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<H1><A NAME="SECTION004300000000000000000"></A><A NAME="types"></A>
<BR>
2.3 Built-in Types
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<P>
The following sections describe the standard types that are built into
the interpreter.  Historically, Python's built-in types have differed
from user-defined types because it was not possible to use the built-in
types as the basis for object-oriented inheritance. With the 2.2
release this situation has started to change, although the intended
unification of user-defined and built-in types is as yet far from
complete.

<P>
The principal built-in types are numerics, sequences, mappings, files
classes, instances and exceptions.
<a id='l2h-89' xml:id='l2h-89'></a>
<P>
Some operations are supported by several object types; in particular,
practically all objects can be compared, tested for truth value,
and converted to a string (with the <code>` ...`</code> notation,
the equivalent <tt class="function">repr()</tt> function, or the slightly different
<tt class="function">str()</tt> function).  The latter
function is implicitly used when an object is written by the
<tt class="keyword">print</tt><a id='l2h-90' xml:id='l2h-90'></a> statement.
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and other language statements can be found in the
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 title="Python Reference Manual"
 >Python Reference Manual</a></em> and the
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 >Python Tutorial</a></em>.)

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<A NAME="CHILD_LINKS"><STRONG>Subsections</STRONG></a>

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<LI><A href="truth.html">2.3.1 Truth Value Testing</a>
<LI><A href="boolean.html">2.3.2 Boolean Operations --
            <tt class="keyword">and</tt>, <tt class="keyword">or</tt>, <tt class="keyword">not</tt></a>
<LI><A href="comparisons.html">2.3.3 Comparisons</a>
<LI><A href="typesnumeric.html">2.3.4 Numeric Types --
            <tt class="class">int</tt>, <tt class="class">float</tt>, <tt class="class">long</tt>, <tt class="class">complex</tt></a>
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<LI><A href="bitstring-ops.html">2.3.4.1 Bit-string Operations on Integer Types</a>
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<LI><A href="typeiter.html">2.3.5 Iterator Types</a>
<LI><A href="typesseq.html">2.3.6 Sequence Types --
            <tt class="class">str</tt>, <tt class="class">unicode</tt>, <tt class="class">list</tt>,
            <tt class="class">tuple</tt>, <tt class="class">buffer</tt>, <tt class="class">xrange</tt></a>
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<LI><A href="string-methods.html">2.3.6.1 String Methods</a>
<LI><A href="typesseq-strings.html">2.3.6.2 String Formatting Operations</a>
<LI><A href="typesseq-xrange.html">2.3.6.3 XRange Type</a>
<LI><A href="typesseq-mutable.html">2.3.6.4 Mutable Sequence Types</a>
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<LI><A href="types-set.html">2.3.7 Set Types --
            <tt class="class">set</tt>, <tt class="class">frozenset</tt></a>
<LI><A href="typesmapping.html">2.3.8 Mapping Types -- classdict</a>
<LI><A href="bltin-file-objects.html">2.3.9 File Objects</a>
<LI><A href="typesother.html">2.3.10 Other Built-in Types</a>
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<LI><A href="typesmodules.html">2.3.10.1 Modules</a>
<LI><A href="typesobjects.html">2.3.10.2 Classes and Class Instances</a>
<LI><A href="typesfunctions.html">2.3.10.3 Functions</a>
<LI><A href="typesmethods.html">2.3.10.4 Methods</a>
<LI><A href="bltin-code-objects.html">2.3.10.5 Code Objects</a>
<LI><A href="bltin-type-objects.html">2.3.10.6 Type Objects</a>
<LI><A href="bltin-null-object.html">2.3.10.7 The Null Object</a>
<LI><A href="bltin-ellipsis-object.html">2.3.10.8 The Ellipsis Object</a>
<LI><A href="node31.html">2.3.10.9 Boolean Values</a>
<LI><A href="typesinternal.html">2.3.10.10 Internal Objects</a>
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<LI><A href="specialattrs.html">2.3.11 Special Attributes</a>
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<span class="release-info">Release 2.4.2, documentation updated on 28 September 2005.</span>
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