Beginning Python

Beginning Python From Novice to Professional - - - Magnus Lie Hetland Beginning Python: From Novice to Professional Copyright (c) 2005 by Magnus Lie Hetland All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner and the publisher. ISBN (pbk): 1-59059-519-X Printed and bound in the United States of America 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Trademarked names may appear in this book. Rather than use a trademark symbol with every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use the names only in an editorial fashion and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Lead Editor: Jason Gilmore Editor: Matt Moodie Technical Reviewer: Jeremy Jones Editorial Board: Steve Anglin, Dan Appleman, Ewan Buckingham, Gary Cornell, Tony Davis, Jason Gilmore, Jonathan Hassell, Chris Mills, Dominic Shakeshaft, Jim Sumser Associate Publisher: Grace Wong Project Manager: Beckie Stones Copy Edit Manager: Nicole LeClerc Copy Editor: Ami Knox Assistant Production Director: Kari Brooks-Copony Production Editor: Linda Marousek Compositor: Susan Glinert Stevens Proofreader: Liz Welch Indexer: Michael Brinkman Interior Designer: Van Winkle Design Group Cover Designer: Kurt Krames Manufacturing Director: Tom Debolski Distributed to the book trade worldwide by Springer-Verlag New York, Inc., 233 Spring Street, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10013. Phone 1-800-SPRINGER, fax 201-348-4505, e-mail orders-ny@springer-sbm.com, or visit http://www.springeronline.com. For information on translations, please contact Apress directly at 2560 Ninth Street, Suite 219, Berkeley, CA 94710. Phone 510-549-5930, fax 510-549-5939, e-mail info@apress.com, or visit http://www.apress.com. The information in this book is distributed on an as is basis, without warranty. Although every precaution has been taken in the preparation of this work, neither the author(s) nor Apress shall have any liability to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by the information contained in this work. The source code for this book is available to readers at http://www.apress.com in the Source Code section. v Contents at a Glance About the Author ... xxiii About the Technical Reviewer ... xxv Preface ... xxvii Introduction ... xxix -CHAPTER 1 Instant Hacking: The Basics ... 1 -CHAPTER 2 Lists and Tuples ... 31 -CHAPTER 3 Working with Strings ... 53 -CHAPTER 4 Dictionaries: When Indices Won t Do ... 67 -CHAPTER 5 Conditionals, Loops, and Some Other Statements ... 81 -CHAPTER 6 Abstraction ... 109 -CHAPTER 7 More Abstraction ... 139 -CHAPTER 8 Exceptions ... 159 -CHAPTER 9 Magic Methods, Properties, and Iterators ... 173 -CHAPTER 10 Batteries Included ... 203 -CHAPTER 11 Files and Stuff ... 255 -CHAPTER 12 Graphical User Interfaces ... 269 -CHAPTER 13 Database Support ... 285 -CHAPTER 14 Network Programming ... 297 -CHAPTER 15 Python and the Web ... 313 -CHAPTER 16 Testing, 1-2-3 ... 341 -CHAPTER 17 Extending Python ... 357 -CHAPTER 18 Packaging Your Programs ... 373 -CHAPTER 19 Playful Programming ... 381 -CHAPTER 20 Project 1: Instant Markup ... 391 -CHAPTER 21 Project 2: Painting a Pretty Picture ... 411 -CHAPTER 22 Project 3: XML for All Occasions ... 421 -CHAPTER 23 Project 4: In the News ... 439 -CHAPTER 24 Project 5: A Virtual Tea Party ... 455 -CHAPTER 25 Project 6: Remote Editing with CGI ... 473 -CHAPTER 26 Project 7: Your Own Bulletin Board ... 483 -CHAPTER 27 Project 8: File Sharing with XML-RPC ... 499 -CHAPTER 28 Project 9: File Sharing II Now with GUI! ... 517 -CHAPTER 29 Project 10: Do-It-Yourself Arcade Game ... 527 -APPENDIX A The Short Version ... 547 -APPENDIX B Python Reference ... 557 -APPENDIX C Online Resources ... 571 -INDEX ... 575