“Hellmann’s writing has become an indispensable resource for me and many others as it fills a critical gap in Python Documentation with examples.” – Jesse Noller, Python Core Developer and PSF Board Member Master the Powerful Python Standard Library through Real Code Examples   The Python Standard Library contains hundreds of modules for interacting with the operating system, interpreter, and Internet–all extensively tested and ready to jump-start your application development. The Python Standard Library by Example (2 Volume Set) introduces virtually every important area of the Python 2.7 library through concise, stand-alone source code/output examples, designed for easy learning and reuse.   Building on his popular Python Module of the Week blog series, author and Python expert Doug Hellmann focuses on “showing” not “telling.” He explains code behavior through downloadable examples that fully demonstrate each feature.   You’ll find practical code for working with text, data types, algorithms, math, file systems, networking, the Internet, XML, email, cryptography, concurrency, runtime and language services, and much more. Each section fully covers one module, and links to valuable additional resources, making this book an ideal tutorial and reference. Coverage includes Manipulating text with string, textwrap, re, and difflib Implementing data structures: collections, array, queue, struct, copy, and more Reading, writing, and manipulating files and directories Regular expression pattern matching Exchanging data and providing for persistence Archiving and data compression Managing processes and threads Using application “building blocks”: parsing command-line options, prompting for passwords, scheduling events, and logging Testing, debugging, and compilation Controlling runtime configuration Using module and package utilities If you’re new to Python, this book will quickly give you access to a whole new world of functionality. If you’ve worked with Python before, you’ll discover new, powerful solutions and better ways to use the modules you’ve already tried.

Table of Contents:
Tables xxxi Foreword xxxiii Acknowledgments xxxvii About the Author xxxix   Introduction 1   Chapter 1: Text 3 1.1 string—Text Constants and Templates 4 1.2 textwrap—Formatting Text Paragraphs 9 1.3 re—Regular Expressions 13 1.4 difflib—Compare Sequences 61   Chapter 2: Data Structures 69 2.1 collections—Container Data Types 70 2.2 array—Sequence of Fixed-Type Data 84 2.3 heapq—Heap Sort Algorithm 87 2.4 bisect—Maintain Lists in Sorted Order 93 2.5 Queue—Thread-Safe FIFO Implementation 96 2.6 struct—Binary Data Structures 102 2.7 weakref—Impermanent References to Objects 106 2.8 copy—Duplicate Objects 117 2.9 pprint—Pretty-Print Data Structures 123   Chapter 3: Algorithms 129 3.1 functools—Tools for Manipulating Functions 129 3.2 itertools—Iterator Functions 141 3.3 operator—Functional Interface to Built-in Operators 153 3.4 contextlib—Context Manager Utilities 163   Chapter 4: Dates and Times 173 4.1 time—Clock Time 173 4.2 datetime—Date and Time Value Manipulation 180 4.3 calendar—Work with Dates 191   Chapter 5: Mathematics 197 5.1 decimal—Fixed and Floating-Point Math 197 5.2 fractions—Rational Numbers 207 5.3 random—Pseudorandom Number Generators 211 5.4 math—Mathematical Functions 223   Chapter 6: The File System 247 6.1 os.path—Platform-Independent Manipulation of Filenames 248 6.2 glob—Filename Pattern Matching 257 6.3 linecache—Read Text Files Efficiently 261 6.4 tempfile—Temporary File System Objects 265 6.5 shutil—High-Level File Operations 271 6.6 mmap—Memory-Map Files 279 6.7 codecs—String Encoding and Decoding 284 6.8 StringIO—Text Buffers with a File-like API 314 6.9 fnmatch—UNIX-Style Glob Pattern Matching 315 6.10 dircache—Cache Directory Listings 319 6.11 filecmp—Compare Files 322   Chapter 7: Data Persistence and Exchange 333 7.1 pickle—Object