Introduction
************

The “Python library” contains several different kinds of components.

It contains data types that would normally be considered part of the
“core” of a language, such as numbers and lists.  For these types, the
Python language core defines the form of literals and places some
constraints on their semantics, but does not fully define the
semantics.  (On the other hand, the language core does define
syntactic properties like the spelling and priorities of operators.)

The library also contains built-in functions and exceptions — objects
that can be used by all Python code without the need of an "import"
statement. Some of these are defined by the core language, but many
are not essential for the core semantics and are only described here.

The bulk of the library, however, consists of a collection of modules.
There are many ways to dissect this collection.  Some modules are
written in C and built in to the Python interpreter; others are
written in Python and imported in source form.  Some modules provide
interfaces that are highly specific to Python, like printing a stack
trace; some provide interfaces that are specific to particular
operating systems, such as access to specific hardware; others provide
interfaces that are specific to a particular application domain, like
the World Wide Web. Some modules are available in all versions and
ports of Python; others are only available when the underlying system
supports or requires them; yet others are available only when a
particular configuration option was chosen at the time when Python was
compiled and installed.

This manual is organized “from the inside out:” it first describes the
built-in functions, data types and exceptions, and finally the
modules, grouped in chapters of related modules.

This means that if you start reading this manual from the start, and
skip to the next chapter when you get bored, you will get a reasonable
overview of the available modules and application areas that are
supported by the Python library.  Of course, you don’t *have* to read
it like a novel — you can also browse the table of contents (in front
of the manual), or look for a specific function, module or term in the
index (in the back).  And finally, if you enjoy learning about random
subjects, you choose a random page number (see module "random") and
read a section or two.  Regardless of the order in which you read the
sections of this manual, it helps to start with chapter Built-in
Functions, as the remainder of the manual assumes familiarity with
this material.

Let the show begin!


Notes on availability
=====================

* An “Availability: Unix” note means that this function is commonly
  found on Unix systems.  It does not make any claims about its
  existence on a specific operating system.

* If not separately noted, all functions that claim “Availability:
  Unix” are supported on macOS, which builds on a Unix core.

* If an availability note contains both a minimum Kernel version and a
  minimum libc version, then both conditions must hold. For example a
  feature with note *Availability: Linux >= 3.17 with glibc >= 2.27*
  requires both Linux 3.17 or newer and glibc 2.27 or newer.


WebAssembly platforms
---------------------

The WebAssembly platforms "wasm32-emscripten" (Emscripten) and
"wasm32-wasi" (WASI) provide a subset of POSIX APIs. WebAssembly
runtimes and browsers are sandboxed and have limited access to the
host and external resources. Any Python standard library module that
uses processes, threading, networking, signals, or other forms of
inter-process communication (IPC), is either not available or may not
work as on other Unix-like systems. File I/O, file system, and Unix
permission-related functions are restricted, too. Emscripten does not
permit blocking I/O. Other blocking operations like "sleep()" block
the browser event loop.

The properties and behavior of Python on WebAssembly platforms depend
on the Emscripten-SDK or WASI-SDK version, WASM runtimes (browser,
NodeJS, wasmtime), and Python build time flags. WebAssembly,
Emscripten, and WASI are evolving standards; some features like
networking may be supported in the future.

For Python in the browser, users should consider Pyodide or PyScript.
PyScript is built on top of Pyodide, which itself is built on top of
CPython and Emscripten. Pyodide provides access to browsers’
JavaScript and DOM APIs as well as limited networking capabilities
with JavaScript’s "XMLHttpRequest" and "Fetch" APIs.

* Process-related APIs are not available or always fail with an error.
  That includes APIs that spawn new processes ("fork()", "execve()"),
  wait for processes ("waitpid()"), send signals ("kill()"), or
  otherwise interact with processes. The "subprocess" is importable
  but does not work.

* The "socket" module is available, but is limited and behaves
  differently from other platforms. On Emscripten, sockets are always
  non-blocking and require additional JavaScript code and helpers on
  the server to proxy TCP through WebSockets; see Emscripten
  Networking for more information. WASI snapshot preview 1 only
  permits sockets from an existing file descriptor.

* Some functions are stubs that either don’t do anything and always
  return hardcoded values.

* Functions related to file descriptors, file permissions, file
  ownership, and links are limited and don’t support some operations.
  For example, WASI does not permit symlinks with absolute file names.
