains.

   Next, we use the dir function without passing parameters to it - by
   default, it returns the list of attributes for the current module.
   Notice that the list of imported modules is also part of this list.

   In order to observe the dir in action, we define a new variable a
   and assign it a value and then check dir and we observe that there
   is an additional value in the list of the same name. We remove the
   variable/attribute of the current module using the del statement and
   the change is reflected again in the output of the dir function.

   A note on del - this statement is used to delete a variable/name and
   after the statement has run, in this case del a, you can no longer
   access the variable a - it is as if it never existed before at all.

Summary

   Modules are useful because they provide services and functionality
   that you can reuse in other programs. The standard library that
   comes with Python is an example of such a set of modules. We have
   seen how to use these modules and create our own modules as well.

   Next, we will learn about some interesting concepts called data
   structures.

Chapter 9. Data Structures

   Table of Contents

   Introduction
   List

        Quick introduction to Objects and Classes
        Using Lists

   Tuple

        Using Tuples
        Tuples and the print statement

   Dictionary

        Using Dictionaries

   Sequences

        Using Sequences

   References

        Objects and References

   More about Strings

        String Methods

   Summary

Introduction

   Data structures are basically just that - they are structures which
   can hold some data together. In other words, they are used to store
   a collection of related data.

   There are three built-in data structures in Python - list, tuple and
   dictionary. We will see how to use each of them and how they make
   life easier.

List

   A list is a data structure that holds an ordered collection of items
   i.e. you can store a sequence of items in a list. This is easy to
   imagine if you can think of a shopping list where you have a list of
   items to buy, except that you probbly have each item on a separate
   line in your shopping list whereas in Python you put commas in
   between them.

   The list of items should be enclosed in square brackets so that
   Python understands that you are specifying a list. Once you have
   created a list, you can add, remove or search for items in the list.
   Since, we can add and remove items, we say that a list is a mutable
   data type i.e. this type can be altered.

Quick introduction to Objects and Classes

   Although, I've been generally delaying the discussion of objects and
   classes till now, a little explanation is needed right now so that
   you can understand lists better. We will still explore this topic in
   detail in its own chapter.

   A list is an example of usage of objects and classes. When you use a
   variable i and assign a value to it, say integer 5 to it, you can
   think of it as creating an object (instance) i of class (type) int.
   In fact, you can see help(int) to understand this better.

   A class can also have methods i.e. functions defined for use with
   respect  to  that  class  only.  You  can  use these pieces of
   functionality  only when you have an object of that class. For
   example, Python provides an append method for the list class which
   allows you to add an item to the end of the list. For example,
   mylist.append('an item') will add that string to the list mylist.
   Note  the  use of dotted notation for accessing methods of the
   objects.

   A class can also have fields which are nothing but variables defined
   for  use  with  respect  to that class only. You can use these
   variables/names only when you have an object of that class. Fields
   are also accessed by the dotted notation, for example, mylist.field
   .

Using Lists

   Example 9.1. Using lists

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_list.py

# This is my shopping list
shoplist = ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot', 'banana']

print 'I have', len(shoplist), 'items to purchase.'

print 'These items are:', # Notice the comma at end of the line
for item in shoplist:
        print item,

print '/nI also have to buy rice.'
shoplist.append('rice')
print 'My shopping list is now', shoplist

print 'I will sort my list now'
shoplist.sort()
print 'Sorted shopping list is', shoplist

print 'The first item I will buy is', shoplist[0]
olditem = shoplist[0]
del shoplist[0]
print 'I bought the', olditem
print 'My shopping list is now', shoplist

                                Output


$ python using_list.py
I have 4 items to purchase.
These items are: apple mango carrot banana
I also have to buy rice.
My shopping list is now ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot', 'banana', 'rice']
I will sort my list now
Sorted shopping list is ['apple', 'banana', 'carrot', 'mango', 'rice']
The first item I will buy is apple
I bought the apple
My shopping list is now ['banana', 'carrot', 'mango', 'rice']

                                How It Works

   The variable shoplist is a shopping list for someone who is going to
   the market. In shoplist, we only store strings of the names of the
   items to buy but remember you can add any kind of object to a list
   including numbers and even other lists.

   We have also used the for..in loop to iterate through the items of
   the list. By now, you must have realised that a list is also a
   sequence. The speciality of sequences will be discussed in a later
   section

   Notice that we use a comma at the end of the print statement to
   suppress the automatic printing of a line break after every print
   statement. This is a bit of an ugly way of doing it, but it is
   simple and gets the job done.

   Next, we add an item to the list using the append method of the list
   object, as already discussed before. Then, we check that the item
   has been indeed added to the list by printing the contents of the
   list by simply passing the list to the print statement which prints
   it in a neat manner for us.

   Then,  we  sort the list by using the sort method of the list.
   Understand that this method affects the list itself and does not
   return a modified list - this is different from the way strings
   work. This is what we mean by saying that lists are mutable and that
   strings are immutable.

   Next, when we finish buying an item in the market, we want to remove
   it from the list. We achieve this by using the del statement. Here,
   we mention which item of the list we want to remove and the del
   statement removes it fromt he list for us. We specify that we want
   to  remove  the  first item from the list and hence we use del
   shoplist[0] (remember that Python starts counting from 0).

   If you want to know all the methods defined by the list object, see
   help(list) for complete details.

Tuple

   Tuples are just like lists except that they are immutable like
   strings  i.e.  you cannot modify tuples. Tuples are defined by
   specifying items separated by commas within a pair of parentheses.
   Tuples are usually used in cases where a statement or a user-defined
   function can safely assume that the collection of values i.e. the
   tuple of values used will not change.

Using Tuples

   Example 9.2. Using Tuples

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_tuple.py

zoo = ('wolf', 'elephant', 'penguin')
print 'Number of animals in the zoo is', len(zoo)

new_zoo = ('monkey', 'dolphin', zoo)
print 'Number of animals in the new zoo is', len(new_zoo)
print 'All animals in new zoo are', new_zoo
print 'Animals brought from old zoo are', new_zoo[2]
print 'Last animal brought from old zoo is', new_zoo[2][2]

                                Output


$ python using_tuple.py
Number of animals in the zoo is 3
Number of animals in the new zoo is 3
All animals in new zoo are ('monkey', 'dolphin', ('wolf', 'elephant', '
penguin'))
Animals brought from old zoo are ('wolf', 'elephant', 'penguin')
Last animal brought from old zoo is penguin

                                How It Works

   The variable zoo refers to a tuple of items. We see that the len
   function can be used to get the length of the tuple. This also
   indicates that a tuple is a sequence as well.

   We are now shifting these animals to a new zoo since the old zoo is
   being closed. Therefore, the new_zoo tuple contains some animals
   which are already there along with the animals brought over from the
   old zoo. Back to reality, note that a tuple within a tuple does not
   lose its identity.

   We  can access the items in the tuple by specifying the item's
   position within a pair of square brackets just like we did for
   lists. This is called the indexing operator. We access the third
   item in new_zoo by specifying new_zoo[2] and we access the third
   item  in  the  third  item  in the new_zoo tuple by specifying
   new_zoo[2][2]. This is pretty simple once you've understood the
   idiom.

   Tuple with 0 or 1 items.  An empty tuple is constructed by an empty
   pair of parentheses such as myempty = (). However, a tuple with a
   single item is not so simple. You have to specify it using a comma
   following the first (and only) item so that Python can differentiate
   between a tuple and a pair of parentheses surrounding the object in
   an expression i.e. you have to specify singleton = (2 , ) if you
   mean you want a tuple containing the item 2.

Note for Perl programmers

   A list within a list does not lose its identity i.e. lists are not
   flattened as in Perl. The same applies to a tuple within a tuple, or
   a tuple within a list, or a list within a tuple, etc. As far as
   Python is concerned, they are just objects stored using another
   object, that's all.

Tuples and the print statement

   One of the most common usage of tuples is with the print statement.
   Here is an example:

   Example 9.3. Output using tuples

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: print_tuple.py

age = 22
name = 'Swaroop'

print '%s is %d years old' % (name, age)
print 'Why is %s playing with that python?' % name

                                Output


$ python print_tuple.py
Swaroop is 22 years old
Why is Swaroop playing with that python?

                                How It Works

   The print statement can take a string using certain specifications
   followed by the % symbol followed by a tuple of items matching the
   specification. The specifications are used to format the output in a
   certain way. The specification can be like %s for strings and %d for
   integers.  The  tuple  must  have items corresponding to these
   specifications in the same order.

   Observe the first usage where we use %s first and this corresponds
   to the variable name which is the first item in the tuple and the
   second specification is %d corresponding to age which is the second
   item in the tuple.

   What Python does here is that it converts each item in the tuple
   into a string and substitutes that string value into the place of
   the specification. Therefore the %s is replaced by the value of the
   variable name and so on.

   This usage of the print statement makes writing output extremely
   easy and avoids lot of string manipulation to achieve the same. It
   also avoids using commas everywhere as we have done till now.

   Most of the time, you can just use the %s specification and let
   Python take care of the rest for you. This works even for numbers.
   However, you may want to give the correct specifications since this
   adds one level of checking that your program is correct.

   In the second print statement, we are using a single specification
   followed by the % symbol followed by a single item - there are no
   pair of parentheses. This works only in the case where there is a
   single specification in the string.

Dictionary

   A dictionary is like an address-book where you can find the address
   or contact details of a person by knowing only his/her name i.e. we
   associate keys (name) with values (details). Note that the key must
   be unique just like you cannot find out the correct information if
   you have two persons with the exact same name.

   Note that you can use only immutable objects (like strings) for the
   keys of a dictionary but you can use either immutable or mutable
   objects for the values of the dictionary. This basically translates
   to say that you should use only simple objects for keys.

   Pairs of keys and valus are specified in a dictionary by using the
   notation d = {key1 : value1, key2 : value2 }. Notice that they
   key/value pairs are separated by a colon and the pairs are separated
   themselves by commas and all this is enclosed in a pair of curly
   brackets.

   Remember that key/value pairs in a dictionary are not ordered in any
   manner. If you want a particular order, then you will have to sort
   them yourself before using it.

   The dictionaries that you will be using are instances/objects of the
   dict class.

