>>>
- The default Python prompt of the interactive shell. Often seen for code examples which can be executed interactively in the interpreter.
...
- The default Python prompt of the interactive shell when entering code for an indented code block or within a pair of matching left and right delimiters (parentheses, square brackets or curly braces).
- 2to3
A tool that tries to convert Python 2.x code to Python 3.x code by handling most of the incompatibilities which can be detected by parsing the source and traversing the parse tree.
2to3 is available in the standard library as
lib2to3
; a standalone entry point is provided asTools/scripts/2to3
. See 2to3 - Automated Python 2 to 3 code translation.- abstract base class
- Abstract base classes complement duck-typing by
providing a way to define interfaces when other techniques like
hasattr()
would be clumsy or subtly wrong (for example with magic methods). ABCs introduce virtual subclasses, which are classes that don't inherit from a class but are still recognized byisinstance()
andissubclass()
; see theabc
module documentation. Python comes with many built-in ABCs for data structures (in thecollections
module), numbers (in thenumbers
module), and streams (in theio
module). You can create your own ABCs with theabc
module. - argument
A value passed to a function (or method) when calling the function. There are two types of arguments:
keyword argument: an argument preceded by an identifier (e.g.
name=
) in a function call or passed as a value in a dictionary preceded by**
. For example,3
and5
are both keyword arguments in the following calls tocomplex()
:complex(real=3, imag=5) complex(**{'real': 3, 'imag': 5})
positional argument: an argument that is not a keyword argument. Positional arguments can appear at the beginning of an argument list and/or be passed as elements of an iterable preceded by
*
. For example,3
and5
are both positional arguments in the following calls:complex(3, 5) complex(*(3, 5))
Arguments are assigned to the named local variables in a function body. See the Calls section for the rules governing this assignment. Syntactically, any expression can be used to represent an argument; the evaluated value is assigned to the local variable.
See also the parameter glossary entry and the FAQ question on the difference between arguments and parameters.
- attribute
- A value associated with an object which is referenced by name using dotted expressions. For example, if an object o has an attribute a it would be referenced as o.a.
- BDFL
- Benevolent Dictator For Life, a.k.a. Guido van Rossum, Python's creator.
- bytes-like object
- An object that supports the buffer protocol,
like
str
,bytearray
ormemoryview
. Bytes-like objects can be used for various operations that expect binary data, such as compression, saving to a binary file or sending over a socket. Some operations need the binary data to be mutable, in which case not all bytes-like objects can apply. - bytecode
Python source code is compiled into bytecode, the internal representation of a Python program in the CPython interpreter. The bytecode is also cached in
.pyc
and.pyo
files so that executing the same file is faster the second time (recompilation from source to bytecode can be avoided). This "intermediate language" is said to run on a virtual machine that executes the machine code corresponding to each bytecode. Do note that bytecodes are not expected to work between different Python virtual machines, nor to be stable between Python releases.A list of bytecode instructions can be found in the documentation for the dis module.
- class
- A template for creating user-defined objects. Class definitions normally contain method definitions which operate on instances of the class.
- classic class
- Any class which does not inherit from
object
. See new-style class. Classic classes have been removed in Python 3. - coercion
- The implicit conversion of an instance of one type to another during an
operation which involves two arguments of the same type. For example,
int(3.15)
converts the floating point number to the integer3
, but in3+4.5
, each argument is of a different type (one int, one float), and both must be converted to the same type before they can be added or it will raise aTypeError
. Coercion between two operands can be performed with thecoerce
built-in function; thus,3+4.5
is equivalent to callingoperator.add(*coerce(3, 4.5))
and results inoperator.add(3.0, 4.5)
. Without coercion, all arguments of even compatible types would have to be normalized to the same value by the programmer, e.g.,float(3)+4.5
rather than just3+4.5
. - complex number
- An extension of the familiar real number system in which all numbers are
expressed as a sum of a real part and an imaginary part. Imaginary
numbers are real multiples of the imaginary unit (the square root of
-1
), often writteni
in mathematics orj
in engineering. Python has built-in support for complex numbers, which are written with this latter notation; the imaginary part is written with aj
suffix, e.g.,3+1j
. To get access to complex equivalents of themath
module, usecmath
. Use of complex numbers is a fairly advanced mathematical feature. If you're not aware of a need for them, it's almost certain you can safely ignore them. - context manager
- An object which controls the environment seen in a
with
statement by defining__enter__()
and__exit__()
methods. See PEP 343. - CPython
- The canonical implementation of the Python programming language, as distributed on python.org. The term "CPython" is used when necessary to distinguish this implementation from others such as Jython or IronPython.
