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•	Table of Contents
•	Index
•	Reviews
•	Examples
•	Reader Reviews
•	Errata

Python Cookbook
By Alex Martelli, David Ascher

Publisher	: O'Reilly
Pub Date	: July 2002
ISBN	: 0-596-00167-3
Pages	: 606

Foreword

Preface

The Design of the Book

The Implementation of the Book

A Note About Licenses

Audience

Organization

Further Reading

Conventions Used in This Book

How to Contact Us

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1. Python Shortcuts

Section 1.1. Introduction

Section 1.2. Swapping Values WithoutUsing a Temporary Variable

Section 1.3. Constructing a Dictionary Without Excessive Quoting

Section 1.4. Getting a Value from a Dictionary

Section 1.5. Adding an Entry to a Dictionary

Section 1.6. Associating Multiple Values with Each Key in a Dictionary

Section 1.7. Dispatching Using a Dictionary

Section 1.8. Collecting a Bunch of Named Items

Section 1.9. Finding the Intersection of Two Dictionaries

Section 1.10. Assigning and Testing with One Statement

Section 1.11. Using List Comprehensions Instead of map and filter

Section 1.12. Unzipping Simple List-Like Objects

Section 1.13. Flattening a Nested Sequence

Section 1.14. Looping in Parallel over Index and Sequence Items

Section 1.15. Looping Through Multiple Lists

Section 1.16. Spanning a Range Defined by Floats

Section 1.17. Transposing Two-Dimensional Arrays

Section 1.18. Creating Lists of Lists Without Sharing References

Chapter 2. Searching and Sorting

Section 2.1. Introduction

Section 2.2. Sorting a Dictionary

Section 2.3. Processing Selected Pairs of Structured Data Efficiently

Section 2.4. Sorting While Guaranteeing Sort Stability

Section 2.5. Sorting by One Field, Then by Another

Section 2.6. Looking for Items in a Sorted Sequence Using Binary Search

Section 2.7. Sorting a List of Objects by an Attribute of the Objects

Section 2.8. Sorting by Item or by Attribute

Section 2.9. Selecting Random Elements from a List Without Repetition

Section 2.10. Performing Frequent Membership Tests on a Sequence

Section 2.11. Finding the Deep Index of an Item in an Embedded Sequence

Section 2.12. Showing Off Quicksort in Three Lines

Section 2.13. Sorting Objects Using SQL's ORDER BY Syntax

Chapter 3. Text

Section 3.1. Introduction

Section 3.2. Processing a String One Character at a Time

Section 3.3. Testing if an Object Is String-Like

Section 3.4. Aligning Strings

Section 3.5. Trimming Space from the Ends of a String

Section 3.6. Combining Strings

Section 3.7. Checking Whether a String Contains a Set of Characters

Section 3.8. Filtering a String for a Set of Characters

Section 3.9. Controlling Case

Section 3.10. Reversing a String by Words or Characters

Section 3.11. Accessing Substrings

Section 3.12. Changing the Indentation of a Multiline String

Section 3.13. Testing Whether a String Represents an Integer

Section 3.14. Expanding and Compressing Tabs

Section 3.15. Replacing Multiple Patterns in a Single Pass

Section 3.16. Converting Between Different Naming Conventions

Section 3.17. Converting Between Characters and Values

Section 3.18. Converting Between Unicode and Plain Strings

Section 3.19. Printing Unicode Characters to Standard Output

Section 3.20. Dispatching Based on Pattern Matches

Section 3.21. Evaluating Code Inside Strings

Section 3.22. Replacing Python Code with the Results of Executing That Code

Section 3.23. Module: Yet Another Python Templating Utility (YAPTU)

