Python Essentials 2.7

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1. An Overview of Python

What is Python?

The Birth of Python

Python Timeline

About Interpreted Languages

Advantages of Python

Disadvantages of Python

How to get Python

Which version of Python?

The of 2.x

Getting Help

pydoc

2. The Python Environment

Starting Python

If the interpreter is not in your PATHs

Using the interpreter

Trying out a few commands

Running a Python script

Python scripts on UNIX

Python scripts on Windows

Python editors and IDEs

3. Getting Started

Using Variables

Keywords

Built-in Functions

Variable Typing

Strings

Single-quoted string literals

Tripe-quoted string literals

Raw String literals

Unicode literals

String operators and methods

Numeric literals

Math operators and expressions

Converting among types

Writing to the screen

String formatting

Legacy string formatting

Command line parameters

Reading from the keyboard

4. Flow Control

About flow control

What’s with the white space?

if and elif

Conditional expressions

Relational operators

Boolean operators while loops

Alternate ways to exit a loop

5. Sequences About sequences Lists

Tuples

Indexing and slicing

Iterating through a sequence

Functions for all sequences

Using enumerate()

Operators and keywords for sequences

The xrange() function

Nested sequences

List comprehensions

Generator expressions

6. Working with files

Text file I/O

Opening a text file

The with block

Reading a text file Writing to a text file

“Binary” (raw, or non-delimited) data

7. Dictionaries and Sets

About dictionaries

When to use dictionaries

Creating dictionaries

Getting dictionary values

Iterating through a dictionary

Reading file data into a dictionary

Counting with dictionaries

About sets

Creating sets

Working with sets

8. Functions

Defining a function

Function parameters

Global variables

Variable scope

Returning values

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9. Sorting

Sorting overview

The sorted() function

Alternate keys

Lambda functions

Sorting collections of collections

Using operator.itemgetter()

Sorting dictionaries

Sorting in reverse

Sorting lists in place

10. Errors and Exception

Handling

Syntax errors Exceptions

Handling exceptions with try

Handling multiple exceptions

Handling generic exceptions

Ignoring exceptions

Using else

Cleaning up with finally

The standard exception hierarchy

11. Using Modules

What is a module?

The import statement

Where did the .pyc file come from?

Module search path

Zipped libraries

Creating Modules

Packages

Module aliases

When the batteries aren’t included

12. Regular Expressions

RE syntax overview

Regular expression

metacharacters

RE Objects

Searching for patterns

Matching without re objects

Compilation flags

Grouping

Special groups

Replacing text

Replacing with a callback

Splitting a string

13. Using the Standard Library

The sys module

Interpreter information

STDIO

Launching external programs

Paths, directories, and filenames

Walking directory trees

Grabbing data from the web

Sending e-mail

Math functions

Random values

Dates and times

Zipped archives

14. An Introduction to Python Classes

About OO programming

Defining classes

Initializers

Instance methods

Properties

Class methods and data

Static methods

Private methods Inheritance

Untangling the nomenclature

15. Bonus Exercises

Appendix A: Bibliography

Appendix B: Python Gotchas

Appendix C: Builtin Functions