Python:StandardLibrary

lastmod 2025-06-12created 2022-07-183 edits

The Python Standard Library.

While The Python Language Reference describes the exact syntax and semantics of the Python language, this library reference manual describes the standard library that is distributed with Python. It also describes some of the optional components that are commonly included in Python distributions.

Text Processing Services

Python:string - Common string operations
Python:re - Regular expression operations
Python:difflib - Helpers for computing deltas
Python:textwrap - Text wrapping and filling
- Python:textwrap#shorten - Truncate a string with an ellipsis
- Python:textwrap#wrap - Wrap a string into lines
Python:unicodedata - Unicode database
Python:stringprep - Internet string preparation
Python:readline - GNU readline interface
Python:rlcompleter - Completion function for GNU readline

Binary Data Services

Python:struct - Interpret bytes as packed binary data
Python:codecs - Codec registry and base classes

Data Types

Python:datetime - Basic date and time types
Python:zoneinfo - IANA time zone support
Python:calendar - General calendar-related functions
- Python:calendar#isleap - Leap year check
Python:collections - Container datatypes
- Python:collections#deque - Deque
- Python:collections#namedtuple - Tuple with named fields
- Python:collections#Counter - Count of identical elements
- Python:collections#defaultdict - Default values for a dictionary
Python:collections.abc - Abstract base classes for containers
Python:heapq - Heap queue algorithm
Python:bisect - Array bisection algorithm
Python:array - Efficient arrays of numeric values
Python:weakref - Weak references
Python:types - Dynamic type creation and names for built-in types
Python:copy - Shallow and deep copy operations
Python:pprint - Data pretty printer
Python:reprlib - Alternate repr() implementation
Python:enum - Support for enumerations
Python:graphlib - Functionality to operate with graph-like structures
- Python:graphlib#TopologicalSorter - Topological sort

Numeric and Mathematical Modules

Python:numbers - Numeric abstract base classes
Python:math - Mathematical functions
- Python:math#gcd - Greatest common divisor
- Python:math#lcm - Least common multiple
Python:cmath - Mathematical functions for complex numbers
Python:decimal - Decimal fixed point and floating point arithmetic
Python:fractions - Rational numbers
Python:random - Generate pseudo-random numbers
Python:statistics - Mathematical statistics functions

Functional Programming Modules

Python:itertools - Functions creating iterators for efficient looping
- Python:itertools#cycle - Infinite iterator
- Python:itertools#accumulate - Cumulative sum
- Python:itertools#groupby - Group by key
- Python:itertools#zip_longest - Zip based on the longest one
- Python:itertools#permutations - Permutations
- Python:itertools#combinations - Combinations
Python:functools - Higher-order functions and operations on callable objects
- Python:functools#cmp_to_key - Sort with a function
- Python:functools#lru_cache - Cache function results
- Python:functools#partial - Redefine a function with fixed arguments
- Python:functools#reduce - Apply a function to reduce to a single value
- Python:functools#wraps - Preserve the attributes of a wrapper function
Python:operator - Standard operators as functions
- Python:operator#itemgetter - Multi-level sorting
- itertools.cycle - Infinite iterator
- itertools.accumulate - Cumulative sum
- itertools.groupby - Group by key
- itertools.zip_longest - Zip based on the longest one
- itertools.permutations - Permutations
- itertools.combinations - Combinations
- functools.cmp_to_key - Sort with a function
- functools.lru_cache - Cache function results
- functools.partial - Redefine a function with fixed arguments
- functools.reduce - Apply a function to reduce to a single value
- functools.wraps - Preserve the attributes of a wrapper function
- operator.itemgetter - Multi-level sorting

File and Directory Access

Python:pathlib - Object-oriented file system paths
Python:os.path - Common pathname manipulations
Python:fileinput - Iterate over lines from multiple input streams
Python:stat - Interpreting stat() results
Python:filecmp - File and directory comparisons
Python:tempfile - Generate temporary files and directories
Python:glob - Unix style pathname pattern expansion
Python:fnmatch - Unix filename pattern matching
Python:linecache - Random access to text lines
Python:shutil - High-level file operations

Data Persistence

Python:pickle - Python object serialization
Python:copyreg - Register pickle support functions
Python:shelve - Python object persistence
Python:marshal - Internal Python object serialization
Python:dbm - Interfaces to Unix "databases"
Python:sqlite3 - DB-API 2.0 interface for SQLite databases

Data Compression and Archiving

Python:zlib - Compression compatible with gzip
Python:gzip - Support for gzip files
Python:bz2 - Support for bzip2 compression
Python:lzma - Compression using the LZMA algorithm
Python:zipfile - Work with ZIP archives
Python:tarfile - Read and write tar archive files

