Generic Operating System Services

The modules described in this chapter provide interfaces to operating system features that are available on (almost) all operating systems, such as files and a clock. The interfaces are generally modeled after the Unix or C interfaces, but they are available on most other systems as well. Here’s an overview:

• os — Miscellaneous operating system interfaces
  • Process Parameters
  • File Object Creation
  • File Descriptor Operations
  • Files and Directories
  • Process Management
  • Miscellaneous System Information
  • Miscellaneous Functions

• io — Core tools for working with streams
  • Module Interface
  • I/O Base Classes
  • Raw File I/O
  • Buffered Streams
  • Text I/O

• time — Time access and conversions

• optparse — More powerful command line option parser
  • Background
    • Terminology
    • What are options for?
    • What are positional arguments for?
  • Tutorial
    • Understanding option actions
    • The store action
    • Handling boolean (flag) options
    • Other actions
    • Default values
    • Generating help
    • Printing a version string
    • How optparse handles errors
    • Putting it all together
  • Reference Guide
    • Creating the parser
    • Populating the parser
    • Defining options
    • Standard option actions
    • Option attributes
    • Standard option types
    • Parsing arguments
    • Querying and manipulating your option parser
    • Conflicts between options
    • Cleanup
    • Other methods
  • Option Callbacks
    • Defining a callback option
    • How callbacks are called
    • Raising errors in a callback
    • Callback example 1: trivial callback
    • Callback example 2: check option order
    • Callback example 3: check option order (generalized)
    • Callback example 4: check arbitrary condition
    • Callback example 5: fixed arguments
    • Callback example 6: variable arguments
  • Extending optparse
    • Adding new types
    • Adding new actions

• getopt — Parser for command line options

• logging — Logging facility for Python
  • Logging tutorial
    • Simple examples
    • Loggers
    • Handlers
    • Formatters
    • Configuring Logging
    • Configuring Logging for a Library
  • Logging Levels
  • Logger Objects
  • Basic example
  • Logging to multiple destinations
  • Adding contextual information to your logging output
  • Sending and receiving logging events across a network
  • Handler Objects
    • StreamHandler
    • FileHandler
    • WatchedFileHandler
    • RotatingFileHandler
    • TimedRotatingFileHandler
    • SocketHandler
    • DatagramHandler
    • SysLogHandler
    • NTEventLogHandler
    • SMTPHandler
    • MemoryHandler
    • HTTPHandler
  • Formatter Objects
  • Filter Objects
  • LogRecord Objects
  • LoggerAdapter Objects
  • Thread Safety
  • Configuration
    • Configuration functions
    • Configuration file format
    • Configuration server example
  • More examples
    • Multiple handlers and formatters
    • Using logging in multiple modules

• getpass — Portable password input

• curses — Terminal handling for character-cell displays
  • Functions
  • Window Objects
  • Constants
• curses.textpad — Text input widget for curses programs
  • Textbox objects
• curses.wrapper — Terminal handler for curses programs

• curses.ascii — Utilities for ASCII characters

• curses.panel — A panel stack extension for curses.
  • Functions
  • Panel Objects

• platform — Access to underlying platform’s identifying data.
  • Cross Platform
  • Java Platform
  • Windows Platform
    • Win95/98 specific
  • Mac OS Platform
  • Unix Platforms

• errno — Standard errno system symbols

• ctypes — A foreign function library for Python.
  • ctypes tutorial
    • Loading dynamic link libraries
    • Accessing functions from loaded dlls
    • Calling functions
    • Fundamental data types
    • Calling functions, continued
    • Calling functions with your own custom data types
    • Specifying the required argument types (function prototypes)
    • Return types
    • Passing pointers (or: passing parameters by reference)
    • Structures and unions
    • Structure/union alignment and byte order
    • Bit fields in structures and unions
    • Arrays
    • Pointers
    • Type conversions
    • Incomplete Types
    • Callback functions
    • Accessing values exported from dlls
    • Surprises
    • Variable-sized data types
  • ctypes reference
    • Finding shared libraries
    • Loading shared libraries
    • Foreign functions
    • Function prototypes
    • Utility functions
    • Data types
    • Fundamental data types
    • Structured data types
    • Arrays and pointers