Python Programming – Deep Dive for Programmers

Chapter 1: Introduction to Python

• What is Python?
• Why Python?
• Performance downsides
• The community
• Running Python interactively
• Python scripts
• Python help
• Anatomy of a Python script
• Modules
• Functions and built-ins
  Chapter 2: Fundamental Variables
• Python is Object Oriented
• Python variables
• Variable names
• Type specific methods
• Operators and type
• Augmented assignments
• Python types
• Numeric types
• Switching types
• Python lists introduced
• Python tuples introduced
• Python dictionaries introduced
  Chapter 3: Flow Control
• Python conditionals
• Indentation
• What is truth?
• Boolean and logical operators
• Chained comparisons
• Sequence and collection tests
• Object types
• A note on Exception Handling
• While loops
• Loop control statements
• For loops
• enumerate
• Counting ‘for’ loops
• Zipping through multiple lists
• Conditional expressions
• Unconditional flow control

Chapter 4: String Handling

• The print function
• Cooking strings
• String concatenation
• “Quotes”
• String methods
• String tests
• String formatting
• Other string formatting aids
• Slicing a string
• String methods – split and join
  Chapter 5: Collections
• Python types – reminder
• Useful tuple operations
• Python lists
• Tuple & list slicing
• Adding items to a list
• Removing items by position
• Removing list items by content
• Sorting
• Miscellaneous list methods
• List methods
• Sets
• Exploiting sets
• Set operators
• Python dictionaries
• Dictionary values
• Removing items from a dictionary
• Dictionary methods
  Chapter 6: Regular Expressions
• Python regular expressions
• Elementary extended RE meta-characters
• Regular expression objects
• Regular expression substitution
• Regular expression split
• Matching alternatives
• Anchors
• Class shortcuts
• Flags
• Repeat quantifiers
• Quantifiers
• Back-references
• Global matches

Chapter 7: Data Storage and File Handling

• New file objects
• Reading files into Python
• Reading tricks
• Filter programs – fileinput module
• Writing to files from Python
• Standard streams
• More tricks
• Random access
• Python Pickle Persistence
• Pickle Protocols
• Build some shelves
• Compression
• Database interface overview
  Chapter 8: Functions
• Python functions
• Function parameters
• Assigning default values to parameters
• Variadic functions
• Keyword parameters
• Returning objects from a function
• Variables in functions
• Nested functions
• Function documentation
• Lamdba functions
• Lambda as a sort key
• Lambda in re.sub
  Chapter 9: Advanced Collections
• Advanced list functions – filter and map
• List comprehensions
• Lazy lists
• Generators
• Generator objects and next – coroutines
• List comprehensions as generators
• Copying collections – problem
• Copying collections – slice solution?
• Copying collections – deepcopy solution

Chapter 10: Modules and Packages

• What are modules?
• What are packages?
• Multiple source files
• How does Python find a module?
• Importing a module
• Importing names
• Directories as packages
• Writing a module
• Module documentation
• Testing a module
• Python debugger
• Python profiler
  Chapter 11: Classes and OOP
• Object-Oriented Programming
• Using objects
• A simple class
• Defining classes
• Defining methods
• Constructing an object
• Special methods
• Operator overload special methods
• Inheritance
• Inheritance terminology
• New-style classes
• Properties and decorators
• Class methods
  Chapter 12: Error Handling and Exceptions
• Writing to stderr
• Controlling warnings
• Exception handling
• Exception syntax
• Multiple exceptions
• Exception arguments
• The finally block
• Order of execution
• The Python exception hierarchy
• A common mistake
• The raise statement
• Raising our own Exceptions
• assert

Chapter 13: Multitasking

• Family life
• Creating a process from Python
• Old interface examples
• Waiting for a child
• Using the subprocess module
• The subprocess.Popen class
• Running a basic process
• Capturing the output
• Passing data through a pipe
• Processes and threads
• Very basic threads in Python
• Synchronisation objects in threading
• Simple use of Lock
• The trouble with threads
• Using the multiprocessing module
• Queue objects
  Chapter 14: The Python Standard Library
• The Standard Library
• Home many modules have we seen so far?
• Pretty Printer
• Operating System interfaces – os and friends
• System specific attributes – sys
• Signal handling – signal
• Converting a signal to an exception
• Configuration files
• The ConfigParser module
• The datetime module and friends
• The platform module
• External function interface – ctypes
• The socket module
• __future__
• Other modules