The Python Standard Library¶
WhileThe Python Language Reference describes the exact syntax andsemantics of the Python language, this library reference manualdescribes the standard library that is distributed with Python. It alsodescribes some of the optional components that are commonly includedin Python distributions.
Python’s standard library is very extensive, offering a wide range offacilities as indicated by the long table of contents listed below. Thelibrary contains built-in modules (written in C) that provide access tosystem functionality such as file I/O that would otherwise beinaccessible to Python programmers, as well as modules written in Pythonthat provide standardized solutions for many problems that occur ineveryday programming. Some of these modules are explicitly designed toencourage and enhance the portability of Python programs by abstractingaway platform-specifics into platform-neutral APIs.
The Python installers for the Windows platform usually includethe entire standard library and often also include many additionalcomponents. For Unix-like operating systems Python is normally providedas a collection of packages, so it may be necessary to use the packagingtools provided with the operating system to obtain some or all of theoptional components.
In addition to the standard library, there is an active collection ofhundreds of thousands of components (from individual programs and modules topackages and entire application development frameworks), available fromthePython Package Index.
- Introduction
- Built-in Functions
- Built-in Constants
- Built-in Types
- Truth Value Testing
- Boolean Operations —
and,or,not - Comparisons
- Numeric Types —
int,float,complex - Boolean Type -
bool - Iterator Types
- Sequence Types —
list,tuple,range - Text Sequence Type —
str - Binary Sequence Types —
bytes,bytearray,memoryview - Set Types —
set,frozenset - Mapping Types —
dict - Context Manager Types
- Type Annotation Types —Generic Alias,Union
- Other Built-in Types
- Special Attributes
- Integer string conversion length limitation
- Built-in Exceptions
- Text Processing Services
- Binary Data Services
- Data Types
datetime— Basic date and time typeszoneinfo— IANA time zone supportcalendar— General calendar-related functionscollections— Container datatypescollections.abc— Abstract Base Classes for Containersheapq— Heap queue algorithmbisect— Array bisection algorithmarray— Efficient arrays of numeric valuesweakref— Weak referencestypes— Dynamic type creation and names for built-in typescopy— Shallow and deep copy operationspprint— Data pretty printerreprlib— Alternaterepr()implementationenum— Support for enumerationsgraphlib— Functionality to operate with graph-like structures
- Numeric and Mathematical Modules
- Functional Programming Modules
- File and Directory Access
pathlib— Object-oriented filesystem pathsos.path— Common pathname manipulationsstat— Interpretingstat()resultsfilecmp— File and Directory Comparisonstempfile— Generate temporary files and directoriesglob— Unix style pathname pattern expansionfnmatch— Unix filename pattern matchinglinecache— Random access to text linesshutil— High-level file operations
- Data Persistence
- Data Compression and Archiving
- File Formats
- Cryptographic Services
- Generic Operating System Services
os— Miscellaneous operating system interfacesio— Core tools for working with streamstime— Time access and conversionslogging— Logging facility for Pythonlogging.config— Logging configurationlogging.handlers— Logging handlersplatform— Access to underlying platform’s identifying dataerrno— Standard errno system symbolsctypes— A foreign function library for Python
- Command Line Interface Libraries
argparse— Parser for command-line options, arguments and subcommandsoptparse— Parser for command line optionsgetpass— Portable password inputfileinput— Iterate over lines from multiple input streamscurses— Terminal handling for character-cell displayscurses.textpad— Text input widget for curses programscurses.ascii— Utilities for ASCII characterscurses.panel— A panel stack extension for curses
- Concurrent Execution
threading— Thread-based parallelismmultiprocessing— Process-based parallelismmultiprocessing.shared_memory— Shared memory for direct access across processes- The
concurrentpackage concurrent.futures— Launching parallel taskssubprocess— Subprocess managementsched— Event schedulerqueue— A synchronized queue classcontextvars— Context Variables_thread— Low-level threading API
- Networking and Interprocess Communication
- Internet Data Handling
email— An email and MIME handling packagejson— JSON encoder and decodermailbox— Manipulate mailboxes in various formatsmimetypes— Map filenames to MIME typesbase64— Base16, Base32, Base64, Base85 Data Encodingsbinascii— Convert between binary and ASCIIquopri— Encode and decode MIME quoted-printable data
