Book Image

Secret Recipes of the Python Ninja

Book Image

Secret Recipes of the Python Ninja

Overview of this book

This book covers the unexplored secrets of Python, delve into its depths, and uncover its mysteries. You’ll unearth secrets related to the implementation of the standard library, by looking at how modules actually work. You’ll understand the implementation of collections, decimals, and fraction modules. If you haven’t used decorators, coroutines, and generator functions much before, as you make your way through the recipes, you’ll learn what you’ve been missing out on. We’ll cover internal special methods in detail, so you understand what they are and how they can be used to improve the engineering decisions you make. Next, you’ll explore the CPython interpreter, which is a treasure trove of secret hacks that not many programmers are aware of. We’ll take you through the depths of the PyPy project, where you’ll come across several exciting ways that you can improve speed and concurrency. Finally, we’ll take time to explore the PEPs of the latest versions to discover some interesting hacks.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)
Title Page
Copyright and Credits
Packt Upsell
Foreword
Contributors
Preface
Index

Using alternative Python shells – IPython


While usable, the default shell for the Python interpreter has significant limitations when compared to what computers can do nowadays. For starters, the regular Python interactive interpreter does not support syntax highlight or auto-indenting, among other features.

IPython is one of the most popular replacement interactive shells for Python. Some of the features IPython offers compared to vanilla Python include:

  • Comprehensive object introspection, allowing access to docstrings, source code, and other objects accessible to the interpreter
  • Persistent input history
  • Caching output results
  • Extendable tab completion, with support for variables, keywords, functions, and filenames
  • magic commands (denoted by a prepended %) to control the environment and interact with the OS
  • Extensive configuration system
  • Session logging and reload
  • Embeddable within Python programs and GUIs
  • Integrated access to debugger and profiler
  • Multi-line editing
  • Syntax highlighting

Included with...