- decorator
A function returning another function, usually applied as a function transformation using the
@wrapper
syntax. Common examples for decorators areclassmethod()
andstaticmethod()
.The decorator syntax is merely syntactic sugar, the following two function definitions are semantically equivalent:
def f(...): ... f = staticmethod(f) @staticmethod def f(...): ...
The same concept exists for classes, but is less commonly used there. See the documentation for function definitions and class definitions for more about decorators.
- descriptor
Any new-style object which defines the methods
__get__()
,__set__()
, or__delete__()
. When a class attribute is a descriptor, its special binding behavior is triggered upon attribute lookup. Normally, using a.b to get, set or delete an attribute looks up the object named b in the class dictionary for a, but if b is a descriptor, the respective descriptor method gets called. Understanding descriptors is a key to a deep understanding of Python because they are the basis for many features including functions, methods, properties, class methods, static methods, and reference to super classes.For more information about descriptors' methods, see Implementing Descriptors.
- dictionary
- An associative array, where arbitrary keys are mapped to values. The
keys can be any object with
__hash__()
and__eq__()
methods. Called a hash in Perl. - dictionary view
- The objects returned from
dict.viewkeys()
,dict.viewvalues()
, anddict.viewitems()
are called dictionary views. They provide a dynamic view on the dictionary’s entries, which means that when the dictionary changes, the view reflects these changes. To force the dictionary view to become a full list uselist(dictview)
. See Dictionary view objects. - docstring
- A string literal which appears as the first expression in a class,
function or module. While ignored when the suite is executed, it is
recognized by the compiler and put into the
__doc__
attribute of the enclosing class, function or module. Since it is available via introspection, it is the canonical place for documentation of the object. - duck-typing
- A programming style which does not look at an object's type to determine
if it has the right interface; instead, the method or attribute is simply
called or used ("If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it
must be a duck.") By emphasizing interfaces rather than specific types,
well-designed code improves its flexibility by allowing polymorphic
substitution. Duck-typing avoids tests using
type()
orisinstance()
. (Note, however, that duck-typing can be complemented with abstract base classes.) Instead, it typically employshasattr()
tests or EAFP programming. - EAFP
- Easier to ask for forgiveness than permission. This common Python coding
style assumes the existence of valid keys or attributes and catches
exceptions if the assumption proves false. This clean and fast style is
characterized by the presence of many
try
andexcept
statements. The technique contrasts with the LBYL style common to many other languages such as C. - expression
- A piece of syntax which can be evaluated to some value. In other words,
an expression is an accumulation of expression elements like literals,
names, attribute access, operators or function calls which all return a
value. In contrast to many other languages, not all language constructs
are expressions. There are also statements which cannot be used
as expressions, such as
print
orif
. Assignments are also statements, not expressions. - extension module
- A module written in C or C++, using Python's C API to interact with the core and with user code.
- file object
An object exposing a file-oriented API (with methods such as
read()
orwrite()
) to an underlying resource. Depending on the way it was created, a file object can mediate access to a real on-disk file or to another type of storage or communication device (for example standard input/output, in-memory buffers, sockets, pipes, etc.). File objects are also called file-like objects or streams.There are actually three categories of file objects: raw binary files, buffered binary files and text files. Their interfaces are defined in the
io
module. The canonical way to create a file object is by using theopen()
function.- file-like object
- A synonym for file object.