Using Dictionaries

   Example 9.4. Using dictionaries

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_dict.py

# 'ab' is short for 'a'ddress'b'ook

ab = {          'Swaroop'   : 'swaroopch@byteofpython.info',
                'Larry'     : 'larry@wall.org',
                'Matsumoto' : 'matz@ruby-lang.org',
                'Spammer'   : 'spammer@hotmail.com'
        }

print "Swaroop's address is %s" % ab['Swaroop']

# Adding a key/value pair
ab['Guido'] = 'guido@python.org'

# Deleting a key/value pair
del ab['Spammer']

print '/nThere are %d contacts in the address-book/n' % len(ab)

for name, address in ab.items():
        print 'Contact %s at %s' % (name, address)

if 'Guido' in ab: # OR ab.has_key('Guido')
        print "/nGuido's address is %s" % ab['Guido']

                                Output


$ python using_dict.py
Swaroop's address is swaroopch@byteofpython.info

There are 4 contacts in the address-book

Contact Swaroop at swaroopch@byteofpython.info
Contact Matsumoto at matz@ruby-lang.org
Contact Larry at larry@wall.org
Contact Guido at guido@python.org

Guido's address is guido@python.org

                                How It Works

   We create the dictionary ab using the notation already discussed. We
   then access key/value pairs by specifying the key using the indexing
   operator as discussed in the context of lists and tuples. Observe
   that the syntax is very simple for dictionaries as well.

   We can add new key/value pairs by simply using the indexing operator
   to access a key and assign that value, as we have done for Guido in
   the above case.

   We  can  delete key/value pairs using our old friend - the del
   statement.  We  simply specify the dictionary and the indexing
   operator for the key to be removed and pass it to the del statement.
   There is no need to know the value corresponding to the key for this
   operation.

   Next, we access each key/value pair of the dictionary using the
   items method of the dictionary which returns a list of tuples where
   each tuple contains a pair of items - the key followed by the value.
   We  retrieve this pair and assign it to the variables name and
   address correspondingly for each pair using the for..in loop and
   then print these values in the for-block.

   We can check if a key/value pair exists using the in operator or
   even  the  has_key  method  of the dict class. You can see the
   documentation for the complete list of methods of the dict class
   using help(dict).

   Keyword Arguments and Dictionaries.  On a different note, if you
   have used keyword arguments in your functions, you have already used
   dictionaries! Just think about it - the key/value pair is specified
   by you in the parameter list of the function definition and when you
   access variables within your function, it is just a key access of a
   dictionary (which is called the symbol table in compiler design
   terminology).

Sequences

   Lists, tuples and strings are examples of sequences, but what are
   sequences  and  what is so special about them? Two of the main
   features of a sequence is the indexing operation which allows us to
   fetch a particular item in the sequence directly and the slicing
   operation which allows us to retrieve a slice of the sequence i.e. a
   part of the sequence.

Using Sequences

   Example 9.5. Using Sequences

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: seq.py

shoplist = ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot', 'banana']

# Indexing or 'Subscription' operation
print 'Item 0 is', shoplist[0]
print 'Item 1 is', shoplist[1]
print 'Item 2 is', shoplist[2]
print 'Item 3 is', shoplist[3]
print 'Item -1 is', shoplist[-1]
print 'Item -2 is', shoplist[-2]

# Slicing on a list
print 'Item 1 to 3 is', shoplist[1:3]
print 'Item 2 to end is', shoplist[2:]
print 'Item 1 to -1 is', shoplist[1:-1]
print 'Item start to end is', shoplist[:]

# Slicing on a string
name = 'swaroop'
print 'characters 1 to 3 is', name[1:3]
print 'characters 2 to end is', name[2:]
print 'characters 1 to -1 is', name[1:-1]
print 'characters start to end is', name[:]

                                Output


$ python seq.py
Item 0 is apple
Item 1 is mango
Item 2 is carrot
Item 3 is banana
Item -1 is banana
Item -2 is carrot
Item 1 to 3 is ['mango', 'carrot']
Item 2 to end is ['carrot', 'banana']
Item 1 to -1 is ['mango', 'carrot']
Item start to end is ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
characters 1 to 3 is wa
characters 2 to end is aroop
characters 1 to -1 is waroo
characters start to end is swaroop

                                How It Works

   First,  we see how to use indexes to get individual items of a
   sequence. This is also referred to as the subscription operation.
   Whenever you specify a number to a sequence within square brackets
   as shown above, Python will fetch you the item corresponding to that
   position in the sequence. Remember that Python starts counting
   numbers  from 0. Hence, shoplist[0] fetches the first item and
   shoplist[3] fetches the fourth item in the shoplist sequence.

   The index can also be a negative number, in which case, the position
   is calculated from the end of the sequence. Therefore, shoplist[-1]
   refers to the last item in the sequence and shoplist[-2] fetches the
   second last item in the sequence.

   The slicing operation is used by specifying the name of the sequence
   followed by an optional pair of numbers separated by a colon within
   square brackets. Note that this is very very similar to the indexing
   operation you have been using til lnow. Remember the numbers are
   optional but the colon isn't.

   The first number (before the colon) in the slicing operation refers
   to the position from where the slice starts and the second number
   (after the colon) indicates where the slice will stop at. If the
   first number is not specified, Python will start at the beginning of
   the sequence. If the second number is left out, Python will stop at
   the end of the sequence. Note that the slice returned starts at the
   start position and will end just before the end position i.e. the
   start position is included but the end position is excluded from the
   sequence slice.

   Thus, shoplist[1:3] returns a slice of the sequence starting at
   position  1,  includes  position 2 but stops at position 3 and
   therefore a slice of two items is returned. Similarly, shoplist[:]
   returns a copy of the whole sequence.

   You can also do slicing with negative positions. Negative numbers
   are used for positions from the end of the sequence. For example,
   shoplist[:-1] will return a slice of the sequence which excludes the
   last item of the sequence but contains everything else.

   Try various combinations of such slice specifications using the
   Python interpreter interactively i.e. the prompt so that you can see
   the results immediately. The great thing about sequences is that you
   can access tuples, lists and strings all in the same way!

References

   When you create an object and assign it to a variable, the variable
   only refers to the object and does not represent the object itself!
   That is, the variable name points to that part of your computer's
   memory where the object is stored. This is called as binding of the
   name to the object.

   Generally, you don't need to be worried about this, but there is a
   subtle effect due to references which you need to be aware of. This
   is demonstrated by the following example.

Objects and References

   Example 9.6. Objects and References

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: reference.py

print 'Simple Assignment'
shoplist = ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
mylist = shoplist # mylist is just another name pointing to the same ob
ject!

del shoplist[0] # I purchased the first item, so I remove it from the l
ist

print 'shoplist is', shoplist
print 'mylist is', mylist
# notice that both shoplist and mylist both print the same list without
# the 'apple' confirming that they point to the same object

print 'Copy by making a full slice'
mylist = shoplist[:] # make a copy by doing a full slice
del mylist[0] # remove first item

print 'shoplist is', shoplist
print 'mylist is', mylist
# notice that now the two lists are different

                                Output


$ python reference.py
Simple Assignment
shoplist is ['mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
mylist is ['mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
Copy by making a full slice
shoplist is ['mango', 'carrot', 'banana']
mylist is ['carrot', 'banana']

                                How It Works

   Most of the explanation is available in the comments itself. What
   you need to remember is that if you want to make a copy of a list or
   such kinds of sequences or complex objects (not simple objects such
   as integers), then you have to use the slicing operation to make a
   copy. If you just assign the variable name to another name, both of
   them will refer to the same object and this could lead to all sorts
   of trouble if you are not careful.

Note for Perl programmers

   Remember that an assignment statement for lists does not create a
   copy.  You have to use slicing operation to make a copy of the
   sequence.

More about Strings

   We have already discussed strings in detail earlier. What more can
   there be to know? Well, did you know that strings are also objects
   and have methods which do everything from checking part of a string
   to stripping spaces!

   The strings that you use in program are all objects of the class
   str. Some useful methods of this class are demonstrated in the next
   example. For a complete list of such methods, see help(str).

String Methods

   Example 9.7. String Methods

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: str_methods.py

name = 'Swaroop' # This is a string object

if name.startswith('Swa'):
        print 'Yes, the string starts with "Swa"'

if 'a' in name:
        print 'Yes, it contains the string "a"'

if name.find('war') != -1:
        print 'Yes, it contains the string "war"'

delimiter = '_*_'
mylist = ['Brazil', 'Russia', 'India', 'China']
print delimiter.join(mylist)

                                Output


$ python str_methods.py
Yes, the string starts with "Swa"
Yes, it contains the string "a"
Yes, it contains the string "war"
Brazil_*_Russia_*_India_*_China

                                How It Works

   Here, we see a lot of the string methods in action. The startswith
   method is used to find out whether the string starts with the given
   string. The in operator is used to check if a given string is a part
   of the string.

   The find method is used to do find the position of the given string
   in the string or returns -1 if it is not successful to find the
   substring. The str class also has a neat method to join the items of
   a sequence with the string acting as a delimiter between each item
   of the sequence and returns a bigger string generated from this.

Summary

   We have explored the various built-in data structures of Python in
   detail. These data structures will be essential for writing programs
   of reasonable size.

   Now that we have a lot of the basics of Python in place, we will
   next see how to design and write a real-world Python program.

Chapter 10. Problem Solving - Writing a Python Script

   Table of Contents

   The Problem
   The Solution

        First Version
        Second Version
        Third Version
        Fourth Version
        More Refinements

   The Software Development Process
   Summary

   We have explored various parts of the Python language and now we
   will take a look at how all these parts fit together, by designing
   and writing a program which does something useful.

The Problem

   The problem is 'I want a program which creates a backup of all my
   important files'.

   Although, this is a simple problem, there is not enough information
   for us to get started with the solution. A little more analysis is
   required. For example, how do we specify which files are to be
   backed up? Where is the backup stored? How are they stored in the
   backup?

   After analyzing the problem properly, we design our program. We make
   a list of things about how our program should work. In this case, I
   have created the following list on how I want it to work. If you do
   the design, you may not come up with the same kind of problem -
   every person has their own way of doing things, this is ok.
    1. The files and directories to be backed up are specified in a
       list.
    2. The backup must be stored in a main backup directory.
    3. The files are backed up into a zip file.
    4. The name of the zip archive is the current date and time.
    5. We use the standard zip command available by default in any
       standard Linux/Unix distribution. Windows users can use the
       Info-Zip program. Note that you can use any archiving command
       you want as long as it has a command line interface so that we
       can pass arguments to it from our script.

The Solution

   As the design of our program is now stable, we can write the code
   which is an implementation of our solution.