File Formats

Python:csv - CSV file reading and writing
Python:configparser - Configuration file parser
Python:netrc - netrc file processing
Python:xdrlib - Encode and decode XDR data
Python:plistlib - Generate and parse Apple .plist files

Cryptographic Services

Python:hashlib - Secure hashes and message digests
Python:hmac - Keyed-hashing for message authentication
Python:secrets - Generate secure random numbers for managing secrets

Generic Operating System Services

Python:os - Miscellaneous operating system interfaces
Python:io - Core tools for working with streams - includes the ByteIO object.
Python:time - Time access and conversions
Python:argparse - Parser for command-line options, arguments and sub-commands
Python:getopt - C-style parser for command line options
Python:logging - Logging facility for Python
Python:logging.config - Logging configuration
Python:logging.handlers - Logging handlers
Python:getpass - Portable password input
Python:curses - Terminal handling for character-cell displays
Python:curses.textpad - Text input widget for curses programs
Python:curses.ascii - Utilities for ASCII characters
Python:curses.panel - A panel stack extension for curses
Python:platform - Access to underlying platform's identifying data
Python:errno - Standard errno system symbols
Python:ctypes - A foreign function library for Python

Concurrent Execution

Python:threading - Thread-based parallelism
Python:multiprocessing - Process-based parallelism
Python:multiprocessing.shared_memory - Provides shared memory for direct access across processes
Python:concurrent
Python:concurrent.futures - Launching parallel tasks
Python:subprocess - Subprocess management
Python:sched - Event scheduler
Python:queue - A synchronized queue class
Python:contextvars - Context variables
Python:_thread - Low-level threading API

Networking and Interprocess Communication

Python:asyncio - Asynchronous I/O
Python:socket - Low-level networking interface
Python:ssl - TLS/SSL wrapper for socket objects
Python:select - Waiting for I/O completion
Python:selectors - High-level I/O multiplexing
Python:asyncore - Asynchronous socket handler
Python:asynchat - Asynchronous socket command/response handler
Python:signal - Set handlers for asynchronous events
Python:mmap - Memory-mapped file support

Internet Data Handling

Python:email - An email and MIME handling package
Python:json - JSON encoder and decoder
Python:mailcap - Mailcap file handling
Python:mailbox - Manipulate mailboxes in various formats
Python:mimetypes - Map filenames to MIME types
Python:base64 - Base16, Base32, Base64, Base85 data encodings
Python:binhex - Encode and decode binhex4 files
Python:binascii - Convert between binary and ASCII
Python:quopri - Encode and decode MIME quoted-printable data
Python:uu - Encode and decode uuencode files

Structured Markup Processing Tools

Python:html - HyperText Markup Language support
Python:html.parser - Simple HTML and XHTML parser
Python:html.entities - Definitions of HTML general entities
XML processing modules
Python:xml.etree.ElementTree - ElementTree XML API
Python:xml.dom - The Document Object Model API
Python:xml.dom.minidom - Minimal DOM implementation
Python:xml.dom.pulldom - Support for building partial DOM trees
Python:xml.sax - Support for SAX2 parsers
Python:xml.sax.handler - Base classes for SAX handlers
Python:xml.sax.saxutils - SAX utilities
Python:xml.sax.xmlreader - Interface for XML parsers
Python:xml.parsers.expat - Fast XML parsing using Expat

Internet Protocols and Support

Python:webbrowser - Convenient web-browser controller
Python:cgi - Common Gateway Interface support
Python:cgitb - Traceback manager for CGI scripts
Python:wsgiref - WSGI utilities and reference implementation
Python:urllib - URL handling modules
Python:urllib.request - Extensible library for opening URLs
Python:urllib.response - Response classes used by urllib
Python:urllib.parse - Parse URLs into components
Python:urllib.error - Exception classes raised by urllib.request
Python:urllib.robotparser - Parser for robots.txt
Python:http - HTTP modules
Python:http.client - HTTP protocol client
Python:ftplib - FTP protocol client
Python:poplib - POP3 protocol client
Python:imaplib - IMAP4 protocol client
Python:nntplib - NNTP protocol client
Python:smtplib - SMTP protocol client
Python:smtpd - SMTP Server
Python:telnetlib - Telnet client
Python:uuid - UUID objects according to RFC 4122
Python:socketserver - A framework for network servers
Python:http.server - HTTP servers
Python:http.cookies - HTTP state management
Python:http.cookiejar - Cookie handling for HTTP clients
Python:xmlrpc - XMLRPC server and client modules
Python:xmlrpc.client - XML-RPC client access
Python:xmlrpc.server - Basic XML-RPC servers
Python:ipaddress - IPv4/IPv6 manipulation library