- finder
- An object that tries to find the loader for a module. It must
implement a method named
find_module()
. See PEP 302 for details. - floor division
- Mathematical division that rounds down to nearest integer. The floor
division operator is
//
. For example, the expression11 // 4
evaluates to2
in contrast to the2.75
returned by float true division. Note that(-11) // 4
is-3
because that is-2.75
rounded downward. See PEP 238. - function
- A series of statements which returns some value to a caller. It can also be passed zero or more arguments which may be used in the execution of the body. See also parameter, method, and the Function definitions section.
- __future__
A pseudo-module which programmers can use to enable new language features which are not compatible with the current interpreter. For example, the expression
11/4
currently evaluates to2
. If the module in which it is executed had enabled true division by executing:from __future__ import division
the expression
11/4
would evaluate to2.75
. By importing the__future__
module and evaluating its variables, you can see when a new feature was first added to the language and when it will become the default:>>> import __future__ >>> __future__.division _Feature((2, 2, 0, 'alpha', 2), (3, 0, 0, 'alpha', 0), 8192)
- garbage collection
- The process of freeing memory when it is not used anymore. Python performs garbage collection via reference counting and a cyclic garbage collector that is able to detect and break reference cycles.
- generator
- A function which returns an iterator. It looks like a normal function
except that it contains
yield
statements for producing a series of values usable in a for-loop or that can be retrieved one at a time with thenext()
function. Eachyield
temporarily suspends processing, remembering the location execution state (including local variables and pending try-statements). When the generator resumes, it picks-up where it left-off (in contrast to functions which start fresh on every invocation). - generator expression
An expression that returns an iterator. It looks like a normal expression followed by a
for
expression defining a loop variable, range, and an optionalif
expression. The combined expression generates values for an enclosing function:>>> sum(i*i for i in range(10)) # sum of squares 0, 1, 4, ... 81 285
- GIL
- See global interpreter lock.
- global interpreter lock
The mechanism used by the CPython interpreter to assure that only one thread executes Python bytecode at a time. This simplifies the CPython implementation by making the object model (including critical built-in types such as
dict
) implicitly safe against concurrent access. Locking the entire interpreter makes it easier for the interpreter to be multi-threaded, at the expense of much of the parallelism afforded by multi-processor machines.However, some extension modules, either standard or third-party, are designed so as to release the GIL when doing computationally-intensive tasks such as compression or hashing. Also, the GIL is always released when doing I/O.
Past efforts to create a "free-threaded" interpreter (one which locks shared data at a much finer granularity) have not been successful because performance suffered in the common single-processor case. It is believed that overcoming this performance issue would make the implementation much more complicated and therefore costlier to maintain.
- hashable
An object is hashable if it has a hash value which never changes during its lifetime (it needs a
__hash__()
method), and can be compared to other objects (it needs an__eq__()
or__cmp__()
method). Hashable objects which compare equal must have the same hash value.Hashability makes an object usable as a dictionary key and a set member, because these data structures use the hash value internally.
All of Python's immutable built-in objects are hashable, while no mutable containers (such as lists or dictionaries) are. Objects which are instances of user-defined classes are hashable by default; they all compare unequal (except with themselves), and their hash value is derived from their
id()
.- IDLE
- An Integrated Development Environment for Python. IDLE is a basic editor and interpreter environment which ships with the standard distribution of Python.
- immutable
- An object with a fixed value. Immutable objects include numbers, strings and tuples. Such an object cannot be altered. A new object has to be created if a different value has to be stored. They play an important role in places where a constant hash value is needed, for example as a key in a dictionary.
- integer division
- Mathematical division discarding any remainder. For example, the
expression
11/4
currently evaluates to2
in contrast to the2.75
returned by float division. Also called floor division. When dividing two integers the outcome will always be another integer (having the floor function applied to it). However, if one of the operands is another numeric type (such as afloat
), the result will be coerced (see coercion) to a common type. For example, an integer divided by a float will result in a float value, possibly with a decimal fraction. Integer division can be forced by using the//
operator instead of the/
operator. See also __future__. - importing
- The process by which Python code in one module is made available to Python code in another module.