Serialization 334 7.2 shelve—Persistent Storage of Objects 343 7.3 anydbm—DBM-Style Databases 347 7.4 whichdb—Identify DBM-Style Database Formats 350 7.5 sqlite3—Embedded Relational Database 351 7.6 xml.etree.ElementTree—XML Manipulation API 387 7.7 csv—Comma-Separated Value Files 411   Chapter 8: Data Compression and Archiving 421 8.1 zlib—GNU zlib Compression 421 8.2 gzip—Read and Write GNU Zip Files 430 8.3 bz2—bzip2 Compression 436 8.4 tarfile—Tar Archive Access 448 8.5 zipfile—ZIP Archive Access 457   Chapter 9: Cryptography 469 9.1 hashlib—Cryptographic Hashing 469 9.2 hmac—Cryptographic Message Signing and Verification 473   Chapter 10: Processes and Threads 481 10.1 subprocess—Spawning Additional Processes 481 10.2 signal—Asynchronous System Events 497 10.3 threading—Manage Concurrent Operations 505 10.4 multiprocessing—Manage Processes like Threads 529   Chapter 11: Networking 561 11.1 socket—Network Communication 561 11.2 select—Wait for I/O Efficiently 594 11.3 SocketServer—Creating Network Servers 609 11.4 asyncore—Asynchronous I/O 619 11.5 asynchat—Asynchronous Protocol Handler 629   Chapter 12: The Internet 637 12.1 urlparse—Split URLs into Components 638 12.2 BaseHTTPServer—Base Classes for Implementing Web Servers 644 12.3 urllib—Network Resource Access 651 12.4 urllib2—Network Resource Access 657 12.5 base64—Encode Binary Data with ASCII 670 12.6 robotparser—Internet Spider Access Control 674 12.7 Cookie—HTTP Cookies 677 12.8 uuid—Universally Unique Identifiers 684 12.9 json—JavaScript Object Notation 690 12.10 xmlrpclib—Client Library for XML-RPC 702 12.11 SimpleXMLRPCServer—An XML-RPC Server 714   Chapter 13: Email 727 13.1 smtplib—Simple Mail Transfer Protocol Client 727 13.2 smtpd—Sample Mail Servers 734 13.3 imaplib—IMAP4 Client Library 738 13.4 mailbox—Manipulate Email Archives 758   Chapter 14: Application Building Blocks 769 14.1 getopt—Command-Line Option Parsing 770 14.2 optparse—Command-Line Option Parser 777 14.3 argparse—Command-Line Option and Argument Parsing 795 14.4 readline—The GNU Readline Library 823 14.5 getpass—Secure Password Prompt 836 14.6 cmd—Line-Oriented Command Processors 839 14.7 shlex—Parse Shell-Style Syntaxes 852 14.8 ConfigParser—Work with Configuration Files 861 14.9 logging—Report Status, Error, and Informational Messages 878 14.10 fileinput—Command-Line Filter Framework 883 14.11 atexit—Program Shutdown Callbacks 890 14.12 sched—Timed Event Scheduler 894 Chapter 15: Internationalization and Localization 899 15.1 gettext—Message Catalogs 899 15.2 locale—Cultural Localization API 909   Chapter 16: Developer Tools 919 16.1 pydoc—Online Help for Modules 920 16.2 doctest—Testing through Documentation 921 16.3 unittest—Automated Testing Framework 949 16.4 traceback—Exceptions and Stack Traces 958 16.5 cgitb—Detailed Traceback Reports 965 16.6 pdb—Interactive Debugger 975 16.7 trace—Follow Program Flow 1012 16.8 profile and pstats—Performance Analysis 1022 16.9 timeit—Time the Execution of Small Bits of Python Code 1031 16.10 compileall—Byte-Compile Source Files 1037 16.11 pyclbr—Class Browser 1039   Chapter 17: Runtime Features 1045 17.1 site—Site-Wide Configuration 1046 17.2 sys—System-Specific Configuration 1055 17.3 os—Portable Access to Operating System Specific Features 1108 17.4 platform—System Version Information 1129 17.5 resource—System Resource Management 1134 17.6 gc—Garbage Collector 1138 17.7 sysconfig—Interpreter Compile-Time Configuration 1160   Chapter 18: Language Tools 1169 18.1 warnings—Nonfatal Alerts 1170 18.2 abc—Abstract Base Classes 1178 18.3 dis—Python Bytecode Disassembler 1186 18.4 inspect—Inspect Live Objects 1200 18.5 exceptions—Built-in Exception Classes 1216   Chapter 19: Modules and Packages 1235 19.1 imp—Python’s Import Mechanism 1235 19.2 zipimport—Load Python Code from ZIP Archives 1240 19.3 pkgutil—Package Utilities 1247   Index of Python Modules 1259 Index 1261