Contents

• Contents
• Introduction
  • What is Python?
  • The very Basics of Python
  • Invoking Python
  • Basic Principles of Python
    • Basic Core Language
    • Modules
    • Object Oriented Programming
    • Namespaces and Variable Scoping
    • Exception Handling
• String Data
  • String Constants
  • Special Characters and Raw Strings
  • Unicode Strings
  • String Operations
    • Concatenation
    • Repetition
    • Indexing and Slicing
    • Functions and Methods for Character Strings
• Numeric Data
  • Types of Numeric Data
    • Hexadecimal and Octal Constants
    • Numeric Operators
    • Functions for Numeric Data
  • Conversion of Scalar Types
• Lists, Tuples and Dictionaries
  • List Data
  • List Indexing and Slicing
  • List Operators
    • Concatenation
    • Repetition
    • The in operator
  • Functions and Methods for Lists
  • Tuple Objects
  • Operators and Indexing for Tuples
  • Functions and Methods for Tuples
  • Dictionaries
  • Functions and Methods for Dictionaries
• Input and Output
  • The print command
  • Formatting Strings
  • Using Names in Format Strings
  • File Objects
    • Methods for Reading
    • Methods for Writing
    • ``Printing'' to a File
    • Other Methods
    • File Object Variables
  • Standard Input and Output Streams
  • Pipes
• Programming
  • Assignments
  • Indentation
  • Truth, Falsehood and Logical Operators
  • if statement
  • for loops
  • for loops and the range function
  • while loops
  • Control in Loops: break and continue
  • List Comprehensions
• Functions
  • Introduction
  • Scoping: How Python finds your variables
  • Function Basics
  • Named Arguments and Default Values
  • Variable Number of Arguments
  • Functional Programming, and anonymous functions
• Using Modules
  • Introduction
  • Namespaces
  • Functions for working with modules
  • The string module
    • String Constants
    • Functions in the string module
  • The re module: Regular Expressions
    • Introduction to Regular Expressions
    • Constructing Regular Expressions
    • Compiling Regular Expressions
    • Finding Regular Expression Matches
    • Tagging in Regular Expressions
    • Using Named Groups for Tagging
    • Greediness of Regular Expressions
    • Multiple Matches
    • Substitutions
  • Operating System Services: os and shutil modules
  • Expansion of Filename wildcards - the glob module
  • Information about your Python session - the sys module
  • Copying: the copy module
  • Object Persistence: the pickle/cPickle and shelve modules
    • Pickling
    • The shelve module
  • CGI (Common Gateway Interface): the cgi module
    • Introduction to CGI
    • Security Concerns
    • CGI Environmental Variables
  • Accessing Documents on the Web: the urllib module
• Exceptions
  • Introduction
  • Tracebacks
  • Dealing with Multiple Exceptions
  • The Exception Hierarchy
  • Raising Exceptions
• Writing Modules
  • Introduction
  • An Example
  • Test Programs for Modules
  • Classes and Object Oriented Programming
  • Operator Overloading
  • Private Attributes
  • A First Example of Classes
  • Inheritance
  • Adding Methods to the Basic Types
  • Iterators
• About this document ...