- importer
- An object that both finds and loads a module; both a finder and loader object.
- interactive
- Python has an interactive interpreter which means you can enter
statements and expressions at the interpreter prompt, immediately
execute them and see their results. Just launch
python
with no arguments (possibly by selecting it from your computer's main menu). It is a very powerful way to test out new ideas or inspect modules and packages (rememberhelp(x)
). - interpreted
- Python is an interpreted language, as opposed to a compiled one, though the distinction can be blurry because of the presence of the bytecode compiler. This means that source files can be run directly without explicitly creating an executable which is then run. Interpreted languages typically have a shorter development/debug cycle than compiled ones, though their programs generally also run more slowly. See also interactive.
- iterable
- An object capable of returning its members one at a time. Examples of
iterables include all sequence types (such as
list
,str
, andtuple
) and some non-sequence types likedict
andfile
and objects of any classes you define with an__iter__()
or__getitem__()
method. Iterables can be used in afor
loop and in many other places where a sequence is needed (zip()
,map()
, ...). When an iterable object is passed as an argument to the built-in functioniter()
, it returns an iterator for the object. This iterator is good for one pass over the set of values. When using iterables, it is usually not necessary to calliter()
or deal with iterator objects yourself. Thefor
statement does that automatically for you, creating a temporary unnamed variable to hold the iterator for the duration of the loop. See also iterator, sequence, and generator. - iterator
An object representing a stream of data. Repeated calls to the iterator's
next()
method return successive items in the stream. When no more data are available aStopIteration
exception is raised instead. At this point, the iterator object is exhausted and any further calls to itsnext()
method just raiseStopIteration
again. Iterators are required to have an__iter__()
method that returns the iterator object itself so every iterator is also iterable and may be used in most places where other iterables are accepted. One notable exception is code which attempts multiple iteration passes. A container object (such as alist
) produces a fresh new iterator each time you pass it to theiter()
function or use it in afor
loop. Attempting this with an iterator will just return the same exhausted iterator object used in the previous iteration pass, making it appear like an empty container.More information can be found in Iterator Types.
- key function
A key function or collation function is a callable that returns a value used for sorting or ordering. For example,
locale.strxfrm()
is used to produce a sort key that is aware of locale specific sort conventions.A number of tools in Python accept key functions to control how elements are ordered or grouped. They include
min()
,max()
,sorted()
,list.sort()
,heapq.nsmallest()
,heapq.nlargest()
, anditertools.groupby()
.There are several ways to create a key function. For example. the
str.lower()
method can serve as a key function for case insensitive sorts. Alternatively, an ad-hoc key function can be built from alambda
expression such aslambda r: (r[0], r[2])
. Also, theoperator
module provides three key function constructors:attrgetter()
,itemgetter()
, andmethodcaller()
. See the Sorting HOW TO for examples of how to create and use key functions.- keyword argument
- See argument.
- lambda
- An anonymous inline function consisting of a single expression
which is evaluated when the function is called. The syntax to create
a lambda function is
lambda [arguments]: expression
- LBYL
Look before you leap. This coding style explicitly tests for pre-conditions before making calls or lookups. This style contrasts with the EAFP approach and is characterized by the presence of many
if
statements.In a multi-threaded environment, the LBYL approach can risk introducing a race condition between "the looking" and "the leaping". For example, the code,
if key in mapping: return mapping[key]
can fail if another thread removes key from mapping after the test, but before the lookup. This issue can be solved with locks or by using the EAFP approach.- list
- A built-in Python sequence. Despite its name it is more akin to an array in other languages than to a linked list since access to elements are O(1).
