Python Standard Library is an essential guide for serious Python programmers. Python is a modular language that imports most useful operations from the standard library (basic support modules; operating system interfaces; network protocols; file formats; data conversions; threads and processes; and data storage). You can't really program in Python without using it. In this book, author Fredrik Lundh, creator of the Python Imaging Library (PIL), delivers tested, accurate documentation of all the modules in the Python Standard Library, along with over 300 annotated example scripts using the modules.
Python Standard Library renders this valuable information in a clean, easy-to-read format, yet doesn't talk down to readers. This accurate and complete reference documentation is for the Python programmer who wants the facts and little else.
The book is based on the author's work with the Python newsgroup: he reviewed more than 2500 questions and answers to that newsgroup in order to make sure the book covered what Python users really wanted to know. An earlier version of this book has been available electronically for over a year, so the material has been tested by Python programmers in real-life applications.
This version of Python Standard Library covers all the new modules and related information for Python 2.0, the first new major release of Python in four years.
Fredrik Lundh is a principal of Secret Labs, Inc., the creators of PythonWorks, an integrated development environment (IDE) for Python. He is an expert on the use of Python with images and graphics and is also the creator of the Python Imaging Library (PIL). He is an active member of the Python community and a frequent contributor to the Python newsgroups.
Our look is the result of reader comments, our own experimentation, and feedback from distribution channels. Distinctive covers complement our distinctive approach to technical topics, breathing personality and life into potentially dry subjects. The animals on the cover of Python Standard Library are harvest mice. Many species of harvest mice populate North American grasslands and marshes, while only one species—Micromys minutus, the Old World harvest mouse—resides in the grasslands and farmlands of Europe and Asia.
Smaller than the common house mouse, the harvest mouse sports prominent ears and a very long hairy tail, and its hind feet have an opposable fifth toe for grasping and climbing stems. Behaviorally, harvest mice set themselves apart from other mice species by building breeding nests suspended in high grasses. These nests are baseball-sized globes of woven grass with small entrance holes and are lined with soft plant material, such as dandelion fluff, to keep the young warm. The young are born in litters of three to six, completely dependent on the mother (the father is not allowed in the nest). By the time they are five weeks old, however, they are independent and sexually mature. Overall, harvest mice typically live for six to eighteen months in the wild—enough time for a female to produce one to six litters in her lifetime. These numbers are much higher for mice in captivity.
The harvest mouse is a "cover dependent" species, as it relies on brush and vegetation to hide its small, brown body from predators as it forages for seeds and insect larvae. It moves slowly and adopts a still "camouflage posture" as further defense; overall, it is much more calm than the common house mouse.
The Western, Eastern, and Fulvous harvest mice (Reithrodontomys megalotis, Reithrodontomys humulis, and Reithrodontomys fulvescens, respectively) currently populate various regions of the United States and Canada with relative success, challenged somewhat by habitat loss due to crop farming, cattle grazing, and urbanization. However, their cousin the Saltmarsh harvest mouse (Reithrodontomys raviventris) suffers severe threat due to the filling in of its dwindling marshland home in the San Francisco Bay Area. The only endangered harvest mouse species, its members number in only the hundreds to the few thousands. Catherine Morris was the production editor and proofreader, and Linley Dolby was the copyeditor for Python Standard Library. Emily Quill, Matt Hutchinson, and Claire Cloutier provided quality control. Joe Wizda wrote the index. Interior composition was done by Gabe Weiss, Matt Hutchinson, and Catherine Morris.
Hanna Dyer designed the cover of this book, based on a series design by Edie Freedman. The cover image is a 19th-century engraving from the Dover Pictorial Archive. Emma Colby produced the cover layout with QuarkXPress 4.1 using Adobe's ITC Garamond font. Emma Colby also designed the CD label.
David Futato designed the interior layout based on a series design by Nancy Priest. The print version of this book was created by translating the DocBook SGML markup of its source files into a set of gtroff macros using a filter developed at O'Reilly & Associates by Norman Walsh. Steve Talbott designed and wrote the underlying macro set on the basis of the GNU troff –gs macros; Lenny Muellner adapted them to SGML and implemented the book design. The GNU groff text formatter Version 1.11.1 was used to generate PostScript output. The text and heading fonts are ITC Garamond Light and Garamond Book; the code font is Constant Willison. This colophon was written by Sarah Jane Shangraw.
This was my second Python book and I still use. I have some 10 Python books now but this one is my favorite. It contains great code examples, making it quickly clear what can be done with a module.
It is a good thing it is not filled with boring tables and other references, you can always look at python.org for the latest details.
This book deserved a 2nd edition and it still makes me wonder what kind of people decided against it. Well written, excellent example code, a joy to read.
6/30/2004
5.0
Excellent Book
By Anonymous
from Undisclosed
Comments about oreilly Python Standard Library:
I have no idea why other readers haven't though highly of this book. Anyhow, this is my first O'Reilly book. I had worked with Python for a few months before I bought the book. This book increased my knowlegdge of Python a great bit. While it is not a complete reference ( it never claims to be anyway ), I find myself looking in the index a few times each day to find out a module's purpose or to find a module that can accomplish a certain task.
I also like how the author presents [i]code[/i] that demonstrates what a module does. It's a lot easier to learn from.
Overall, this is an excellent book.
12/20/2001
(1 of 2 customers found this review helpful)
2.0
Python Standard Library Review
By JCassidy
from Undisclosed
Comments about oreilly Python Standard Library:
I've found the book itself useful. Unfortunately the CD-ROM is flawed. The CD-ROM that came with the book has the contents of the top-level directory recursively across the CD.
8/16/2001
(1 of 1 customers found this review helpful)
1.0
Python Standard Library Review
By Joel Burton
from Undisclosed
Comments about oreilly Python Standard Library:
Sadly, far from O'Reilly's best book. It's not quite clear what the author wanted to achieve: it's too thin on the details to be a reference work (plus, it lacks the tables of options, commands, methods, etc.) to make it referential; it's not focused on teaching concepts. I'm a disappointed buyer. If I were asked to recommend a good book on Python's library, I'd recommend _Python:_The Essential_Reference_, by New Riders. (It does seem that O'Reilly is working on Python In a Nutshell, though, and if that's as good as Perl in a Nutshell, it would be *great* !)
6/11/2001
(2 of 3 customers found this review helpful)
2.0
Python Standard Library Review
By Jonathan Perez
from Undisclosed
Comments about oreilly Python Standard Library:
Or if the CD contained an electronic version of the book. I hate having to keep digging for the book in my mountain stack of other books everytime i want to look something up wen i'm programming. I don't know about you, but for a supposed champion of open-source concepts, O'Reilly sure seems real paranoid about making its 'IP' more accessible.
6/5/2001
(1 of 2 customers found this review helpful)
3.0
Python Standard Library Review
By Andy
from Undisclosed
Comments about oreilly Python Standard Library:
Ok book. But the accompanying CD is really not worth it. If the price could've been knocked down even just $3 without the CD, it would have made a more compelling buy.
The Pythonworks IDE demo is really nothing but an ad while none of the included scripts exceed 4KB.