First Version

   Example 10.1. Backup Script - The First Version

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: backup_ver1.py

import os
import time

# 1. The files and directories to be backed up are specified in a list.
source = ['/home/swaroop/byte', '/home/swaroop/bin']
# If you are using Windows, use source = [r'C:/Documents', r'D:/Work']
or something like that

# 2. The backup must be stored in a main backup directory
target_dir = '/mnt/e/backup/' # Remember to change this to what you wil
l be using

# 3. The files are backed up into a zip file.
# 4. The name of the zip archive is the current date and time
target = target_dir + time.strftime('%Y%m%d%H%M%S') + '.zip'

# 5. We use the zip command (in Unix/Linux) to put the files in a zip a
rchive
zip_command = "zip -qr '%s' %s" % (target, ' '.join(source))

# Run the backup
if os.system(zip_command) == 0:
        print 'Successful backup to', target
else:
        print 'Backup FAILED'

                                Output


$ python backup_ver1.py
Successful backup to /mnt/e/backup/20041208073244.zip

                                   Now, we are in the testing phase
   where we test that our program works properly. If it doesn't behave
   as expected, then we have to debug our program i.e. remove the bugs
   (errors) from the program.

How It Works

   You will notice how we have converted our design into code in a
   step-by-step manner.

   We make use of the os and time modules and so we import them. Then,
   we specify the files and directories to be backed up in the source
   list. The target directory is where store all the backup files and
   this is specified in the target_dir variable. The name of the zip
   archive that we are going to create is the current date and time
   which we fetch using the time.strftime() function. It will also have
   the .zip extension and will be stored in the target_dir directory.

   The time.strftime() function takes a specification such as the one
   we have used in the above program. The %Y specification will be
   replaced by the year without the cetury. The %m specification will
   be replaced by the month as a decimal number between 01 and 12 and
   so on. The complete list of such specifications can be found in the
   [Python Reference Manual] that comes with your Python distribution.
   Notice that this is similar to (but not same as) the specification
   used in print statement (using the % followed by tuple).

   We  create  the name of the target zip file using the addition
   operator  which concatenates the strings i.e. it joins the two
   strings together and returns a new one. Then, we create a string
   zip_command which contains the command that we are going to execute.
   You can check if this command works by running it on the shell
   (Linux terminal or DOS prompt).

   The zip command that we are using has some options and parameters
   passed. The -q option is used to indicate that the zip command
   should work quietly. The -r option specifies that the zip command
   should work recursively for directories i.e. it should include
   subdirectories and files within the subdirectories as well. The two
   options are combined and specified in a shorter way as -qr. The
   options  are followed by the name of the zip archive to create
   followed by the list of files and directories to backup. We convert
   the source list into a string using the join method of strings which
   we have already seen how to use.

   Then, we finally run the command using the os.system function which
   runs the command as if it was run from the system i.e. in the shell
   - it returns 0 if the command was successfully, else it returns an
   error number.

   Depending on the outcome of the command, we print the appropriate
   message that the backup has failed or succeeded and that's it, we
   have created a script to take a backup of our important files!

Note to Windows Users

   You can set the source list and target directory to any file and
   directory names but you have to be a little careful in Windows. The
   problem is that Windows uses the backslash (/) as the directory
   separator character but Python uses backslashes to represent escape
   sequences!

   So,  you  have to represent a backslash itself using an escape
   sequence  or  you  have  to  use raw strings. For example, use
   'C://Documents' or r'C:/Documents' but do not use 'C:/Documents' -
   you are using an unknown escape sequence /D !

   Now that we have a working backup script, we can use it whenever we
   want to take a backup of the files. Linux/Unix users are advised to
   use the executable method as discussed earlier so that they can run
   the backup script anytime anywhere. This is called the operation
   phase or the deployment phase of the software.

   The above program works properly, but (usually) first programs do
   not work exactly as you expect. For example, there might be problems
   if you have not designed the program properly or if you have made a
   mistake in typing the code, etc. Appropriately, you will have to go
   back to the design phase or you will have to debug your program.

Second Version

   The first version of our script works. However, we can make some
   refinements to it so that it can work better on a daily basis. This
   is called the maintenance phase of the software.

   One of the refinements I felt was useful is a better file-naming
   mechanism  -  using  the time as the name of the file within a
   directory with the current date as a directory within the main
   backup directory. One advantage is that your backups are stored in a
   hierarchical manner and therefore it is much easier to manage.
   Another advantage is that the length of the filenames are much
   shorter this way. Yet another advantage is that separate directories
   will help you to easily check if you have taken a backup for each
   day since the directory would be created only if you have taken a
   backup for that day.

   Example 10.2. Backup Script - The Second Version

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: backup_ver2.py

import os
import time

# 1. The files and directories to be backed up are specified in a list.
source = ['/home/swaroop/byte', '/home/swaroop/bin']
# If you are using Windows, use source = [r'C:/Documents', r'D:/Work']
or something like that

# 2. The backup must be stored in a main backup directory
target_dir = '/mnt/e/backup/' # Remember to change this to what you wil
l be using

# 3. The files are backed up into a zip file.
# 4. The current day is the name of the subdirectory in the main direct
ory
today = target_dir + time.strftime('%Y%m%d')
# The current time is the name of the zip archive
now = time.strftime('%H%M%S')

# Create the subdirectory if it isn't already there
if not os.path.exists(today):
        os.mkdir(today) # make directory
        print 'Successfully created directory', today

# The name of the zip file
target = today + os.sep + now + '.zip'

# 5. We use the zip command (in Unix/Linux) to put the files in a zip a
rchive
zip_command = "zip -qr '%s' %s" % (target, ' '.join(source))

# Run the backup
if os.system(zip_command) == 0:
        print 'Successful backup to', target
else:
        print 'Backup FAILED'

                                Output


$ python backup_ver2.py
Successfully created directory /mnt/e/backup/20041208
Successful backup to /mnt/e/backup/20041208/080020.zip

$ python backup_ver2.py
Successful backup to /mnt/e/backup/20041208/080428.zip


                                How It Works

   Most of the program remains the same. The changes is that we check
   if there is a directory with the current day as name inside the main
   backup directory using the os.exists function. If it doesn't exist,
   we create it using the os.mkdir function.

   Notice  the  use of os.sep variable - this gives the directory
   separator according to your operating system i.e. it will be '/' in
   Linux, Unix, it will be '//' in Windows and ':' in Mac OS. Using
   os.sep instead of these characters directly will make our program
   portable and work across these systems.

Third Version

   The second version works fine when I do many backups, but when there
   are lots of backups, I am finding it hard to differentiate what the
   backups were for! For example, I might have made some major changes
   to a program or presentation, then I want to associate what those
   changes are with the name of the zip archive. This can be easily
   achieved by attaching a user-supplied comment to the name of the zip
   archive.

   Example 10.3. Backup Script - The Third Version (does not work!)

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: backup_ver2.py

import os
import time

# 1. The files and directories to be backed up are specified in a list.
source = ['/home/swaroop/byte', '/home/swaroop/bin']
# If you are using Windows, use source = [r'C:/Documents', r'D:/Work']
or something like that

# 2. The backup must be stored in a main backup directory
target_dir = '/mnt/e/backup/' # Remember to change this to what you wil
l be using

# 3. The files are backed up into a zip file.
# 4. The current day is the name of the subdirectory in the main direct
ory
today = target_dir + time.strftime('%Y%m%d')
# The current time is the name of the zip archive
now = time.strftime('%H%M%S')

# Take a comment from the user to create the name of the zip file
comment = raw_input('Enter a comment --> ')
if len(comment) == 0: # check if a comment was entered
        target = today + os.sep + now + '.zip'
else:
        target = today + os.sep + now + '_' +
                comment.replace(' ', '_') + '.zip'

# Create the subdirectory if it isn't already there
if not os.path.exists(today):
        os.mkdir(today) # make directory
        print 'Successfully created directory', today

# 5. We use the zip command (in Unix/Linux) to put the files in a zip a
rchive
zip_command = "zip -qr '%s' %s" % (target, ' '.join(source))

# Run the backup
if os.system(zip_command) == 0:
        print 'Successful backup to', target
else:
        print 'Backup FAILED'

                                Output


$ python backup_ver3.py
File "backup_ver3.py", line 25
target = today + os.sep + now + '_' +
                                        ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

                                How This (does not) Work

   This program does not work!. Python says there is a syntax error
   which means that the script does not satisfy the structure that
   Python expects to see. When we observe the error given by Python, it
   also tells us the place where it detected the error as well. So we
   start debugging our program from that line.

   On careful observation, we see that the single logical line has been
   split into two physical lines but we have not specified that these
   two physical lines belong together. Basically, Python has found the
   addition operator (+) without any operand in that logical line and
   hence it doesn't know how to continue. Remember that we can specify
   that the logical line continues in the next physical line by the use
   of a backslash at the end of the physical line. So, we make this
   correction to our program. This is called bug fixing.

Fourth Version

   Example 10.4. Backup Script - The Fourth Version

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: backup_ver2.py

import os, time

# 1. The files and directories to be backed up are specified in a list.
source = ['/home/swaroop/byte', '/home/swaroop/bin']
# If you are using Windows, use source = [r'C:/Documents', r'D:/Work']
or something like that

# 2. The backup must be stored in a main backup directory
target_dir = '/mnt/e/backup/' # Remember to change this to what you wil
l be using

# 3. The files are backed up into a zip file.
# 4. The current day is the name of the subdirectory in the main direct
ory
today = target_dir + time.strftime('%Y%m%d')
# The current time is the name of the zip archive
now = time.strftime('%H%M%S')

# Take a comment from the user to create the name of the zip file
comment = raw_input('Enter a comment --> ')
if len(comment) == 0: # check if a comment was entered
        target = today + os.sep + now + '.zip'
else:
        target = today + os.sep + now + '_' + /
                comment.replace(' ', '_') + '.zip'
        # Notice the backslash!

# Create the subdirectory if it isn't already there
if not os.path.exists(today):
        os.mkdir(today) # make directory
        print 'Successfully created directory', today

# 5. We use the zip command (in Unix/Linux) to put the files in a zip a
rchive
zip_command = "zip -qr '%s' %s" % (target, ' '.join(source))

# Run the backup
if os.system(zip_command) == 0:
        print 'Successful backup to', target
else:
        print 'Backup FAILED'

                                Output


$ python backup_ver4.py
Enter a comment --> added new examples
Successful backup to /mnt/e/backup/20041208/082156_added_new_examples.z
ip

$ python backup_ver4.py
Enter a comment -->
Successful backup to /mnt/e/backup/20041208/082316.zip

                                How It Works

   This program now works! Let us go through the actual enhancements
   that we had made in version 3. We take in the user's comments using
   the raw_input function and then check if the user actually entered
   something by finding out the length of the input using the len
   function. If the user has just pressed enter for some reason (maybe
   it was just a routine backup or no special changes were made), then
   we proceed as we have done before.

   However, if a comment was supplied, then this is attached to the
   name of the zip archive just before the .zip extension. Notice that
   we are replacing spaces in the comment with underscores - this is
   because managing such filenames are much easier.

