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17 | <title>1. Introduction</title> | |
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54 | ||
55 | <H1><A NAME="SECTION003000000000000000000"></A><A NAME="introduction"></A> | |
56 | <BR> | |
57 | 1. Introduction | |
58 | </H1> | |
59 | ||
60 | <P> | |
61 | This reference manual describes the Python programming language. | |
62 | It is not intended as a tutorial. | |
63 | ||
64 | <P> | |
65 | While I am trying to be as precise as possible, I chose to use English | |
66 | rather than formal specifications for everything except syntax and | |
67 | lexical analysis. This should make the document more understandable | |
68 | to the average reader, but will leave room for ambiguities. | |
69 | Consequently, if you were coming from Mars and tried to re-implement | |
70 | Python from this document alone, you might have to guess things and in | |
71 | fact you would probably end up implementing quite a different language. | |
72 | On the other hand, if you are using | |
73 | Python and wonder what the precise rules about a particular area of | |
74 | the language are, you should definitely be able to find them here. | |
75 | If you would like to see a more formal definition of the language, | |
76 | maybe you could volunteer your time -- or invent a cloning machine | |
77 | :-). | |
78 | ||
79 | <P> | |
80 | It is dangerous to add too many implementation details to a language | |
81 | reference document -- the implementation may change, and other | |
82 | implementations of the same language may work differently. On the | |
83 | other hand, there is currently only one Python implementation in | |
84 | widespread use (although alternate implementations exist), and | |
85 | its particular quirks are sometimes worth being mentioned, especially | |
86 | where the implementation imposes additional limitations. Therefore, | |
87 | you'll find short ``implementation notes'' sprinkled throughout the | |
88 | text. | |
89 | ||
90 | <P> | |
91 | Every Python implementation comes with a number of built-in and | |
92 | standard modules. These are not documented here, but in the separate | |
93 | <em class="citetitle"><a | |
94 | href="../lib/lib.html" | |
95 | title="Python Library Reference" | |
96 | >Python Library Reference</a></em> document. A few | |
97 | built-in modules are mentioned when they interact in a significant way | |
98 | with the language definition. | |
99 | ||
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101 | ||
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106 | ||
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108 | <LI><A href="implementations.html">1.1 Alternate Implementations</a> | |
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148 | <span class="release-info">Release 2.4.2, documentation updated on 28 September 2005.</span> | |
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