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Python Library Reference

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3. Python Runtime Services

The modules described in this chapter provide a wide range of services related to the Python interpreter and its interaction with its environment. Here's an overview:

sys	Access system-specific parameters and functions.
gc	Interface to the cycle-detecting garbage collector.
weakref	Support for weak references and weak dictionaries.
fpectl	Provide control for floating point exception handling.
atexit	Register and execute cleanup functions.
types	Names for all built-in types.
UserDict	Class wrapper for dictionary objects.
UserList	Class wrapper for list objects.
UserString	Class wrapper for string objects.
operator	All Python's standard operators as built-in functions.
inspect	Extract information and source code from live objects.
traceback	Print or retrieve a stack traceback.
linecache	This module provides random access to individual lines from text files.
pickle	Convert Python objects to streams of bytes and back.
cPickle	Faster version of pickle, but not subclassable.
copy_reg	Register pickle support functions.
shelve	Python object persistence.
copy	Shallow and deep copy operations.
marshal	Convert Python objects to streams of bytes and back (with different constraints).
warnings	Issue warning messages and control their disposition.
imp	Access the implementation of the import statement.
code	Base classes for interactive Python interpreters.
codeop	Compile (possibly incomplete) Python code.
pprint	Data pretty printer.
repr	Alternate repr() implementation with size limits.
new	Interface to the creation of runtime implementation objects.
site	A standard way to reference site-specific modules.
user	A standard way to reference user-specific modules.
__builtin__	The set of built-in functions.
__main__	The environment where the top-level script is run.

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Python Library Reference

Previous: 2.3 Built-in Functions Up: Python Library Reference Next: 3.1 sys

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Release 2.1.3, documentation updated on April 8, 2002.