More Refinements

   The fourth version is a satisfactorily working script for most
   users, but there is always room for improvement. For example, you
   can include a verbosity level for the program where you can specify
   a -v option to make your program become more talkative.

   Another possible enhancement would be to allow extra files and
   directories to be passed to the script at the command line. We will
   get these from the sys.argv list and we can add them to our source
   list using the extend method provided by the list class.

   One refinement I prefer is the use of the tar command instead of the
   zip command. One advantage is that when you use the tar command
   along with gzip, the backup is much faster and the backup created is
   also much smaller. If I need to use this archive in Windows, then
   WinZip handles such .tar.gz files easily as well. The tar command is
   available by default on most Linux/Unix systems. Windows users can
   download and install it as well.

   The command string will now be:

tar = 'tar -cvzf %s %s -X /home/swaroop/excludes.txt' % (target, ' '.jo
in(srcdir))

                           The options are explained below.
     * -c indicates creation of an archive.
     * -v indicates verbose i.e. the command should be more talkative.
     * -z indicates the gzip filter should be used.
     * -f indicates force in creation of archive i.e. it should replace
       if there is a file by the same name already.
     * -X indicates a file which contains a list of filenames which
       must be excluded from the backup. For example, you can specify
       *~ in this file to not include any filenames ending with ~ in
       the backup.

Important

   The most preferred way of creating such kind of archives would be
   using the zipfile or tarfile module respectively. They are part of
   the Python Standard Library and available for you to use already.
   Using these libraries also avoids the use of the os.system which is
   generally not advisable to use because it is very easy to make
   costly mistakes using it.

   However, I have been using the os.system way of creating a backup
   purely for pedagogical purposes, so that the example is simple
   enough to be understood by everybody but real enough to be useful.

The Software Development Process

   We  have now gone through the various phases in the process of
   writing a software. These phases can be summarised as follows:
    1. What (Analysis)
    2. How (Design)
    3. Do It (Implementation)
    4. Test (Testing and Debugging)
    5. Use (Operation or Deployment)
    6. Maintain (Refinement)

Important

   A recommended way of writing programs is the procedure we have
   followed in creating the backup script - Do the analysis and design.
   Start implementing with a simple version. Test and debug it. Use it
   to ensure that it works as expected. Now, add any features that you
   want and continue to repeat the Do It-Test-Use cycle as many times
   as required. Remember, 'Software is grown, not built'.

Summary

   We have seen how to create our own Python programs/scripts and the
   various stages involved in writing such programs. You may find it
   useful to create your own program just like we did in this chapter
   so  that  you  become  comfortable  with  Python  as  well  as
   problem-solving.

   Next, we will discuss object-oriented programming.

Chapter 11. Object-Oriented Programming

   Table of Contents

   Introduction
   The self
   Classes

        Creating a Class

   object Methods

        Using Object Methds

   The __init__ method

        Using the __init__ method

   Class and Object Variables

        Using Class and Object Variables

   Inheritance

        Using Inheritance

   Summary

Introduction

   In all our programs till now, we have designed our program around
   functions or blocks of statements which manipulate data. This is
   called the procedure-oriented way of programming. There is another
   way  of  organizing  your program which is to combine data and
   functionality and wrap it inside what is called an object. This is
   called the object oriented programming paradigm. Most of the time
   you can use procedural programming but sometimes when you want to
   write large programs or have a solution that is better suited to it,
   you can use object oriented programming techniques.

   Classes and objects are the two main aspecs of object oriented
   programming. A class creates a new type where objects are instances
   of the class. An analogy is that you can have variables of type int
   which translates to saying that variables that store integers are
   variables which are instances (objects) of the int class.

Note for C/C++/Java/C# Programmers

   Note that even integers are treated as objects (of the int class).
   This is unlike C++ and Java (before version 1.5) where integers are
   primitive native types. See help(int) for more details on the class.

   C# and Java 1.5 programmers will be familiar with this concept since
   it is similar to the boxing and unboxing concept.

   Objects can store data using ordinary variables that belong to the
   object. Variables that belong to an object or class are called as
   fields. Objects can also have functionality by using functions that
   belong to a class. Such functions are called methods of the class.
   This terminology is important because it helps us to differentiate
   between functions and variables which are separate by itself and
   those which belong to a class or object. Collectively, the fields
   and methods can be referred to as the attributes of that class.

   Fields are of two types - they can belong to each instance/object of
   the class or they can belong to the class itself. They are called
   instance variables and class variables respectively.

   A class is created using the class keyword. The fields and methods
   of the class are listed in an indented block.

The self

   Class  methods have only one specific difference from ordinary
   functions - they must have an extra first name that has to be added
   to the beginning of the parameter list, but you do do not give a
   value for this parameter when you call the method, Python will
   provide it. This particular variable refers to the object itself,
   and by convention, it is given the name self.

   Although, you can give any name for this parameter, it is strongly
   recommended  that  you  use  the name self - any other name is
   definitely  frowned upon. There are many advantages to using a
   standard  name  -  any reader of your program will immediately
   recognize it and even specialized IDEs (Integrated Development
   Environments) can help you if you use self.

Note for C++/Java/C# Programmers

   The self in Python is equivalent to the self pointer in C++ and the
   this reference in Java and C#.

   You must be wondering how Python gives the value for self and why
   you don't need to give a value for it. An example will make this
   clear. Say you have a class called MyClass and an instance of this
   class called MyObject. When you call a method of this object as
   MyObject.method(arg1, arg2), this is automatically converted by
   Python into MyClass.method(MyObject, arg1, arg2 - this is what the
   special self is all about.

   This also means that if you have a method which takes no arguments,
   then you still have to define the method to have a self argument.

Classes

   The simplest class possible is shown in the following example.

Creating a Class

   Example 11.1. Creating a Class

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: simplestclass.py

class Person:
        pass # An empty block

p = Person()
print p

                                Output


$ python simplestclass.py
<__main__.Person instance at 0xf6fcb18c>

                                How It Works

   We create a new class using the class statement followed by the name
   of the class. This follows an indented block of statements which
   form the body of the class. In this case, we have an empty block
   which is indicated using the pass statement.

   Next, we create an object/instance of this class using the name of
   the class followed by a pair of parentheses. (We will learn more
   about instantiation in the next section). For our verification, we
   confirm the type of the variable by simply printing it. It tells us
   that we have an instance of the Person class in the __main__ module.

   Notice that the address of the computer memory where your object is
   stored is also printed. The address will have a different value on
   your computer since Python can store the object wherever it finds
   space.

object Methods

   We have already discussed that classes/objects can have methods just
   like functions except that we have an extra self variable. We will
   now see an example.

Using Object Methds

   Example 11.2. Using Object Methods

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: method.py

class Person:
        def sayHi(self):
                print 'Hello, how are you?'

p = Person()
p.sayHi()

# This short example can also be written as Person().sayHi()

                                Output


$ python method.py
Hello, how are you?

                                How It Works

   Here we see the self in action. Notice that the sayHi method takes
   no parameters but still has the self in the function definition.

The __init__ method

   There are many method names which have special significance in
   Python classes. We will see the significance of the __init__ method
   now.

   The  __init__ method is run as soon as an object of a class is
   instantiated. The method is useful to do any initialization you want
   to do with your object. Notice the double underscore both in the
   beginning and at the end in the name.

Using the __init__ method

   Example 11.3. Using the __init__ method

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: class_init.py

class Person:
        def __init__(self, name):
                self.name = name
        def sayHi(self):
                print 'Hello, my name is', self.name

p = Person('Swaroop')
p.sayHi()

# This short example can also be written as Person('Swaroop').sayHi()

                                Output


$ python class_init.py
Hello, my name is Swaroop

                                How It Works

   Here, we define the __init__ method as taking a parameter name
   (along with the usual self). Here, we just create a new field also
   called name. Notice these are two different variables even though
   they  have  the  same  name.  The dotted notation allows us to
   differentiate between them.

   Most importantly, notice that we do not explicitly call the __init__
   method but pass the arguments in the parentheses following the class
   name when creating a new instance of the class. This is the special
   significance of this method.

   Now, we are able to use the self.name field in our methods which is
   demonstrated in the sayHi method.

Note for C++/Java/C# Programmers

   The __init__ method is analogous to a constructor in C++, C# or
   Java.

Class and Object Variables

   We have already discussed the functionality part of classes and
   objects, now we'll see the data part of it. Actually, they are
   nothing but ordinary variables which are bound to the classes and
   objects namespaces i.e. the names are valid within the context of
   these classes and objects only.

   There are two types of fields - class variables and object variables
   which are classified depending on whether the class or the object
   owns the variables respectively.

   Class variables are shared in the sense that they are accessed by
   all objects (instances) of that class. There is only copy of the
   class variable and when any one object makes a change to a class
   variable, the change is reflected in all the other instances as
   well.

   Object variables are owned by each individual object/instance of the
   class. In this case, each object has its own copy of the field i.e.
   they are not shared and are not related in any way to the field by
   the samen name in a different instance of the same class. An example
   will make this easy to understand.

Using Class and Object Variables

   Example 11.4. Using Class and Object Variables

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: objvar.py

class Person:
        '''Represents a person.'''
        population = 0

        def __init__(self, name):
                '''Initializes the person's data.'''
                self.name = name
                print '(Initializing %s)' % self.name

                # When this person is created, he/she
                # adds to the population
                Person.population += 1

        def __del__(self):
                '''I am dying.'''
                print '%s says bye.' % self.name

                Person.population -= 1

                if Person.population == 0:
                        print 'I am the last one.'
                else:
                        print 'There are still %d people left.' % Perso
n.population

        def sayHi(self):
                '''Greeting by the person.

                Really, that's all it does.'''
                print 'Hi, my name is %s.' % self.name

        def howMany(self):
                '''Prints the current population.'''
                if Person.population == 1:
                        print 'I am the only person here.'
                else:
                        print 'We have %d persons here.' % Person.popul
ation

swaroop = Person('Swaroop')
swaroop.sayHi()
swaroop.howMany()

kalam = Person('Abdul Kalam')
kalam.sayHi()
kalam.howMany()

swaroop.sayHi()
swaroop.howMany()

                                Output


$ python objvar.py
(Initializing Swaroop)
Hi, my name is Swaroop.
I am the only person here.
(Initializing Abdul Kalam)
Hi, my name is Abdul Kalam.
We have 2 persons here.
Hi, my name is Swaroop.
We have 2 persons here.
Abdul Kalam says bye.
There are still 1 people left.
Swaroop says bye.
I am the last one.