Multimedia Services

Python:audioop - Manipulate raw audio data
Python:aifc - Read and write AIFF and AIFC files
Python:sunau - Read and write Sun AU files
Python:wave - Read and write WAV files
Python:chunk - Read IFF chunked data
Python:colorsys - Conversions between color systems
Python:imghdr - Determine the type of an image
Python:sndhdr - Determine the type of a sound file
Python:ossaudiodev - Access to OSS-compatible audio devices

Internationalization

Python:gettext - Multilingual internationalization services
Python:locale - Internationalization services

Program Frameworks

Python:turtle - Turtle graphics
Python:cmd - Support for line-oriented command interpreters
Python:shlex - Simple lexical analysis

Graphical User Interfaces with Tk

Tkinter
Python:tkinter - Python interface to Tcl/Tk
Python:tkinter.colorchooser - Color choosing dialog
Python:tkinter.font - Tkinter font wrapper
Tkinter dialogs
Python:tkinter.messagebox - Tkinter message prompts
Python:tkinter.scrolledtext - Scrolled Text widget
Python:tkinter.dnd - Drag and drop support
Python:tkinter.ttk - Tk themed widgets
Python:tkinter.tix - Extension widgets for Tk

Development Tools

Python:typing - Support for type hints
Python:pydoc - Documentation generator and online help system
Python Development Mode
Effects of the Python Development Mode
ResourceWarning example
Bad file descriptor error example
Python:doctest - Test interactive Python examples
Python:unittest - Unit testing framework
Python:unittest.mock - Mock object library
Python:unittest.mock - Getting started
Python:2to3 - Automated Python 2 to 3 code translation. A similar tool is six.
Python:test - Regression tests package for Python
Python:test.support - Utilities for the Python test suite
Python:test.support.socket_helper - Utilities for socket tests
Python:test.support.script_helper - Utilities for the Python execution tests
Python:test.support.bytecode_helper - Support tools for testing correct bytecode generation

Debugging and Profiling

Audit events table
Python:bdb - Debugger framework
Python:faulthandler - Dump the Python traceback
Python:pdb - The Python debugger
The Python profilers
Python:timeit - Measure execution time of small code snippets
Python:trace - Trace Python statement execution
Python:tracemalloc - Trace memory allocations

Software Packaging and Distribution

Python:distutils - Building and installing Python modules
Python:ensurepip - Bootstrapping the pip installer
Python:venv - Creation of virtual environments
Python:zipapp - Manage executable Python zip archives

Python Runtime Services

Python:sys - System-specific parameters and functions
Python:sysconfig - Access Python's configuration information
Python:builtins - Built-in objects
Python:main - Top-level script environment
Python:warnings - Warning control
Python:dataclasses - Data classes
Python:contextlib - Utilities for with-statement contexts
Python:abc - Abstract base classes
Python:atexit - Exit handlers
Python:traceback - Print or retrieve a stack traceback
Python:future - Future statement definitions
Python:gc - Garbage collector interface
Python:inspect - Inspect live objects
Python:site - Site-specific configuration hook

Custom Python Interpreters

Python:code - Interpreter base classes
Python:codeop - Compile Python code

Importing Modules

Python:zipimport - Import modules from Zip archives
Python:pkgutil - Package extension utility
Python:modulefinder - Find modules used by a script
Python:runpy - Locating and executing Python modules
Python:importlib - The implementation of import
Python:importlib.metadata

Python Language Services

Python:parser - Access Python parse trees
Python:ast - Abstract syntax trees
Python:symtable - Access to the compiler's symbol tables
Python:symbol - Constants used with Python parse trees
Python:token - Constants used with Python parse trees
Python:keyword - Testing for Python keywords
Python:tokenize - Tokenizer for Python source
Python:tabnanny - Detection of ambiguous indentation
Python:pyclbr - Python module browser support
Python:py_compile - Compile Python source files
Python:compileall - Byte-compile Python libraries
Python:dis - Disassembler for Python bytecode
Python:pickletools - Tools for pickle developers

Other Services

Python:formatter - Generic output formatting

MS Windows Specific Services

Python:msilib - Read and write Microsoft Installer files
Python:msvcrt - Useful routines from the MS VC++ runtime
Python:winreg - Windows registry access
Python:winsound - Sound-playing interface for Windows

Unix Specific Services

Python:posix - The most common POSIX system calls
Python:pwd - The password database
Python:spwd - The shadow password database
Python:grp - The group database
Python:crypt - Function to check Unix passwords
Python:termios - POSIX style tty control
Python:tty - Terminal control functions
Python:pty - Pseudo-terminal utilities
Python:fcntl - The fcntl and ioctl system calls
Python:pipes - Interface to shell pipelines
Python:resource - Resource usage information
Python:nis - Interface to Sun's NIS (Yellow Pages)
Python:syslog - Unix syslog library routines

Superseded Modules

Python:optparse - Parser for command line options
Python:imp - Access the import internals

Favorite site

The Python Standard Library — Python 3.9.5 documentation

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