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Python Essentials

By : Steven F. Lott
Book Image

Python Essentials

By: Steven F. Lott

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Python Essentials
Steven F. Lott
Jun, 2015 | 298 pages
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Table of Contents (22 chapters)
Python Essentials
Python Essentials
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Getting Started
Getting Started
Installation or upgrade
Using the Read-Evaluate-Print Loop (REPL)
Interacting with the help subsystem
Creating simple script files
The Python ecosystem
Looking at other Python interpreters
Summary
2
Simple Data Types
Simple Data Types
Introducing the built-in operators
The numeric tower
The math libraries
Using bits and Boolean values
Working with sequences
Using string and bytes values
Using the tuple collection
The None object
The consequences of immutability
Using the built-in conversion functions
Summary
3
Expressions and Output
Expressions and Output
Expressions, operators, and data types
The print() function
Examining syntax rules
Splitting, partitioning, and joining strings
Summary of the standard string libraries
Summary
4
Variables, Assignment and Scoping Rules
Variables, Assignment and Scoping Rules
Simple assignment and variables
Multiple assignment
Using the head, *tail assignment
Augmented assignment
The input() function
Python language concepts
The Python namespace concept
Summary
5
Logic, Comparisons, and Conditions
Logic, Comparisons, and Conditions
Boolean data and the bool() function
Comparison operators
Logic operators – and, or, not, if-else
The if-elif-else statement
The pass statement as a placeholder
The assert statement
The logic of the None object
Summary
6
More Complex Data Types
More Complex Data Types
The mutability and immutability distinction
Using the list collection
Using collection functions
Using the set collection
Mappings
Processing collections with the for statement
Iterating with the while statement
The continue and break statements
Using the else clause on a loop
Summary
7
Basic Function Definitions
Basic Function Definitions
Looking at the five kinds of callables
Defining functions with positional parameters
Mutable and immutable argument values
Defining optional parameters via default values
Using the "everything else" notations of * and **
Nested function definitions
Working with namespaces
Defining lambdas
Writing additional function annotations
Summary
8
More Advanced Functions
More Advanced Functions
Using the for statement with iterable collections
Consequences and next steps
Using generator expressions and comprehensions
Defining generator functions with the yield statement
Using the higher-order functions
Using the built-in reductions – max, min, and reduce
Three ways to sort a sequence
Functional programming design patterns
Summary
9
Exceptions
Exceptions
The core exception concept
Using the try and except statements
Matching exception classes in an except clause
Creating our own exceptions
Using a finally clause
Use cases for exceptions
Issuing warnings instead of exceptions
Permission versus forgiveness – a Pythonic approach
Summary
10
Files, Databases, Networks, and Contexts
Files, Databases, Networks, and Contexts
The essential file concept
Using a context manager via the with statement
Using the shelve module as a database
Web services and Internet protocols
Physical format considerations
Summary
11
Class Definitions
Class Definitions
Creating a class
Writing the suite of statements in a class
Using instance variables and methods
Pythonic object-oriented programming
Using properties
Using inheritance to simplify class definitions
Using class methods and attributes
Using __slots__ to save storage
The ABCs of abstract base classes
Summary
12
Scripts, Modules, Packages, Libraries, and Applications
Scripts, Modules, Packages, Libraries, and Applications
Script file rules
Running a script by the filename
Creating a reusable module
Creating a hybrid library/application module
Creating a package
Designing alternative implementations
Seeing the package search path
Summary
13
Metaprogramming and Decorators
Metaprogramming and Decorators
Simple metaprogramming with decorators
Defining our own decorator
More complex metaprogramming with metaclasses
Summary
14
Fit and Finish – Unit Testing, Packaging, and Documentation
Fit and Finish – Unit Testing, Packaging, and Documentation
Writing docstrings
Writing unit tests with doctest
Using the unittest library for testing
Using other add-on test libraries
Logging events and conditions
Writing documentation with RST markup
Organizing Python code
Summary
15
Next Steps
Next Steps
Leveraging the standard library
Leveraging PyPI – the Python Package Index
Types of applications
Building CLI applications
Building GUI applications
Building web applications
Plugging into a MapReduce framework
Summary
Index
Index

Summary of the standard string libraries

Python's standard library offers a number of modules with additional string processing features.

  • string: The string module contains constants that decompose the ASCII characters into letters, numbers, whitespace, and so on. It contains the full definition of the formatter that is used by the str.format() method. We'll look at this in the next section. It also contains the Template class which defines a string template into which values can be interpolated.

  • re: The regular expression library allows us to define a pattern that can be used to parse input strings. We'll look at this in the next section.

  • difflib: The difflib module is used to compare sequences of strings, typically from text files. There are a number of comparison algorithms available in this module.

  • textwrap: We can use the textwrap module to format large blocks of text.

  • unicodedata: The unicodedata module provides functions for determining what kind of Unicode character is present...

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