                                How It Works

   This is a long example but helps demonstrate the nature of class and
   object variables. Here, population belongs to the Person class and
   hence is a class variable. The name variable belongs to the object
   (it is assigned using self) and hence is an object variable.

   Thus, we refer to the population class variable as Person.population
   and not as self.population. Note that an object variable with the
   same name as a class variable will hide the class variable! We refer
   to the object variable name using self.name notation in the methods
   of that object. Remember this simple difference between class and
   object variables.

   Observe that the __init__ method is used to initialize the Person
   instance with a name. In this method, we increase the population
   count by 1 since we have one more person being added. Also observe
   that  the values of self.name is specific to each object which
   indicates the nature of object variables.

   Remember, that you must refer to the variables and methods of the
   same  object  using  the self variable only. This is called an
   attribute reference.

   In this program, we also see the use of docstrings for classes as
   well as methods. We can access the class docstring at runtime using
   Person.__doc__ and the method docstring as Person.sayHi.__doc__

   Just like the __init__ method, there is another special method
   __del__ which is called when an object is going to die i.e. it is no
   longer being used and is being returned to the system for reusing
   that  piece  of memory. In this method, we simply decrease the
   Person.population count by 1.

   The __del__ method is run when the object is no longer in use and
   there is no guarantee when that method will be run. If you want to
   explicitly do this, you just have to use the del statement which we
   have used in previous examples.

Note for C++/Java/C# Programmers

   All class members (including the data members) are public and all
   the methods are virtual in Python.

   One exception: If you use data members with names using the double
   underscore prefix such as __privatevar, Python uses name-mangling
   to effectively make it a private variable.

   Thus, the convention followed is that any variable that is to be
   used only within the class or object should begin with an underscore
   and  all  other  names  are  public  and  can be used by other
   classes/objects. Remember that this is only a convention and is not
   enforced by Python (except for the double underscore prefix).

   Also, note that the __del__ method is analogous to the concept of a
   destructor.

Inheritance

   One of the major benefits of object oriented programming is reuse of
   code and one of the ways this is achieved is through the inheritance
   mechanism. Inheritance can be best imagined as implementing a type
   and subtype relationship between classes.

   Suppose you want to write a program which has to keep track of the
   teachers  and  students  in  a  college. They have some common
   characteristics  such as name, age and address. They also have
   specific characteristics such as salary, courses and leaves for
   teachers and, marks and fees for students.

   You can create two independent classes for each type and process
   them but adding a new common characteristic would mean adding to
   both of these independent classes. This quickly becomes unwieldy.

   A better way would be to create a common class called SchoolMember
   and then have the teacher and student classes inherit from this
   class i.e. they will become sub-types of this type (class) and then
   we can add specific characteristics to these sub-types.

   There are many advantages to this approach. If we add/change any
   functionality in SchoolMember, this is automatically reflected in
   the subtypes as well. For example, you can add a new ID card field
   for  both  teachers  and  students  by simply adding it to the
   SchoolMember class. However, changes in the subtypes do not affect
   other subtypes. Another advantage is that if you can refer to a
   teacher or student object as a SchoolMember object which could be
   useful in some situations such as counting of the number of school
   members.  This  is called polymorphism where a sub-type can be
   substituted in any situation where a parent type is expected i.e.
   the object can be treated as an instance of the parent class.

   Also observe that we reuse the code of the parent class and we do
   not need to repeat it in the different classes as we would have had
   to in case we had used independent classes.

   The SchoolMember class in this situation is known as the base class
   or the superclass. The Teacher and Student classes are called the
   derived classes or subclasses.

   We will now see this example as a program.

Using Inheritance

   Example 11.5. Using Inheritance

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: inherit.py

class SchoolMember:
        '''Represents any school member.'''
        def __init__(self, name, age):
                self.name = name
                self.age = age
                print '(Initialized SchoolMember: %s)' % self.name

        def tell(self):
                '''Tell my details.'''
                print 'Name:"%s" Age:"%s"' % (self.name, self.age),

class Teacher(SchoolMember):
        '''Represents a teacher.'''
        def __init__(self, name, age, salary):
                SchoolMember.__init__(self, name, age)
                self.salary = salary
                print '(Initialized Teacher: %s)' % self.name

        def tell(self):
                SchoolMember.tell(self)
                print 'Salary: "%d"' % self.salary

class Student(SchoolMember):
        '''Represents a student.'''
        def __init__(self, name, age, marks):
                SchoolMember.__init__(self, name, age)
                self.marks = marks
                print '(Initialized Student: %s)' % self.name

        def tell(self):
                SchoolMember.tell(self)
                print 'Marks: "%d"' % self.marks

t = Teacher('Mrs. Shrividya', 40, 30000)
s = Student('Swaroop', 22, 75)

print # prints a blank line

members = [t, s]
for member in members:
        member.tell() # works for both Teachers and Students

                                Output


$ python inherit.py
(Initialized SchoolMember: Mrs. Shrividya)
(Initialized Teacher: Mrs. Shrividya)
(Initialized SchoolMember: Swaroop)
(Initialized Student: Swaroop)

Name:"Mrs. Shrividya" Age:"40" Salary: "30000"
Name:"Swaroop" Age:"22" Marks: "75"

                                How It Works

   To use inheritance, we specify the base class names in a tuple
   following the class name in the class definition. Next, we observe
   that the __init__ method of the base class is explicitly called
   using the self variable so that we can initialize the base class
   part of the object. This is very important to remember - Python does
   not automatically call the constructor of the base class, you have
   to explicitly call it yourself.

   We  also observe that we can call methods of the base class by
   prefixing the class name to the method call and then pass in the
   self variable along with any arguments.

   Notice that we can treat instances of Teacher or Student as just
   instances of the SchoolMember when we use the tell method of the
   SchoolMember class.

   Also, observe that the tell method of the subtype is called and not
   the tell method of the SchoolMember class. One way to understand
   this is that Python always starts looking for methods in the type,
   which in this case it does. If it could not find the method, it
   starts looking at the methods belonging to its base classes one by
   one  in the order they are specified in the tuple in the class
   definition.

   A note on terminology - if more than one class is listed in the
   inheritance tuple, then it is called multiple inheritance.

Summary

   We have now explored the various aspects of classes and objects as
   well as the various terminologies associated with it. We have also
   seen the benefits and pitfalls of object-oriented programming.
   Python is highly object-oriented and understanding these concepts
   carefully will help you a lot in the long run.

   Next, we will learn how to deal with input/output and how to access
   files in Python.

Chapter 12. Input/Output

   Table of Contents

   Files

        Using file

   Pickle

        Pickling and Unpickling

   Summary

   There will be lots of times when you want your program to interact
   with the user (which could be yourself). You would want to take
   input from the user and then print some results back. We can achieve
   this using the raw_input and print statements respectively. For
   output, we can also use the various methods of the str (string)
   class. For example, you can use the rjust method to get a string
   which is right justified to a specified width. See help(str) for
   more details.

   Another common type of input/output is dealing with files. The
   ability  to  create, read and write files is essential to many
   programs and we will explore this aspect in this chapter.

Files

   You can open and use files for reading or writing by creating an
   object of the file class and using its read, readline or write
   methods appropriately to read from or write to the file. The ability
   to read or write to the file depends on the mode you have specified
   for the file opening. Then finally, when you are finished with the
   file, you call the close method to tell Python that we are done
   using the file.

Using file

   Example 12.1. Using files

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: using_file.py

poem = '''/
Programming is fun
When the work is done
if you wanna make your work also fun:
        use Python!
'''

f = file('poem.txt', 'w') # open for 'w'riting
f.write(poem) # write text to file
f.close() # close the file

f = file('poem.txt') # if no mode is specified, 'r'ead mode is assumed
by default
while True:
        line = f.readline()
        if len(line) == 0: # Zero length indicates EOF
                break
        print line, # Notice comma to avoid automatic newline added by
Python
f.close() # close the file

                                Output


$ python using_file.py
Programming is fun
When the work is done
if you wanna make your work also fun:
        use Python!

                                How It Works

   First, we create an instance of the file class by specifying the
   name of the file and the mode in which we want to open the file. The
   mode can be a read mode ('r'), write mode ('w') or append mode
   ('a'). There are actually many more modes available and help(file)
   will give you more details about them.

   We first open the file in write mode and use the write method of the
   file class to write to the file and then we finally close the file.

   Next, we open the same file again for reading. If we don't specify a
   mode, then the read mode is the default one. We read in each line of
   the file using the readline method, in a loop. This method returns a
   complete line including the newline character at the end of the
   line. So, when an empty string is returned, it indicates that the
   end of the file has been reached and we stop the loop.

   Notice that we use a comma with the print statement to suppress the
   automatic newline that the print statement adds because the line
   that is read from the file already ends with a newline character.
   Then, we finally close the file.

   Now, see the contents of the poem.txt file to confirm that the
   program has indeed worked properly.

Pickle

   Python provides a standard module called pickle using which you can
   store any Python object in a file and then get it back later intact.
   This is called storing the object persistently.

   There is another module called cPickle which functions exactly same
   as the pickle module except that it is written in the C language and
   is (upto 1000 times) faster. You can use either of these modules,
   although we will be using the cPickle module here. Remember though,
   that we refer to both these modules as simply the pickle module.

Pickling and Unpickling

   Example 12.2. Pickling and Unpickling

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: pickling.py

import cPickle as p
#import pickle as p

shoplistfile = 'shoplist.data' # the name of the file where we will sto
re the object

shoplist = ['apple', 'mango', 'carrot']

# Write to the file
f = file(shoplistfile, 'w')
p.dump(shoplist, f) # dump the object to a file
f.close()

del shoplist # remove the shoplist

# Read back from the storage
f = file(shoplistfile)
storedlist = p.load(f)
print storedlist

                                Output


$ python pickling.py
['apple', 'mango', 'carrot']

                                How It Works

   First, notice that we use the import..as syntax. This is handy since
   we can use a shorter name for a module. In this case, it even allows
   us to switch to a different module (cPickle or pickle) by simply
   changing one line! In the rest of the program, we simply refer to
   this module as p.

   To store an object in a file, first we open a file object in write
   mode and store the object into the open file by calling the dump
   function of the pickle module. This process is called pickling.

   Next, we retrieve the object using the load function of the pickle
   module which returns the object. This process is called unpickling.

Summary

   We  have discussed various types of input/output and also file
   handling and using the pickle module.

   Next, we will explore the concept of exceptions.

Chapter 13. Exceptions

   Table of Contents

   Errors
   Try..Except

        Handling Exceptions

   Raising Exceptions

        How To Raise Exceptions

   Try..Finally

        Using Finally

   Summary

   Exceptions occur when certain exceptional situations occur in your
   program. For example, what if you are going to read a file and the
   file does not exist? Or what if you accidentally deleted it when the
   program was running? Such situations are handled using exceptions.