Section 3.24. Module: Roman Numerals

Chapter 4. Files

Section 4.1. Introduction

Section 4.2. Reading from a File

Section 4.3. Writing to a File

Section 4.4. Searching and Replacing Text in a File

Section 4.5. Reading a Particular Line from a File

Section 4.6. Retrieving a Line at Random from a File of Unknown Size

Section 4.7. Counting Lines in a File

Section 4.8. Processing Every Word in a File

Section 4.9. Reading a Text File by Paragraphs

Section 4.10. Reading Lines with Continuation Characters

Section 4.11. Reading Data from ZIP Files

Section 4.12. Reading INI Configuration Files

Section 4.13. Sending Binary Data to Standard Output Under Windows

Section 4.14. Using Random-Access Input/Output

Section 4.15. Updating a Random-Access File

Section 4.16. Splitting a Path into All of Its Parts

Section 4.17. Treating Pathnames as Objects

Section 4.18. Creating Directories Including Necessary Parent Directories

Section 4.19. Walking Directory Trees

Section 4.20. Swapping One File Extension for Another Throughout a Directory Tree

Section 4.21. Finding a File Given an Arbitrary Search Path

Section 4.22. Finding a File on the Python Search Path

Section 4.23. Dynamically Changing the Python Search Path

Section 4.24. Computing Directory Sizes in a Cross-Platform Way

Section 4.25. File Locking Using a Cross-Platform API

Section 4.26. Versioning Filenames

Section 4.27. Module: Versioned Backups

Chapter 5. Object-Oriented Programming

Section 5.1. Introduction

Section 5.2. Overriding a Built-In Method

Section 5.3. Getting All Members of a Class Hierarchy

Section 5.4. Calling a Superclass _ _init_ _ Method if It Exists

Section 5.5. Calling a Superclass Implementation of a Method

Section 5.6. Implementing Properties

Section 5.7. Implementing Static Methods

Section 5.8. Implementing Class Methods

Section 5.9. Delegating Automatically as an Alternative to Inheritance

Section 5.10. Decorating an Object with Print-Like Methods

Section 5.11. Checking if an Object Has Necessary Attributes

Section 5.12. Making a Fast Copy of an Object

Section 5.13. Adding Methods to a Class at Runtime

Section 5.14. Modifying the Class Hierarchy of an Instance

Section 5.15. Keeping References to Bound Methods Without Inhibiting Garbage Collection

Section 5.16. Defining Constants

Section 5.17. Managing Options

Section 5.18. Implementing a Set Class

Section 5.19. Implementing a Ring Buffer

Section 5.20. Implementing a Collection

Section 5.21. Delegating Messages to Multiple Objects

Section 5.22. Implementing the Singleton Design Pattern

Section 5.23. Avoiding the Singleton Design Pattern with the Borg Idiom

Section 5.24. Implementing the Null Object Design Pattern

Chapter 6. Threads, Processes, and Synchronization

Section 6.1. Introduction

Section 6.2. Storing Per-Thread Information

Section 6.3. Terminating a Thread

Section 6.4. Allowing Multithreaded Read Access While Maintaining a Write Lock

Section 6.5. Running Functions in the Future

Section 6.6. Synchronizing All Methods in an Object

Section 6.7. Capturing the Output and Error Streams from a Unix Shell Command

Section 6.8. Forking a Daemon Process on Unix

Section 6.9. Determining if Another Instance of a Script Is Already Running in Windows

Section 6.10. Processing Windows Messages Using MsgWaitForMultipleObjects

Chapter 7. System Administration

Section 7.1. Introduction

Section 7.2. Running a Command Repeatedly

Section 7.3. Generating Random Passwords

Section 7.4. Generating Non-Totally Random Passwords

Section 7.5. Checking the Status of a Unix Network Interface

Section 7.6. Calculating Apache Hits per IP Address

Section 7.7. Calculating the Rate of Client Cache Hits on Apache

Section 7.8. Manipulating the Environment on Windows NT/2000/XP

Section 7.9. Checking and Modifying the Set of Tasks Windows Automatically Runs at Logon

Section 7.10. Examining the Microsoft Windows Registry for a List of Name Server Addresses