- Structured Markup Processing Tools
html— HyperText Markup Language supporthtml.parser— Simple HTML and XHTML parserhtml.entities— Definitions of HTML general entities- XML Processing Modules
xml.etree.ElementTree— The ElementTree XML APIxml.dom— The Document Object Model APIxml.dom.minidom— Minimal DOM implementationxml.dom.pulldom— Support for building partial DOM treesxml.sax— Support for SAX2 parsersxml.sax.handler— Base classes for SAX handlersxml.sax.saxutils— SAX Utilitiesxml.sax.xmlreader— Interface for XML parsersxml.parsers.expat— Fast XML parsing using Expat
- Internet Protocols and Support
webbrowser— Convenient web-browser controllerwsgiref— WSGI Utilities and Reference Implementationurllib— URL handling modulesurllib.request— Extensible library for opening URLsurllib.response— Response classes used by urlliburllib.parse— Parse URLs into componentsurllib.error— Exception classes raised by urllib.requesturllib.robotparser— Parser for robots.txthttp— HTTP moduleshttp.client— HTTP protocol clientftplib— FTP protocol clientpoplib— POP3 protocol clientimaplib— IMAP4 protocol clientsmtplib— SMTP protocol clientuuid— UUID objects according toRFC 4122socketserver— A framework for network servershttp.server— HTTP servershttp.cookies— HTTP state managementhttp.cookiejar— Cookie handling for HTTP clientsxmlrpc— XMLRPC server and client modulesxmlrpc.client— XML-RPC client accessxmlrpc.server— Basic XML-RPC serversipaddress— IPv4/IPv6 manipulation library
- Multimedia Services
- Internationalization
- Program Frameworks
- Graphical User Interfaces with Tk
tkinter— Python interface to Tcl/Tktkinter.colorchooser— Color choosing dialogtkinter.font— Tkinter font wrapper- Tkinter Dialogs
tkinter.messagebox— Tkinter message promptstkinter.scrolledtext— Scrolled Text Widgettkinter.dnd— Drag and drop supporttkinter.ttk— Tk themed widgets- IDLE — Python editor and shell
- Development Tools
typing— Support for type hintspydoc— Documentation generator and online help system- Python Development Mode
doctest— Test interactive Python examplesunittest— Unit testing frameworkunittest.mock— mock object libraryunittest.mock— getting startedtest— Regression tests package for Pythontest.support— Utilities for the Python test suitetest.support.socket_helper— Utilities for socket teststest.support.script_helper— Utilities for the Python execution teststest.support.bytecode_helper— Support tools for testing correct bytecode generationtest.support.threading_helper— Utilities for threading teststest.support.os_helper— Utilities for os teststest.support.import_helper— Utilities for import teststest.support.warnings_helper— Utilities for warnings tests
- Debugging and Profiling
- Software Packaging and Distribution
- Python Runtime Services
sys— System-specific parameters and functionssys.monitoring— Execution event monitoringsysconfig— Provide access to Python’s configuration informationbuiltins— Built-in objects__main__— Top-level code environmentwarnings— Warning controldataclasses— Data Classescontextlib— Utilities forwith-statement contextsabc— Abstract Base Classesatexit— Exit handlerstraceback— Print or retrieve a stack traceback__future__— Future statement definitionsgc— Garbage Collector interfaceinspect— Inspect live objectssite— Site-specific configuration hook
- Custom Python Interpreters
- Importing Modules
zipimport— Import modules from Zip archivespkgutil— Package extension utilitymodulefinder— Find modules used by a scriptrunpy— Locating and executing Python modulesimportlib— The implementation ofimportimportlib.resources– Package resource reading, opening and accessimportlib.resources.abc– Abstract base classes for resourcesimportlib.metadata– Accessing package metadata- The initialization of the
sys.pathmodule search path
- Python Language Services
ast— Abstract Syntax Treessymtable— Access to the compiler’s symbol tablestoken— Constants used with Python parse treeskeyword— Testing for Python keywordstokenize— Tokenizer for Python sourcetabnanny— Detection of ambiguous indentationpyclbr— Python module browser supportpy_compile— Compile Python source filescompileall— Byte-compile Python librariesdis— Disassembler for Python bytecodepickletools— Tools for pickle developers
- MS Windows Specific Services
- Unix Specific Services
posix— The most common POSIX system callspwd— The password databasegrp— The group databasetermios— POSIX style tty controltty— Terminal control functionspty— Pseudo-terminal utilitiesfcntl— Thefcntlandioctlsystem callsresource— Resource usage informationsyslog— Unix syslog library routines
- Modules command-line interface (CLI)
- Superseded Modules
- Removed Modules
- Security Considerations