   What if your program had some invalid statements? This is handled by
   Python which raises its hands and tells you there is an error.

Errors

   Consider a simple print statement. What if we misspelt print as
   Print? Note the capitalization. In this case, Python raises a syntax
   error.

>>> Print 'Hello World'
    File "<stdin>", line 1
      Print 'Hello World'
                        ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

>>> print 'Hello World'
Hello World

                   Observe   that   a   SyntaxError   is   raised  and  also  the
   location where the error was detected is printed. This is what an
   error handler for this error does.

Try..Except

   We will try to read input from the user. Press Ctrl-d and see what
   happens.

>>> s = raw_input('Enter something --> ')
Enter something --> Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
EOFError

                   Python    raises    an    error    called    EOFError    which
   basically means it found an end of file when it did not expect to
   (which is represented by Ctrl-d)

   Next, we will see how to handle such errors.

Handling Exceptions

   We  can  handle exceptions using the try..except statement. We
   basically put our usual statements within the try-block and put all
   our error handlers in the except-block.

   Example 13.1. Handling Exceptions

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: try_except.py

import sys

try:
        s = raw_input('Enter something --> ')
except EOFError:
        print '/nWhy did you do an EOF on me?'
        sys.exit() # exit the program
except:
        print '/nSome error/exception occurred.'
        # here, we are not exiting the program

print 'Done'

                                Output


$ python try_except.py
Enter something -->
Why did you do an EOF on me?

$ python try_except.py
Enter something --> Python is exceptional!
Done

                                How It Works

   We put all the statements that might raise an error in the try block
   and  then  handle  all the errors and exceptions in the except
   clause/block. The except clause can handle a single specified error
   or exception, or a parenthesized list of errors/exceptions. If no
   names of errors or exceptions are supplied, it will handle all
   errors and exceptions. There has to be at least one except clause
   associated with every try clause.

   If any error or exception is not handled, then the default Python
   handler is called which just stops the execution of the program and
   prints a message. We have already seen this in action.

   You can also have an else clause associated with a try..catch block.
   The else clause is executed if no exception occurs.

   We  can  also get the exception object so that we can retrieve
   additional information about the exception which has occurred. This
   is demonstrated in the next example.

Raising Exceptions

   You can raise exceptions using the raise statement. You also have to
   specify the name of the error/exception and the exception object
   that  is  to  be thrown along with the exception. The error or
   exception that you can arise should be class which directly or
   indirectly  is a derived class of the Error or Exception class
   respectively.

How To Raise Exceptions

   Example 13.2. How to Raise Exceptions

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: raising.py

class ShortInputException(Exception):
        '''A user-defined exception class.'''
        def __init__(self, length, atleast):
                Exception.__init__(self)
                self.length = length
                self.atleast = atleast

try:
        s = raw_input('Enter something --> ')
        if len(s) < 3:
                raise ShortInputException(len(s), 3)
        # Other work can continue as usual here
except EOFError:
        print '/nWhy did you do an EOF on me?'
except ShortInputException, x:
        print 'ShortInputException: The input was of length %d, /
                was expecting at least %d' % (x.length, x.atleast)
else:
        print 'No exception was raised.'

                                Output


$ python raising.py
Enter something -->
Why did you do an EOF on me?

$ python raising.py
Enter something --> ab
ShortInputException: The input was of length 2, was expecting at least
3

$ python raising.py
Enter something --> abc
No exception was raised.

                                How It Works

   Here, we are creating our own exception type although we could've
   used any predefined exception/error for demonstration purposes. This
   new exception type is the ShortInputException class. It has two
   fields - length which is the length of the given input, and atleast
   which is the minimum length that the program was expecting.

   In the except clause, we mention the class of error as well as the
   variable to hold the corresponding error/exception object. This is
   analogous to parameters and arguments in a function call. Within
   this particular except clause, we use the length and atleast fields
   of the exception object to print an appropriate message to the user.

Try..Finally

   What if you were reading a file and you wanted to close the file
   whether or not an exception was raised? This can be done using the
   finally block. Note that you can use an except clause along with a
   finally block for the same corresponding try block. You will have to
   embed one within another if you want to use both.

Using Finally

   Example 13.3. Using Finally

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: finally.py

import time

try:
        f = file('poem.txt')
        while True: # our usual file-reading idiom
                line = f.readline()
                if len(line) == 0:
                        break
                time.sleep(2)
                print line,
finally:
        f.close()
        print 'Cleaning up...closed the file'

                                Output


$ python finally.py
Programming is fun
When the work is done
Cleaning up...closed the file
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "finally.py", line 12, in ?
    time.sleep(2)
KeyboardInterrupt

                                How It Works

   We do the usual file-reading stuff, but I've arbitrarily introduced
   a way of sleeping for 2 seconds before printing each line using the
   time.sleep method. The only reason is so that the program runs
   slowly (Python is very fast by nature). When the program is still
   running, press Ctrl-c to interrupt/cancel the program.

   Observe that a KeyboardInterrupt exception is thrown and the program
   exits, but before the program exits, the finally clause is executed
   and the file is closed.

Summary

   We have discussed the usage of the try..except and try..finally
   statements. We have seen how to create our own exception types and
   how to raise exceptions as well.

   Next, we will explore the Python Standard Library.

Chapter 14. The Python Standard Library

   Table of Contents

   Introduction
   The sys module

        Command Line Arguments
        More sys

   The os module
   Summary

Introduction

   The  Python  Standard  Library  is available with every Python
   installation. It contains a huge number of very useful modules. It
   is important that you become familiar with the Python Standard
   Library since most of your problems can be solved more easily and
   quickly if you are familiar with this library of modules.

   We will explore some of the commonly used modules in this library.
   You can find complete details for all of the modules in the Python
   Standard  Library  in  the  'Library Reference' section in the
   documentation that comes with your Python installation.

The sys module

   The sys module contains system-specific functionality. we have
   already  seen that the sys.argv list contains the command-line
   arguments.

Command Line Arguments

   Example 14.1. Using sys.argv

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: cat.py

import sys

def readfile(filename):
        '''Print a file to the standard output.'''
        f = file(filename)
        while True:
                line = f.readline()
                if len(line) == 0:
                        break
                print line, # notice comma
        f.close()

# Script starts from here
if len(sys.argv) < 2:
        print 'No action specified.'
        sys.exit()

if sys.argv[1].startswith('--'):
        option = sys.argv[1][2:]
        # fetch sys.argv[1] but without the first two characters
        if option == 'version':
                print 'Version 1.2'
        elif option == 'help':
                print '''/
This program prints files to the standard output.
Any number of files can be specified.
Options include:
  --version : Prints the version number
  --help    : Display this help'''
        else:
                print 'Unknown option.'
        sys.exit()
else:
        for filename in sys.argv[1:]:
                readfile(filename)

                                Output


$ python cat.py
No action specified.

$ python cat.py --help
This program prints files to the standard output.
Any number of files can be specified.
Options include:
  --version : Prints the version number
  --help    : Display this help

$ python cat.py --version
Version 1.2

$ python cat.py --nonsense
Unknown option.

$ python cat.py poem.txt
Programming is fun
When the work is done
if you wanna make your work also fun:
        use Python!

                                How It Works

   This program tries to mimic the cat command familiar to Linux/Unix
   users. You just speicfy the names of some text files and it will
   print them to the output.

   When a Python program is run i.e. not an interactive mode, there is
   always at least one item in the sys.argv list which is the name of
   the current program being run and is available as sys.argv[0] since
   Python starts counting from 0. Other command line arguments follow
   this item.

   To make the program user-friendly we have supplied certain options
   that the user can specify to learn more about the program. We use
   the first argument to check if any options have been specified to
   our program. If the --version option is used, the version number of
   the  program  is printed. Similarly, when the --help option is
   specified, we give a bit of explanation about the program. We make
   use of the sys.exit function to exit the running program. As always,
   see help(sys.exit) for more details.

   When  no options are specified and filenames are passed to the
   program, it simply prints out each line of each file, one after the
   other in the order specified on the command line.

   As  an  aside,  the name cat is short for concatenate which is
   basically  what this program does - it can print out a file or
   attach/concatenate two or more files together in the output.

More sys

   The sys.version string gives you information about the version of
   Python that you have installed. The sys.version_info tuple gives an
   easier  way  of enabling Python-version specific parts of your
   program.

[swaroop@localhost code]$ python
>>> import sys
>>> sys.version
'2.3.4 (#1, Oct 26 2004, 16:42:40) /n[GCC 3.4.2 20041017 (Red Hat 3.4.2
-6.fc3)]'
>>> sys.version_info
(2, 3, 4, 'final', 0)

                           For     experienced     programmers,     other     items    of
   interest  in  the sys module include sys.stdin, sys.stdout and
   sys.stderr which correspond to the standard input, standard output
   and standard error streams of your program respectively.

The os module

   This module represents generic operating system functionality. This
   module is especially important if you want to make your programs
   platform-independent i.e. it allows the program to be written such
   that it will run on Linux as well as Windows without any problems
   and without requiring changes. An example of this is using the
   os.sep  variable instead of the operation system-specific path
   separator.

   Some of the more useful parts of the os module are listed below Most
   of them are self-explanatory.
     * The os.name string specifies which platform you are using, such
       as 'nt' for Windows and 'posix' for Linux/Unix users.
     * The os.getcwd() function gets the current working directory i.e.
       the path of the directory from which the curent Python script is
       working.
     * The os.getenv() and os.putenv() functions are used to get and
       set environment variables respectively.
     * The os.listdir() function returns the name of all files and
       directories in the specified directory.
     * The os.remove() function is used to delete a file.
     * The os.system() function is used to run a shell command.
     * The os.linesep string gives the line terminator used in the
       current platform. For example, Windows uses '/r/n', Linux uses
       '/n' and Mac uses '/r'.
     * The os.path.split() function returns the directory name and file
       name of the path.

>>> os.path.split('/home/swaroop/byte/code/poem.txt')
('/home/swaroop/byte/code', 'poem.txt')

                                     * The os.path.isfile() and the
       os.path.isdir() functions check if the given path refers to a
       file or directory respectively. Similarly, the os.path.exists()
       function is used to check if a given path actually exists.

   You can explore the Python Standard Documentation for more details
   on these functions and variables. You can use help(sys), etc. as
   well.

Summary

   We have seen some of the functionality of the sys module and sys
   modules in the Python Standard Library. You should explore the
   Python Standard Documentation to find out more about these and other
   modules as well.

