[.ca] Python Standard Library (ISBN 0596000960)

From Amazon.co.uk:
Ideal for any working Python developer, Fredik Lundh's Python Standard Library provides an excellent tour of some of the most important modules in today's Python 2.0 standard. Mixing sample code and plenty of expert advice, this title will be indispensable for programmers. The book presents sample script code for almost 200 of the built-in modules in Python 2.0--written by a frequent contributor to Python newsgroups--and shows how to solve common programming problems in Python. Instead of a function-based reference, you get sample scripts for a wide variety of solutions centring on different Python modules. Early sections look at core modules for working with the operating system, maths and strings, among other functions. Material on Python's excellent support for files and directories will help you master the file system. Explanations of various encryption schemes will let you add security to your Python scripts. Getting Python to multitask with multiple threads comes next, along with getting Python programs to communicate using pipes and signals. After sample scripts for "pickling" Python objects to and from files, the book delves into modules that are geared toward today's Internet. First, there's coverage of Python's support for XML, HTML and SGML, followed by a discussion of its extensive networking support for low-level sockets to high-level Internet protocols, including e-mail and FTP. Sample scripts for e-mail will be really useful for any Python programmer. Later chapters provide coverage of internationalisation support in Python and its support for multimedia. The book closes with material on platform-specific modules (which are specific to Unix and/or Windows) as well as modules that are obsolete but necessary to understanding legacy Python code. There's a lot of expertise on display in Python Standard Library. The code does much of the talking in this example-packed text, which is sure to earn its place on any working Python programmer's bookshelf. --Richard Dragan Topics covered: introduction to the Python 2.0 standard modules core modules (including modules for operating system functions, string, maths and time) file and directory modules encryption and security modules threads, processes, pipes and signals in Python persisting Python objects (marshalling and "pickling" objects) Python modules for XML, HTML and SGML modules for e-mail and news support Internet programming with Python (including sockets, a chat example, FTP, SMTP, IMAP, POP and Telnet) internationalisation support mmmodules for multimedia support (image and sound files) data storage in Python (with shelves) Python tools platform-specific modules (including Unix- and Windows-specific modules) miscellaneous and legacy Python modules

Nice Supplemental Text:
This is a nice supplemental text for the Standard Library documentation. Sometimes you find yourself puzzled as to how a module is to be used, even after reading the documentation. This book provides a little extra help in that regards by providing concise examples that point you in the right direction. I can't give it five stars because it is a little sparse for the price. Please be warned, the book is almost all code. Don't expect a great deal of explanatory text.

One of the less useful books on Python, for me.:
I am a relatively new programmer, who has used only Python and PHP to any significant extent, so ... I have Python Essential Reference (1st. edition) and this book side-by-side on my shelf at work. I use Python Essential Reference and the online module documentation almost equally, and I almost never pick up this book.

Interesting, but not necessary:
I was hoping for something along the lines of the book the "Standard C Library" book by P.J. Plauger. Unfortunately, this book is nowhere near as complete. Still, there are interesting and useful bits here and there, and it does serve as a decent supplement to the Python library book included in the distribution itself.

Good guide but not really a reference:
This book isn't really a reference for the Python standard library - David Beazley's "Python Essential Reference" probably fills that gap better - but it is a very useful guide to what the library can be used for, with a comprehensive and motivated selection of code examples.

A must-have for the non-expert Python programmer:
If you are learning Python, a beginner to intermediate Python programmer, you'll want to get a copy of this book. It won't do as your only Python book, but as a supplement to Learning Python or one of the other introductory Python books, it is invaluable for the non-expert Python programmer. If you bought the first edition of the book, which was available only as an eBook, you'll want this edition as it covers Python 2.0 as well as Python 1.5.2. (The eBook edition covered only Python 1.5.2.) Each chapter begins with a brief summary of what will be covered. Chapter 4 is summarised as follows: "This chapter describes a number of modules that can be used to convert between Python objects and other data representations. These modules are often used to read and write foreign file formats and to store or transfer Python variables." It's terse, to be sure, but it's not meant for someone who has never looked at Python before. Frederik assumes you know which module you want to use and gives you some sample code that shows you how to use it. You might ask on a newsgroup how to parse an HTML file. Someone will answer and tell you to look at either the htmllib or sgmllib module. Great. So, umm, how do you use them? A sample script showing you how to do something with either module or both could save you hours of frustration. Frederik also gives you tips on how best to use a module or when not to use it. For example, in describing the htmllib module, he says "If you're only out to parse an HTML file and not render it to an output device, it's usually easier to use the sgmllib module instead." The book is sprinkled with tips. Early in Chapter 1 he points out that "What you might now know already is that import delegates the actual work to a built-in function called __import__. The trick is that you can call this function directly. This can be handy if you have the module name in a string variable, which imports all modules whose names end with '-plugin'." The books covers: core modules (eg, re, time); more standard modules (eg, file input, md5); threads and processes (eg, thread, pipes); data representation (eg, pickle, base64); file formats (eg, xmllib, zipfile); mail and news message processing (eg, rfc822, mimetypes); network protocols (eg, socket, asyncore); internationalisation (eg, unicodedata); multimedia modules (eg, wave, winsound); data storage (eg, dbhash, gdbm); tools and utilities (eg, pdb, profile); platform-specific modules (eg, pwd, nt); implementation support modules (eg, macpath, ntpath); and other modules (eg, Bastion, calendar, posixfile, regsub). The sample code is printed in Courier and some of the samples are tracked too tightly, making it difficult to read. I assume in production they applied the same tracking values for the body text to the code text. (Tracking is the spacing between a series of characters where kerning is the space between two characters.) But that happens only occasionally. Also included with the book is a CD which contains copies of all the scripts plus an evaluation copy of PythonWorks Pro 1.2, a Python IDE for Windows, Linux, and Solaris. (Fredrik works for Secret Labs AB who develop PythonWorks.) I was able to browse and open the sample files on MacOS X. But of course I couldn't try the evaluation copies of PythonWorks. I would rather they had dropped the CD and made the sample scripts available as a download -- it would drop a few dollars off the cost of the book. If you're an expert Python programmer you won't need this book. But if you're a beginner to intermediate Python programmer you'll find the sample code and commentary invaluable when you try to implement an unfamiliar module, particularly some of the more complex ones. And the tips sprinkled throughout the text will help you achieve mastery of this most glorious of programming languages. Highly recommended.