Python 3 Standard Library by Example

Master the Powerful Python 3 Standard Library through Real Code Examples

“The genius of Doug’s approach is that with 15 minutes per week, any motivated programmer can learn the Python Standard Library. Doug’s guided tour will help you flip the switch to fully power-up Python’s batteries.”

–Raymond Hettinger, Distinguished Python Core Developer

The Python 3 Standard Library contains hundreds of modules for interacting with the operating system, interpreter, and Internet–all extensively tested and ready to jump-start application development. Now, Python expert Doug Hellmann introduces every major area of the Python 3.x library through concise source code and output examples. Hellmann’s examples fully demonstrate each feature and are designed for easy learning and reuse.

You’ll find practical code for working with text, data structures, algorithms, dates/times, math, the file system, persistence, data exchange, compression, archiving, crypto, processes/threads, networking, Internet capabilities, email, developer and language tools, the runtime, packages, and more. Each section fully covers one module, with links to additional resources, making this book an ideal tutorial and reference.

The Python 3 Standard Library by Example introduces Python 3.x’s new libraries, significant functionality changes, and new layout and naming conventions. Hellmann also provides expert porting guidance for moving code from 2.x Python standard library modules to their Python 3.x equivalents.

• Manipulate text with string, textwrap, re (regular expressions), and difflib
• Use data structures: enum, collections, array, heapq, queue, struct, copy, and more
• Implement algorithms elegantly and concisely with functools, itertools, and contextlib
• Handle dates/times and advanced mathematical tasks
• Archive and data compression
• Understand data exchange and persistence, including json, dbm, and sqlite
• Sign and verify messages cryptographically
• Manage concurrent operations with processes and threads
• Test, debug, compile, profile, language, import, and package tools
• Control interaction at runtime with interpreters or the environment

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Text

Chapter 2 Data Structures

Chapter 3 Algorithms

Chapter 4 Dates and Times

Chapter 5 Mathematics

Chapter 6 The File System

Chapter 7 Data Persistence and Exchange

Chapter 8 Data Compression and Archiving

Chapter 9 Cryptography

Chapter 10 Concurrency with Processes, Threads, and Coroutines

Chapter 11 Networking

Chapter 12 The Internet

Chapter 13 Email

Chapter 14 Application Building Blocks

Chapter 15 Internationalization and Localization

Chapter 16 Developer Tools

Chapter 17 Runtime Features

Chapter 18 Language Tools

Chapter 19 Modules and Packages

Appendix A Porting Notes

Appendix B Outside of the Standard Library

About the Author

Doug Hellmann is currently employed by Red Hat to work on OpenStack. He is on the OpenStack Technical Committee and contributes to many aspects of the project. He has been programming in Python since version 1.4, and has worked on a variety of UNIX and non-UNIX platforms for projects in fields such as mapping, medical news publishing, banking, and data center automation. Doug is a Fellow of the Python Software Foundation and served as its Communications Director from 2010-2012. After a year as a regular columnist for Python Magazine, he served as Editor-in-Chief from 2008-2009. Between 2007 and 2011, Doug published the popular “Python Module of the Week” series on his blog, and an earlier version of this book (for Python 2), The Python Standard Library By Example (Addison-Wesley, 2011). He lives in Athens, Georgia.