Section 7.11. Getting Information About the Current User on Windows NT/2000

Section 7.12. Getting the Windows Service Name from Its Long Name

Section 7.13. Manipulating Windows Services

Section 7.14. Impersonating Principals on Windows

Section 7.15. Changing a Windows NT Password Using ADSI

Section 7.16. Working with Windows Scripting Host (WSH) from Python

Section 7.17. Displaying Decoded Hotkeys for Shortcuts in Windows

Chapter 8. Databases and Persistence

Section 8.1. Introduction

Section 8.2. Serializing Data Using the marshal Module

Section 8.3. Serializing Data Using the pickle and cPickle Modules

Section 8.4. Using the cPickle Module on Classes and Instances

Section 8.5. Mutating Objects with shelve

Section 8.6. Accesssing a MySQL Database

Section 8.7. Storing a BLOB in a MySQL Database

Section 8.8. Storing a BLOB in a PostgreSQL Database

Section 8.9. Generating a Dictionary Mapping from Field Names to Column Numbers

Section 8.10. Using dtuple for Flexible Access to Query Results

Section 8.11. Pretty-Printing the Contents of Database Cursors

Section 8.12. Establishing Database Connections Lazily

Section 8.13. Accessing a JDBC Database from a Jython Servlet

Section 8.14. Module: jet2sql�Creating a SQL DDL from an Access Database

Chapter 9. User Interfaces

Section 9.1. Introduction

Section 9.2. Avoiding lambda in Writing Callback Functions

Section 9.3. Creating Menus with Tkinter

Section 9.4. Creating Dialog Boxes with Tkinter

Section 9.5. Supporting Multiple Values per Row in a Tkinter Listbox

Section 9.6. Embedding Inline GIFs Using Tkinter

Section 9.7. Combining Tkinter and Asynchronous I/O with Threads

Section 9.8. Using a wxPython Notebook with Panels

Section 9.9. Giving the User Unobtrusive Feedback During Data Entry with Qt

Section 9.10. Building GUI Solutions Independent of the Specific GUI Toolkit

Section 9.11. Creating Color Scales

Section 9.12. Using Publish/Subscribe Broadcasting to Loosen the Coupling Between GUI and Business Logic Systems

Section 9.13. Module: Building GTK GUIs Interactively

Chapter 10. Network Programming

Section 10.1. Introduction

Section 10.2. Writing a TCP Client

Section 10.3. Writing a TCP Server

Section 10.4. Passing Messages with Socket Datagrams

Section 10.5. Finding Your Own Name and Address

Section 10.6. Converting IP Addresses

Section 10.7. Grabbing a Document from the Web

Section 10.8. Being an FTP Client

Section 10.9. Sending HTML Mail

Section 10.10. Sending Multipart MIME Email

Section 10.11. Bundling Files in a MIME Message

Section 10.12. Unpacking a Multipart MIME Message

Section 10.13. Module: PyHeartBeat�Detecting Inactive Computers

Section 10.14. Module: Interactive POP3 Mailbox Inspector

Section 10.15. Module: Watching for New IMAP Mail Using a GUI

Chapter 11. Web Programming

Section 11.1. Introduction

Section 11.2. Testing Whether CGI Is Working

Section 11.3. Writing a CGI Script

Section 11.4. Using a Simple Dictionary for CGI Parameters

Section 11.5. Handling URLs Within a CGI Script

Section 11.6. Resuming the HTTP Download of a File

Section 11.7. Stripping Dangerous Tags and Javascript from HTML

Section 11.8. Running a Servlet with Jython

Section 11.9. Accessing Netscape Cookie Information

Section 11.10. Finding an Internet Explorer Cookie

Section 11.11. Module: Fetching Latitude/Longitude Data from the Web

Chapter 12. Processing XML

Section 12.1. Introduction

Section 12.2. Checking XML Well-Formedness

Section 12.3. Counting Tags in a Document

Section 12.4. Extracting Text from an XML Document

Section 12.5. Transforming an XML Document Using XSLT

Section 12.6. Transforming an XML Document Using Python

Section 12.7. Parsing an XML File with xml.parsers.expat

Section 12.8. Converting Ad-Hoc Text into XML Markup

Section 12.9. Normalizing an XML Document

Section 12.10. Controlling XSLT Stylesheet Loading

Section 12.11. Autodetecting XML Encoding

Section 12.12. Module: XML Lexing (Shallow Parsing)