   Next, we will cover various aspects of Python that will make our
   tour of Python more complete.

Chapter 15. More Python

   Table of Contents

   Special Methods
   Single Statement Blocks
   List Comprehension

        Using List Comprehensions

   Receiving Tuples and Lists in Functions
   Lambda Forms

        Using Lambda Forms

   The exec and eval statements
   The assert statement
   The repr function
   Summary

   Till now, we have covered majority of the various aspects of Python
   that you will use. In this chapter, we will cover some more aspects
   that will make our knowledge of Python more complete.

Special Methods

   There are certain special methods which have special significance in
   classes such as the __init__ and __del__ methods whose significance
   we have already seen.

   Generally, special methods are used to mimic certain behavior. For
   example, if you want to use the x[key] indexing operation for your
   class (just like you use for lists and tuples) then just implement
   the __getitem__() method and your job is done. If you think about
   it, this is what Python does for the list class itself!

   Some useful special methods are listed in the following table. If
   you want to know about all the special methods, then a huge list is
   available in the Python Reference Manual.

   Table 15.1. Some Special Methods
   Name Explanation
   __init__(self, ...) This method is called just before the newly
   created object is returned for usage.
   __del__(self) Called just before the object is destroyed
   __str__(self) Called when we use the print statement with the object
   or when str() is used.
   __lt__(self, other) Called when the less than operator ( < ) is
   used. Similarly, there are special methods for all the operators (+,
   >, etc.)
   __getitem__(self, key) Called when x[key] indexing operation is
   used.
   __len__(self) Called when the built-in len() function is used for
   the sequence object.

Single Statement Blocks

   By  now,  you should have firmly understood that each block of
   statements is set apart from the rest by its own indentation level.
   Well, this is true for the most part but it is not 100% accurate. If
   your block of statements contains only one single statement, then
   you can specify it on the same line of, say, a conditional statement
   or looping statement. The following example should make this clear:

>>> flag = True
>>> if flag: print 'Yes'
...
Yes

                   As   we  can  see,  the  single  statement  is  used  in-place
   and not as a separate block. Although, you can use this for making
   your program smaller, I strongly recommend that you do not use this
   short-cut method except for error checking, etc. One major reason is
   that it will be much easier to add an extra statement if you are
   using proper indentation.

   Also notice that when the Python interpreter is used in interactive
   mode,  it  helps  you enter the statements by changing prompts
   appropriately. In the aboe case, after you entered the keyword if,
   it changes the prompt to ... to indicate that the statement is not
   yet complete. When we do complete the statement in this manner, we
   press enter to confirm that the statement is complete. Then, Python
   finishes executing the whole statement and returns to the old prompt
   waiting for the next input.

List Comprehension

   List comprehensions are used to derive a new list from an existing
   list. For example, you have a list of numbers and you want to get a
   corresponding list with all the numbers multiplied by 2 but only
   when the number itself is greater than 2. List comprehensions are
   ideal for such situations.

Using List Comprehensions

   Example 15.1. Using List Comprehensions

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: list_comprehension.py

listone = [2, 3, 4]
listtwo = [2*i for i in listone if i > 2]
print listtwo

                                Output


$ python list_comprehension.py
[6, 8]

                                How It Works

   Here, we derive a new list by specifying the manipulation to be done
   (2*i) when some condition is satisfied (if i > 2). Note that the
   original list remains unmodified. Many a time, we use loops to
   process each element of a list, the same can be achieved using list
   comprehensions in a more precise, compact and explicit manner.

Receiving Tuples and Lists in Functions

   There is a special way of receiving parameters to a function as a
   tuple or a dictionary using the * or ** prefix respectively. This is
   useful when taking variable number of arguments in the function.

>>> def powersum(power, *args):
...     '''Return the sum of each argument raised to specified power.''
'
...     total = 0
...     for i in args:
...             total += pow(i, power)
...     return total
...
>>> powersum(2, 3, 4)
25

>>> powersum(2, 10)
100

                   Due   to  the  *  prefix  on  the  args  variable,  all  extra
   arguments passed to the function are stored in args as a tuple. If a
   ** prefix had been used instead, the extra parameters would be
   considered to be key/value pairs of a dictionary.

Lambda Forms

   A lambda statement is used to create new function objects and then
   return them at runtime.

Using Lambda Forms

   Example 15.2. Using Lambda Forms

#!/usr/bin/python
# Filename: lambda.py

def make_repeater(n):
        return lambda s: s * n

twice = make_repeater(2)

print twice('word')
print twice(5)

                                Output


$ python lambda.py
wordword
10

                                How It Works

   Here, we use a function make_repeater to create new function objects
   at runtime and return it. A lambda statement is used to create the
   function object. Essentially, the lambda takes a parameter followed
   by a single expression only which becomes the body of the function
   and the value of this expression is returned by the new function.
   Note that even a print statement cannot be used inside a lambda
   form, only expressions.

The exec and eval statements

   The exec statement is used to execute Python statements which are
   stored in a string or file. For example, we can generate a string
   containing Python code at runtime and then execute these statements
   using the exec statement. A simple example is shown below.

>>> exec 'print "Hello World"'
Hello World

                   The   eval   statement   is  used  to  evaluate  valid  Python
   expressions which are stored in a string. A simple example is shown
   below.

>>> eval('2*3')
6

                The assert statement

   The assert statement is used to assert that something is true. For
   example,  if you are very sure that you will have at least one
   element in a list you are using and want to check this, and raise an
   error if it is not true, then assert statement is ideal in this
   situation. When the assert statement fails, an AssertionError is
   raised.

>>> mylist = ['item']
>>> assert len(mylist) >= 1
>>> mylist.pop()
'item'
>>> assert len(mylist) >= 1
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in ?
AssertionError

                The repr function

   The  reprt  function  is  used  to  obtain  a canonical string
   representation of the object. Backticks (also called conversion or
   reverse  quotes)  do  the  same thing. Note that you will have
   eval(repr(object)) == object most of the time.

>>> i = []
>>> i.append('item')
>>> `i`
"['item']"
>>> repr(i)
"['item']"

                   Basically,   the   repr   function   or   the   backticks  are
   used to obtain a printable representation of the object. you can
   control what your objects return for the repr function by defining
   the __repr__ method in your class.

Summary

   We have covered some more features of Python in this chapter and yet
   you can be sure we haven't covered all the features of Python.
   However, at this stage, we have covered most of what you are ever
   going to use in practice. This is sufficient for you to get started
   with whatever programs you are going to create.

   Next, we will discuss how to explore Python further.

Chapter 16. What Next?

   Table of Contents

   Graphical Software

        Summary of GUI Tools

   Explore More
   Summary

   If you have read this book thoroughly till now and practiced writing
   a  lot  of programs, then you must have become comfortable and
   familiar with Python. You have probably created some Python programs
   to try out stuff and to exercise your Python skills as well. If you
   have not done it already, you should. The question now is 'What
   Next?'.

   I  would suggest that you tackle this problem: create your own
   command-line address-book program using which you can add, modify,
   delete or search for your contacts such as friends, family and
   colleagues and their information such as email address and/or phone
   number. Details must be stored for later retrieval.

   This  is fairly easy if you think about it in terms of all the
   various stuff that we have come across till now. If you still want
   directions on how to proceed, then here's a hint.

   Hint. (You shouldn't be reading this).  Create a class to represent
   the person's information. Use a dictionary to store person objects
   with their name as the key. Use the cPickle module to store the
   objects persistently on your hard disk. Use the dictionary built-in
   methods to add, delete and modify the persons.

   Once  you  are  able  to do this, you can claim to be a Python
   programmer. Now, immediately send me a mail thanking me for this
   great book ;-) . This step is optional but recommended.

   Here are some ways to continue your journey with Python:

Graphical Software

   GUI Libraries using Python - you need these to create your own
   graphical programs using Python. You can create your own IrfanView
   or Kuickshow or anything like that using the GUI libraries with
   their Python bindings. Bindings are what allow you to write programs
   in Python and use the libraries which are themselves written in C or
   C++ or other languages.

   There are lots of choices for GUI using Python:
     * PyQt.  This is the Python binding for the Qt toolkit which is
       the foundation upon which the KDE is built. Qt is extremely easy
       to use and very powerful especially due to the Qt Designer and
       the amazing Qt documentation. You can use it for free on Linux
       but  you  will have to pay for it if you want to use it on
       Windows.  PyQt is free if you want to create free (GPL'ed)
       software  on  Linux/Unix  and  paid  if you want to create
       proprietary  software.  A  good  resource  on PyQt is 'GUI
       Programming with Python: Qt Edition'. See the official homepage
       for more details.
     * PyGTK.  This is the Python binding for the GTK+ toolkit which is
       the foundation upon which GNOME is built. GTK+ has many quirks
       in usage but once you become comfortable, you can create GUI
       apps  fast.  The  Glade  graphical  interface  designer is
       indispensable. The documentation is yet to improve. GTK+ works
       well on Linux but its port to Windows is incomplete. You can
       create both free as well as proprietary software using GTK+. See
       the official homepage for more details.
     * wxPython.   This  is the Python bindings for the wxWidgets
       toolkit. wxPython has a learning curve associated with it.
       However, it is very portable and runs on Linux, Windows, Mac and
       even embedded platforms. There are many IDEs available for
       wxPython  which  include GUI designers as well such as SPE
       (Stani's Python Editor) and the wxGlade GUI builder. You can
       create free as well as proprietary software using wxPython. See
       the official homepage for more details.
     * TkInter.  This is one of the oldest GUI toolkits in existence.
       If you have used IDLE, you have seen a TkInter program at work.
       The   documentation   for  TkInter  at  PythonWare.org  is
       comprehensive. TkInter is portable and works on both Linux/Unix
       as well as Windows. Importantly, TkInter is part of the standard
       Python distribution.
     * For more choices, see the GuiProgramming wiki page at Python.org

Summary of GUI Tools

   Unfortunately, there is no one standard GUI tool for Python. I
   suggest that you choose one of the above tools depending on your
   situation. The first factor is whether you are willing to pay to use
   any of the GUI tools. The second factor is whether you want the
   program to run on Linux or Windows or both. The third factor is
   whether you are a KDE or GNOME user on Linux.

Future Chapters

   I am contemplating writing 1 or 2 chapters for this book on GUI
   Programming. I will be probably be choosing wxPython as the choice
   of toolkit. If you would like to present your views on the subject,
   please join the byte-of-python mailing list where readers discuss
   with me on what improvements can be made to the book.

