Generic Operating System Services

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