- list comprehension
- A compact way to process all or part of the elements in a sequence and
return a list with the results.
result = ["0x%02x" % x for x in range(256) if x % 2 == 0]
generates a list of strings containing even hex numbers (0x..) in the range from 0 to 255. Theif
clause is optional. If omitted, all elements inrange(256)
are processed. - loader
- An object that loads a module. It must define a method named
load_module()
. A loader is typically returned by a finder. See PEP 302 for details. - mapping
- A container object that supports arbitrary key lookups and implements the
methods specified in the
Mapping
orMutableMapping
abstract base classes. Examples includedict
,collections.defaultdict
,collections.OrderedDict
andcollections.Counter
. - metaclass
The class of a class. Class definitions create a class name, a class dictionary, and a list of base classes. The metaclass is responsible for taking those three arguments and creating the class. Most object oriented programming languages provide a default implementation. What makes Python special is that it is possible to create custom metaclasses. Most users never need this tool, but when the need arises, metaclasses can provide powerful, elegant solutions. They have been used for logging attribute access, adding thread-safety, tracking object creation, implementing singletons, and many other tasks.
More information can be found in Customizing class creation.
- method
- A function which is defined inside a class body. If called as an attribute
of an instance of that class, the method will get the instance object as
its first argument (which is usually called
self
). See function and nested scope. - method resolution order
- Method Resolution Order is the order in which base classes are searched for a member during lookup. See The Python 2.3 Method Resolution Order for details of the algorithm used by the Python interpreter since the 2.3 release.
- module
An object that serves as an organizational unit of Python code. Modules have a namespace containing arbitrary Python objects. Modules are loaded into Python by the process of importing.
See also package.
- MRO
- See method resolution order.
- mutable
- Mutable objects can change their value but keep their
id()
. See also immutable. - named tuple
Any tuple-like class whose indexable elements are also accessible using named attributes (for example,
time.localtime()
returns a tuple-like object where the year is accessible either with an index such ast[0]
or with a named attribute liket.tm_year
).A named tuple can be a built-in type such as
time.struct_time
, or it can be created with a regular class definition. A full featured named tuple can also be created with the factory functioncollections.namedtuple()
. The latter approach automatically provides extra features such as a self-documenting representation likeEmployee(name='jones', title='programmer')
.- namespace
- The place where a variable is stored. Namespaces are implemented as
dictionaries. There are the local, global and built-in namespaces as well
as nested namespaces in objects (in methods). Namespaces support
modularity by preventing naming conflicts. For instance, the functions
__builtin__.open()
andos.open()
are distinguished by their namespaces. Namespaces also aid readability and maintainability by making it clear which module implements a function. For instance, writingrandom.seed()
oritertools.izip()
makes it clear that those functions are implemented by therandom
anditertools
modules, respectively. - nested scope
- The ability to refer to a variable in an enclosing definition. For instance, a function defined inside another function can refer to variables in the outer function. Note that nested scopes work only for reference and not for assignment which will always write to the innermost scope. In contrast, local variables both read and write in the innermost scope. Likewise, global variables read and write to the global namespace.
- new-style class
Any class which inherits from
object
. This includes all built-in types likelist
anddict
. Only new-style classes can use Python's newer, versatile features like__slots__
, descriptors, properties, and__getattribute__()
.More information can be found in New-style and classic classes.
- object
- Any data with state (attributes or value) and defined behavior (methods). Also the ultimate base class of any new-style class.
- package
- A Python module which can contain submodules or recursively,
subpackages. Technically, a package is a Python module with an
__path__
attribute. - parameter
A named entity in a function (or method) definition that specifies an argument (or in some cases, arguments) that the function can accept. There are four types of parameters:
positional-or-keyword: specifies an argument that can be passed either positionally or as a keyword argument. This is the default kind of parameter, for example foo and bar in the following:
def func(foo, bar=None): ...
- positional-only: specifies an argument that can be supplied only
by position. Python has no syntax for defining positional-only
parameters. However, some built-in functions have positional-only
parameters (e.g.
abs()
). var-positional: specifies that an arbitrary sequence of positional arguments can be provided (in addition to any positional arguments already accepted by other parameters). Such a parameter can be defined by prepending the parameter name with
*
, for example args in the following:def func(*args, **kwargs): ...