Explore More

     * The Python Standard Library is an extensive library. Most of the
       time, this library will have what you are looking for. This is
       referred to as the 'batteries included' philosophy of Python. I
       highly  recommend  that you go through the Python Standard
       Documentation before you proceed to start writing large Python
       programs.
     * Python.org - the official homepage of the Python programming
       language.  You will find the latest versions of the Python
       language and interpreter here. There are also various mailing
       lists where active discussions on various aspects of Python take
       place.
     * comp.lang.python is the usenet newsgroup where discussion about
       this language takes place. You can post your doubts and queries
       to this newsgroup. You can access this online using Google
       Groups or join the mailing list which is just a mirror of the
       newsgroup.
     * Python Cookbook is an extremely valuable collection of recipes
       or tips on how to solve certain kinds of problems using Python.
       This is a must-read for every Python user.
     * Charming  Python  is an excellent series of Python-related
       articles by David Mertz.
     * Dive Into Python is a very good book for experienced Python
       programmers. If you have thoroughly read the current book you
       are reading, then I would highly recommend that you read 'Dive
       Into Python' next. It covers a range of topics including XML
       Processing, Unit Testing and Functional Programming.
     * Jython is an implementation of the Python interpreter in the
       Java language. This means that you can write programs in Python
       and use the Java libraries as well! Jython is a stable and
       mature software. If you are a Java programmer as well, I highly
       recommend that you give Jython a try.
     * IronPython is an implementation of the Python interpreter in C#
       language and can run on the .NET / Mono / DotGNU platform. This
       means that you can write programs in Python and use the .NET
       Libraries and other libraries provided by these 3 platforms as
       well! IronPython is still pre-alpha software and is suitable
       only  for  experimenting as of now. Jim Hugunin, who wrote
       IronPython has joined Microsoft and will be working towards a
       full version of IronPython in future.
     * Lython is a Lisp frontend to the Python language. It is similar
       to Common Lisp and compiles directly to Python bytecode which
       means that it will interoperate with our usual Python code.
     * There are many many more resources on Python. Interesting ones
       are Daily Python-URL! which keeps you up to date on the latest
       Python  happenings, Vaults of Parnassus, ONLamp.com Python
       DevCenter, dirtSimple.org, Python Notes and many many more.

Summary

   We have now come to the end of this book but, as they say, this is
   the the beginning of the end!. You are now an avid Python user and
   you are no doubt ready to solve many problems using Python. You can
   start  automating  your computer to do all kinds of previously
   unimaginable things or write your own games and much much more. So,
   get started!

Appendix A. Free/Libré and Open Source Software (FLOSS)

   FLOSS is based on the concept of a community, which itself is based
   on  the  concept  of  sharing, and particularly the sharing of
   knowledge.   FLOSS   are  free  for  usage,  modification  and
   redistribution.

   If you have already read this book, then you are familiar with FLOSS
   as well since you have been using Python all along!

   If you want to know more about FLOSS, you can explore the following
   list. I have listed some big FLOSS as well as those FLOSS which are
   cross-platform (i.e. work on Linux, Windows, etc.) so that you can
   try  using  these software without the need to switch to Linux
   immediately although you eventually will ;-)
     * Linux.  This is a FLOSS operating system that the whole world is
       slowly embracing! It was started by Linus Torvalds as a student.
       Now, it is giving competition to Microsoft Windows. The latest
       2.6 kernel is a major breakthrough w.r.t. speed, stability and
       scalability. [ Linux Kernel ]
     * Knoppix.  This is a distribution of Linux which runs off just
       the CD! There is no installation required - you can just reboot
       your  computer,  pop the CD in the drive and start using a
       full-featured Linux distribution! You can use all the various
       FLOSS that comes with a standard Linux distribution such as
       running Python programs, compiling C programs, watching movies,
       etc. Then, reboot your computer again, remove the CD and use
       your existing OS, as if nothing happened at all. [ Knoppix ]
     * Fedora.  This is a community-driven distribution, sponsored by
       Red Hat and is one of the most popular Linux distributions. It
       contains the Linux kernel, the KDE, GNOME and XFCE desktops, and
       the plethora of FLOSS available and all this in an easy-to-use
       and easy-to-install manner.
       If you care a complete beginner to Linux, then I would recommend
       that you try Mandrake Linux . The newly released Mandrake 10.1
       is just awesome. [ Fedora Linux, Mandrake Linux ]
     * OpenOffice.org.  This is an excellent office suite based on Sun
       Microsystems'  StarOffice software. OpenOffice has writer,
       presentation, spreadsheet and drawing components among other
       things. It can even open and edit MS Word and MS PowerPoint
       files with ease. It runs on almost all platforms. The upcoming
       OpenOffice 2.0 has some radical improvements. [ OpenOffice ]
     * Mozilla Firefox.  This is the next generation web browser which
       is predicted to beat Internet Explorer (in terms of market share
       only ;-) in a few years. It is blazingly fast and has gained
       critical acclaim for its sensible and impressive features. The
       extensions concept allows any kind of functionality to be added
       to it.
       It's companion product Thunderbird is an excellent email client
       that makes reading email a snap. [ Mozilla Firefox, Mozilla
       Thunderbird ]
     * Mono.  This is an open source implementation of the Microsoft
       .NET platform. It allows .NET applications to be created and run
       on Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, Mac OS and many other platforms as
       well. Mono implements the ECMA standards of the CLI and C# which
       Microsoft, Intel and HP have submitted for standardization and
       they have now become open standards. This is a step in the
       direction of ISO standardization for the same.
       Currently, there is a complete C# mcs (which itself is written
       in C#!), a feature-complete ASP.NET implementation, many ADO.NET
       providers for databases and many many more features that are
       being improved and added everyday. [ Mono, ECMA, Microsoft .NET
       ]
     * Apache web server.  This is the popular open source web server.
       In fact, it is the most popular web server on the planet! It
       runs nearly 60% of the websites out there. Yes, that's right -
       Apache handles more websites than all the competition (including
       Microsoft IIS) combined. [ Apache ]
     * MySQL.   This is an extremely popular open source database
       server. It is most famous for it's blazing speed. More features
       are being added to it's latest versions. [ MySQL ]
     * MPlayer.  This is a video player that can play anything from
       DivX to MP3 to Ogg to VCDs and DVDs to ... who says open source
       ain't fun? ;-) [ MPlayer ]
     * Movix.  This is a Linux distribution which is based on Knoppix
       and runs off the CD but is designed to play movies! You can
       create Movix CDs which are just bootable CDs and when you reboot
       the computer and pop in the CD, the movie starts playing by
       itself! You don't even need a hard disk to watch a movie using
       Movix. [ Movix ]

   This list is just intended to give you a brief idea - there are many
   more excellent FLOSS out there, such as the Perl language, PHP
   language, Drupal content management system for websites, PostgreSQL
   database server, TORCS racing game, KDevelop IDE, Anjuta IDE, Xine -
   the movie player, VIM editor, Quanta+ editor, XMMS audio player,
   GIMP image editing program, ... this list could go on forever.

   Visit the following websites for more information on FLOSS:
     * SourceForge
     * FreshMeat
     * KDE
     * GNOME

   To get the latest buzz in the FLOSS world, check out the following
   websites:
     * OSNews
     * LinuxToday
     * NewsForge
     * SwaroopCH's blog

   So, go ahead and explore the vast, free and open world of FLOSS!

Appendix B. About

   Table of Contents

   Colophon
   About the Author

Colophon

   Almost all of the software that I have used in the creation of this
   book are free and open source software. In the first draft of this
   book, I had used Red Hat 9.0 Linux as the foundation of my setup and
   now for this sixth draft, I am using Fedora Core 3 Linux as the
   basis of my setup.

   Initially, I was using KWord to write the book (as explained in the
   History Lesson in the preface). Later, I switched to DocBook XML
   using Kate but I found it too tedious. So, I switched to OpenOffice
   which was just excellent with the level of control it provided for
   formatting as well as the PDF generation, but it produced very
   sloppy HTML from the document. Finally, I discovered XEmacs and I
   rewrote the book from scratch in DocBook XML (again) after I decided
   that this format was the long term solution. In this new sixth
   draft, I decided to use Quanta+ to do all the editing.

   The standard XSL stylesheets that came with Fedora Core 3 Linux are
   being  used.  The standard default fonts are used as well. The
   standard fonts are used as well. However, I have written a CSS
   document to give color and style to the HTML pages. I have also
   written  a  crude lexical analyzer, in Python of course, which
   automatically  provides syntax highlighting to all the program
   listings.

About the Author

   Swaroop C H loves his job which is being a software developer at
   Yahoo!  in the Bangalore office in India. His interests on the
   technological side include FLOSS such as Linux, DotGNU, Qt and
   MySQL, great languages like Python and C#, writing stuff like this
   book and any software he can create in his spare time, as well as
   writing his blog. His other interests include coffee, reading Robert
   Ludlum novels, trekking and politics.

   If you are still to interested to know more about this guy, check
   out his blog at www.swaroopch.info .

Appendix C. Revision History

   Table of Contents

   Timestamp

Timestamp

   This document was generated on January 13, 2005 at 04:03
   Revision History
   Revision 1.20 13/01/2005
   Complete rewrite using Quanta+ on FC3 with lot of corrections and
   updates. Many new examples. Re-wrote my DocBook setup from scratch.
   Revision 1.15 28/03/2004
   Minor revisions
   Revision 1.12 16/03/2004
   Additions and corrections.
   Revision 1.10 09/03/2004
   More typo corrections, thanks to many enthusiastic and helpful
   readers.
   Revision 1.00 08/03/2004
   After tremendous feedback and suggestions from readers, I have made
   significant revisions to the content along with typo corrections.
   Revision 0.99 22/02/2004
   Added a new chapter on modules. Added details about variable number
   of arguments in functions.
   Revision 0.98 16/02/2004
   Wrote a Python script and CSS stylesheet to improve XHTML output,
   including a crude-yet-functional lexical analyzer for automatic
   VIM-like syntax highlighting of the program listings.
   Revision 0.97 13/02/2004
   Another completely rewritten draft, in DocBook XML (again). Book has
   improved a lot - it is more coherent and readable.
   Revision 0.93 25/01/2004
   Added IDLE talk and more Windows-specific stuff
   Revision 0.92 05/01/2004
   Changes to few examples.
   Revision 0.91 30/12/2003
   Corrected typos. Improvised many topics.
   Revision 0.90 18/12/2003
   Added 2 more chapters. OpenOffice format with revisions.
   Revision 0.60 21/11/2003
   Fully rewritten and expanded.
   Revision 0.20 20/11/2003
   Corrected some typos and errors.
   Revision 0.15 20/11/2003
   Converted to DocBook XML.
   Revision 0.10 14/11/2003
   Initial draft using KWord.
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