Section 12.13. Module: Converting a List of Equal-Length Lists into XML

Chapter 13. Distributed Programming

Section 13.1. Introduction

Section 13.2. Making an XML-RPC Method Call

Section 13.3. Serving XML-RPC Requests

Section 13.4. Using XML-RPC with Medusa

Section 13.5. Writing a Web Service That Supports Both XML-RPC and SOAP

Section 13.6. Implementing a CORBA Client and Server

Section 13.7. Performing Remote Logins Using telnetlib

Section 13.8. Using Publish/Subscribe in a Distributed Middleware Architecture

Section 13.9. Using Request/Reply in a Distributed Middleware Architecture

Chapter 14. Debugging and Testing

Section 14.1. Introduction

Section 14.2. Reloading All Loaded Modules

Section 14.3. Tracing Expressions and Comments in Debug Mode

Section 14.4. Wrapping Tracebacks in HTML

Section 14.5. Getting More Information from Tracebacks

Section 14.6. Starting the Debugger Automatically After an Uncaught Exception

Section 14.7. Logging and Tracing Across Platforms

Section 14.8. Determining the Name of the Current Function

Section 14.9. Introspecting the Call Stack with Older Versions of Python

Section 14.10. Debugging the Garbage-Collection Process

Section 14.11. Tracking Instances of Particular Classes

Chapter 15. Programs About Programs

Section 15.1. Introduction

Section 15.2. Colorizing Python Source Using the Built-in Tokenizer

Section 15.3. Importing a Dynamically Generated Module

Section 15.4. Importing from a Module Whose Name Is Determined at Runtime

Section 15.5. Importing Modules with Automatic End-of-Line Conversions

Section 15.6. Simulating Enumerations in Python

Section 15.7. Modifying Methods in Place

Section 15.8. Associating Parameters with a Function (Currying)

Section 15.9. Composing Functions

Section 15.10. Adding Functionality to a Class

Section 15.11. Adding a Method to a Class Instance at Runtime

Section 15.12. Defining a Custom Metaclass to Control Class Behavior

Section 15.13. Module: Allowing the Python Profiler to Profile C Modules

Chapter 16. Extending and Embedding

Section 16.1. Introduction

Section 16.2. Implementing a Simple Extension Type

Section 16.3. Translating a Python Sequence into a C Array with the PySequence_Fast Protocol

Section 16.4. Accessing a Python Sequence Item-by-Item with the Iterator Protocol

Section 16.5. Returning None from a Python-Callable C Function

Section 16.6. Coding the Methods of a Python Class in C

Section 16.7. Implementing C Function Callbacks to a Python Function

Section 16.8. Debugging Dynamically Loaded C Extensions with gdb

Section 16.9. Debugging Memory Problems

Section 16.10. Using SWIG-Generated Modules in a Multithreaded Environment

Chapter 17. Algorithms

Section 17.1. Introduction

Section 17.2. Testing if a Variable Is Defined

Section 17.3. Evaluating Predicate Tests Across Sequences

Section 17.4. Removing Duplicates from a Sequence

Section 17.5. Removing Duplicates from a Sequence While Maintaining Sequence Order

Section 17.6. Simulating the Ternary Operator in Python

Section 17.7. Counting Items and Sorting by Incidence (Histograms)

Section 17.8. Memoizing (Caching) the Return Values of Functions

Section 17.9. Looking Up Words by Sound Similarity

Section 17.10. Computing Factorials with lambda

Section 17.11. Generating the Fibonacci Sequence

Section 17.12. Wrapping an Unbounded Iterator to Restrict Its Output

Section 17.13. Operating on Iterators

Section 17.14. Rolling Dice

Section 17.15. Implementing a First-In First-Out Container

Section 17.16. Modeling a Priority Queue

Section 17.17. Converting Numbers to Rationals via Farey Fractions

Section 17.18. Evaluating a Polynomial

Section 17.19. Module: Finding the Convex Hull of a Set of 2D Points

Section 17.20. Module: Parsing a String into a Date/Time Object Portably

Chapter 16. List of Contributors

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