- var-keyword: specifies that arbitrarily many keyword arguments
can be provided (in addition to any keyword arguments already accepted
by other parameters). Such a parameter can be defined by prepending
the parameter name with
**
, for example kwargs in the example above.
Parameters can specify both optional and required arguments, as well as default values for some optional arguments.
See also the argument glossary entry, the FAQ question on the difference between arguments and parameters, and the Function definitions section.
- positional argument
- See argument.
- Python 3000
- Nickname for the Python 3.x release line (coined long ago when the release of version 3 was something in the distant future.) This is also abbreviated "Py3k".
- Pythonic
An idea or piece of code which closely follows the most common idioms of the Python language, rather than implementing code using concepts common to other languages. For example, a common idiom in Python is to loop over all elements of an iterable using a
for
statement. Many other languages don't have this type of construct, so people unfamiliar with Python sometimes use a numerical counter instead:for i in range(len(food)): print food[i]
As opposed to the cleaner, Pythonic method:
for piece in food: print piece
- reference count
- The number of references to an object. When the reference count of an
object drops to zero, it is deallocated. Reference counting is
generally not visible to Python code, but it is a key element of the
CPython implementation. The
sys
module defines agetrefcount()
function that programmers can call to return the reference count for a particular object. - __slots__
- A declaration inside a new-style class that saves memory by pre-declaring space for instance attributes and eliminating instance dictionaries. Though popular, the technique is somewhat tricky to get right and is best reserved for rare cases where there are large numbers of instances in a memory-critical application.
- sequence
- An iterable which supports efficient element access using integer
indices via the
__getitem__()
special method and defines alen()
method that returns the length of the sequence. Some built-in sequence types arelist
,str
,tuple
, andunicode
. Note thatdict
also supports__getitem__()
and__len__()
, but is considered a mapping rather than a sequence because the lookups use arbitrary immutable keys rather than integers. - slice
- An object usually containing a portion of a sequence. A slice is
created using the subscript notation,
[]
with colons between numbers when several are given, such as invariable_name[1:3:5]
. The bracket (subscript) notation usesslice
objects internally (or in older versions,__getslice__()
and__setslice__()
). - special method
- A method that is called implicitly by Python to execute a certain operation on a type, such as addition. Such methods have names starting and ending with double underscores. Special methods are documented in Special method names.
- statement
- A statement is part of a suite (a "block" of code). A statement is either
an expression or one of several constructs with a keyword, such
as
if
,while
orfor
. - struct sequence
- A tuple with named elements. Struct sequences expose an interface similiar
to named tuple in that elements can either be accessed either by
index or as an attribute. However, they do not have any of the named tuple
methods like
_make()
or_asdict()
. Examples of struct sequences includesys.float_info
and the return value ofos.stat()
. - triple-quoted string
- A string which is bound by three instances of either a quotation mark (") or an apostrophe ('). While they don't provide any functionality not available with single-quoted strings, they are useful for a number of reasons. They allow you to include unescaped single and double quotes within a string and they can span multiple lines without the use of the continuation character, making them especially useful when writing docstrings.
- type
- The type of a Python object determines what kind of object it is; every
object has a type. An object's type is accessible as its
__class__
attribute or can be retrieved withtype(obj)
. - universal newlines
- A manner of interpreting text streams in which all of the following are
recognized as ending a line: the Unix end-of-line convention
'\n'
, the Windows convention'\r\n'
, and the old Macintosh convention'\r'
. See PEP 278 and PEP 3116, as well asstr.splitlines()
for an additional use. - virtual environment
- A cooperatively isolated runtime environment that allows Python users and applications to install and upgrade Python distribution packages without interfering with the behaviour of other Python applications running on the same system.
- virtual machine
- A computer defined entirely in software. Python's virtual machine executes the bytecode emitted by the bytecode compiler.
- Zen of Python
- Listing of Python design principles and philosophies that are helpful in
understanding and using the language. The listing can be found by typing
"
import this
" at the interactive prompt.