Built In Functions Flashcards
abs(x)
Return the absolute value of a number. The argument may be a plain or long integer or a floating point number. If the argument is a complex number, its magnitude is returned.
all(iterable)
Return True if all elements of the iterable are true (or if the iterable is empty). Equivalent to:
def all(iterable):
for element in iterable:
if not element:
return False
return True
any(iterable)
Return True if any element of the iterable is true. If the iterable is empty, return False. Equivalent to:
def any(iterable):
for element in iterable:
if element:
return True
return False
class bool([x])
Return a Boolean value, i.e. one of True or False. x is converted using the standard truth testing procedure. If x is false or omitted, this returns False; otherwise it returns True. bool is also a class, which is a subclass of int. Class bool cannot be subclassed further. Its only instances are False and True.
callable(object)
Return True if the object argument appears callable, False if not. If this returns true, it is still possible that a call fails, but if it is false, calling object will never succeed. Note that classes are callable (calling a class returns a new instance); class instances are callable if they have a __call__() method.
class bytearray([source[, encoding[, errors]]])
Return a new array of bytes. The bytearray class is a mutable sequence of integers in the range 0 <= x < 256. It has most of the usual methods of mutable sequences, described in Mutable Sequence Types, as well as most methods that the str type has, see String Methods.
The optional source parameter can be used to initialize the array in a few different ways:
If it is unicode, you must also give the encoding (and optionally, errors) parameters; bytearray() then converts the unicode to bytes using unicode.encode().
If it is an integer, the array will have that size and will be initialized with null bytes.
If it is an object conforming to the buffer interface, a read-only buffer of the object will be used to initialize the bytes array.
If it is an iterable, it must be an iterable of integers in the range 0 <= x < 256, which are used as the initial contents of the array.
Without an argument, an array of size 0 is created.
classmethod(function)
Return a class method for function.
A class method receives the class as implicit first argument, just like an instance method receives the instance. To declare a class method, use this idiom:
class C(object):
@classmethod
def f(cls, arg1, arg2, ...):
...
The @classmethod form is a function decorator – see the description of function definitions in Function definitions for details.
The benefit of this is: whether we call the method from the instance or the class, it passes the class as first argument.
cmp(x, y)
Compare the two objects x and y and return an integer according to the outcome. The return value is negative if x < y, zero if x == y and strictly positive if x > y.
delattr(object, name)
This is a relative of setattr(). The arguments are an object and a string. The string must be the name of one of the object’s attributes. The function deletes the named attribute, provided the object allows it. For example, delattr(x, ‘foobar’) is equivalent to del x.foobar.
dir([object])
Note: Because dir() is supplied primarily as a convenience for use at an interactive prompt, it tries to supply an interesting set of names more than it tries to supply a rigorously or consistently defined set of names, and its detailed behavior may change across releases. For example, metaclass attributes are not in the result list when the argument is a class.
Without arguments, return the list of names in the current local scope. With an argument, attempt to return a list of valid attributes for that object.
If the object has a method named \_\_dir\_\_(), this method will be called and must return the list of attributes. This allows objects that implement a custom \_\_getattr\_\_() or \_\_getattribute\_\_() function to customize the way dir() reports their attributes. If the object does not provide \_\_dir\_\_(), the function tries its best to gather information from the object’s \_\_dict\_\_ attribute, if defined, and from its type object. The resulting list is not necessarily complete, and may be inaccurate when the object has a custom \_\_getattr\_\_().
dir([object]) behaviors
The default dir() mechanism behaves differently with different types of objects, as it attempts to produce the most relevant, rather than complete, information:
If the object is a module object, the list contains the names of the module’s attributes.
If the object is a type or class object, the list contains the names of its attributes, and recursively of the attributes of its bases.
Otherwise, the list contains the object’s attributes’ names, the names of its class’s attributes, and recursively of the attributes of its class’s base classes.
The resulting list is sorted alphabetically. For example:
»>
>>> import struct
>>> dir() # show the names in the module namespace
['\_\_builtins\_\_', '\_\_doc\_\_', '\_\_name\_\_', 'struct']
>>> dir(struct) # show the names in the struct module
['Struct', '\_\_builtins\_\_', '\_\_doc\_\_', '\_\_file\_\_', '\_\_name\_\_',
'\_\_package\_\_', '_clearcache', 'calcsize', 'error', 'pack', 'pack_into',
'unpack', 'unpack_from']
>>> class Shape(object):
def \_\_dir\_\_(self):
return ['area', 'perimeter', 'location']
>>> s = Shape()
>>> dir(s)
['area', 'perimeter', 'location']
divmod(a, b)
Take two (non complex) numbers as arguments and return a pair of numbers consisting of their quotient and remainder when using long division.
enumerate(sequence, start=0)
Return an enumerate object. sequence must be a sequence, an iterator, or some other object which supports iteration. The next() method of the iterator returned by enumerate() returns a tuple containing a count (from start which defaults to 0) and the values obtained from iterating over sequence:
»_space;>
>>> seasons = ['Spring', 'Summer', 'Fall', 'Winter'] >>> list(enumerate(seasons)) [(0, 'Spring'), (1, 'Summer'), (2, 'Fall'), (3, 'Winter')] >>> list(enumerate(seasons, start=1)) [(1, 'Spring'), (2, 'Summer'), (3, 'Fall'), (4, 'Winter')] Equivalent to:
def enumerate(sequence, start=0):
n = start
for elem in sequence:
yield n, elem
n += 1
file(name[, mode[, buffering]])
Constructor function for the file type, described further in section File Objects. The constructor’s arguments are the same as those of the open() built-in function described below.
When opening a file, it’s preferable to use open() instead of invoking this constructor directly. file is more suited to type testing (for example, writing isinstance(f, file)).
filter(function, iterable)
Construct a list from those elements of iterable for which function returns true. iterable may be either a sequence, a container which supports iteration, or an iterator. If iterable is a string or a tuple, the result also has that type; otherwise it is always a list. If function is None, the identity function is assumed, that is, all elements of iterable that are false are removed.
Note that filter(function, iterable) is equivalent to [item for item in iterable if function(item)] if function is not None and [item for item in iterable if item] if function is None. See itertools.ifilter() and itertools.ifilterfalse() for iterator versions of this function, including a variation that filters for elements where the function returns false.
class float([x])
Return a floating point number constructed from a number or string x.
If the argument is a string, it must contain a possibly signed decimal or floating point number, possibly embedded in whitespace.
iter(o[, sentinel])
Return an iterator object. The first argument is interpreted very differently depending on the presence of the second argument. Without a second argument, o must be a collection object which supports the iteration protocol (the __iter__() method), or it must support the sequence protocol (the __getitem__() method with integer arguments starting at 0). If it does not support either of those protocols, TypeError is raised. If the second argument, sentinel, is given, then o must be a callable object. The iterator created in this case will call o with no arguments for each call to its next() method; if the value returned is equal to sentinel, StopIteration will be raised, otherwise the value will be returned.
One useful application of the second form of iter() is to read lines of a file until a certain line is reached. The following example reads a file until the readline() method returns an empty string:
with open('mydata.txt') as fp:
for line in iter(fp.readline, ''):
process_line(line)
