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The Python Apprentice

By : Robert Smallshire, Austin Bingham

4 (5)

The Python Apprentice

4 (5)

By: Robert Smallshire, Austin Bingham

Overview of this book

Experienced programmers want to know how to enhance their craft and we want to help them start as apprentices with Python. We know that before mastering Python you need to learn the culture and the tools to become a productive member of any Python project. Our goal with this book is to give you a practical and thorough introduction to Python programming, providing you with the insight and technical craftsmanship you need to be a productive member of any Python project. Python is a big language, and it’s not our intention with this book to cover everything there is to know. We just want to make sure that you, as the developer, know the tools, basic idioms and of course the ins and outs of the language, the standard library and other modules to be able to jump into most projects.

Preface

Preface

Python Promo

Overview

What is Python?

The journey of a thousand miles…

Errata and Suggestions

Conventions Used in This Book

Downloading the example code

Downloading the color images of this book

Free Chapter

Getting started

Getting started

Obtaining and installing Python 3

Starting Python command line REPL

Leaving the REPL

Code structure and significant indentation

Python culture

Importing standard library modules

Getting help()

Scalar data types: integers, floats, None and bool

Relational operators

Control flow: if-statements and while-loops

Summary

Strings and Collections

Strings and Collections

str – an immutable sequence of Unicode code points

Moment of zen

Strings with Unicode

The bytes type – an immutable sequence of bytes

list – a sequence of objects

The dict type – associating keys with values

The For-loops – iterating over series of items

Putting it all together

Summary

Modularity

Modularity

Organizing code in a .py file

Defining functions

Organizing our module into functions

The Python execution model

Setting up a main function with command line argument

Moment of zen

Docstrings

Comments

Shebang

Built-in types and the object model

Built-in types and the object model

The nature of Python object references

Argument passing semantics – pass by object-reference

Python return semantics

Function arguments in detail

The Python type system

Variable declaration and scoping

Scopes in action

Moment of zen

Everything is an object

Summary

Exploring Built-in Collection types

Exploring Built-in Collection types

tuple – an immutable sequence of objects

The tuple constructor

Strings in action

Moment of zen

range – a collection of evenly spaced integers

list in action

Dictionaries

set – an unordered collection of unique elements

Collection protocols

Summary

Exceptions

Exceptions

Exceptions and control flow

Handling multiple exceptions

Programmer errors

Empty blocks – the pass statement

Exception objects

Imprudent return codes

Re-raising exceptions

Exceptions are part of your function's API

Guard clauses

Exceptions, APIs, and protocols

Choosing not to guard against TypeError

Pythonic style – EAFP versus LBYL

Clean-up actions

Moment of zen

Platform-specific code

Summary

Comprehensions, iterables, and generators

Comprehensions, iterables, and generators

Comprehensions

Moment of zen

Iteration protocols

Generator functions

Generator expressions

Batteries included iteration tools

Pulling it all together

Summary

Defining new types with classes

Defining new types with classes

Defining classes

Instance methods

Instance initializers

Validation and invariants

Adding a second class

Collaborating classes

Moment of zen

Booking seats

Naming methods for implementation details

Sometimes the only object you need is a function

Polymorphism and duck-typing

Inheritance and implementation sharing

Summary

Files and Resource Management

Files and Resource Management

Files

Context Managers

Moment of zen

Binary files

File-like objects

Other resources

Summary

Unit testing with the Python standard library

Unit testing with the Python standard library

Test cases

Fixtures

Assertions

Unit testing example: text analysis

Using fixtures to create temporary files

Using the new fixtures

Using assertions to test behavior

Testing for exceptions

Testing for file existence

Moment of zen

Summary

Debugging with PDB

Debugging with PDB

Debugging commands

Palindrome debugging

Summary

Afterword – Just the Beginning

Afterword – Just the Beginning

Virtual Environments

Virtual Environments

Creating a virtual environment

Activating a virtual environment

Deactivating a virtual environment

Other tools for working with virtual environments

Packaging and Distribution

Packaging and Distribution

Configuring a package with distutils

Installing with distutils

Packaging with distutils

Installing Third-Party Packages

Installing Third-Party Packages

Installing pip

The Python Package Index

Installing Local Packages with pip

Uninstalling Packages

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Everything is an object

Let's go back to our words module and experiment with it further at the REPL. On this occasion we'll import just the module:

$ python3
Python 3.5.0 (default, Nov  3 2015, 13:17:02)
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 6.1.0 (clang-602.0.53)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import words

The import statement binds a module object to the name words in the current namespace. We can determine the type of any object by using the type() built-in function:

>>> type(words)
<class 'module'>

If we want to see the attributes of an object, we can use the dir() built-in function in a Python interactive session to introspect an object:

>>> dir(words)
['__builtins__', '__cached__', '__doc__', '__file__...

Visually different images

CONTINUE READING

83

Tech Concepts

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Programming languages

73

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