Contents

Preface

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Part I General Application Topics

Chapter 1 Regular Expressions

1.1 Introduction/Motivation

1.2 Special Symbols and Characters

1.3 Regexes and Python

1.4 Some Regex Examples

1.5 A Longer Regex Example

1.6 Exercises

Chapter 2 Network Programming

2.1 Introduction

2.2 What Is Client/Server Architecture?

2.3 Sockets: Communication Endpoints

2.4 Network Programming in Python

2.5 *The SocketServer Module

2.6 *Introduction to the Twisted Framework

2.7 Related Modules

2.8 Exercises

Chapter 3 Internet Client Programming

3.1 What Are Internet Clients?

3.2 Transferring Files

3.3 Network News

3.4 E-Mail

3.5 Related Modules

3.6 Exercises

Chapter 4 Multithreaded Programming

4.1 Introduction/Motivation

4.2 Threads and Processes

4.3 Threads and Python

4.4 The thread Module

4.5 The threading Module

4.6 Comparing Single vs. Multithreaded Execution

4.7 Multithreading in Practice

4.8 Producer-Consumer Problem and the Queue/queue Module

4.9 Alternative Considerations to Threads

4.10 Related Modules

4.11 Exercises

Chapter 5 GUI Programming

5.1 Introduction

5.2 Tkinter and Python Programming

5.3 Tkinter Examples

5.4 A Brief Tour of Other GUIs

5.5 Related Modules and Other GUIs

5.6 Exercises

Chapter 6 Database Programming

6.1 Introduction

6.2 The Python DB-API

6.3 ORMs

6.4 Non-Relational Databases

6.5 Related References

6.6 Exercises

Chapter 7 *Programming Microsoft Office

7.1 Introduction

7.2 COM Client Programming with Python

7.3 Introductory Examples

7.4 Intermediate Examples

7.5 Related Modules/Packages

7.6 Exercises

Chapter 8 Extending Python

8.1 Introduction/Motivation

8.2 Extending Python by Writing Extensions

8.3 Related Topics

8.4 Exercises

Part II Web Development

Chapter 9 Web Clients and Servers

9.1 Introduction

9.2 Python Web Client Tools

9.3 Web Clients

9.4 Web (HTTP) Servers

9.5 Related Modules

9.6 Exercises

Chapter 10 Web Programming: CGI and WSGI

10.1 Introduction

10.2 Helping Web Servers Process Client Data

10.3 Building CGI Applications

10.4 Using Unicode with CGI

10.5 Advanced CGI

10.6 Introduction to WSGI

10.7 Real-World Web Development

10.8 Related Modules

10.9 Exercises

Chapter 11 Web Frameworks: Django

11.1 Introduction

11.2 Web Frameworks

11.3 Introduction to Django

11.4 Projects and Apps

11.5 Your “Hello World” Application (A Blog)

11.6 Creating a Model to Add Database Service

11.7 The Python Application Shell

11.8 The Django Administration App

11.9 Creating the Blog’s User Interface

11.10 Improving the Output

11.11 Working with User Input

11.12 Forms and Model Forms

11.13 More About Views

11.14 *Look-and-Feel Improvements

11.15 *Unit Testing

11.16 *An Intermediate Django App: The TweetApprover

11.17 Resources

11.18 Conclusion

11.19 Exercises

Chapter 12 Cloud Computing: Google App Engine

12.1 Introduction

12.2 What Is Cloud Computing?

12.3 The Sandbox and the App Engine SDK

12.4 Choosing an App Engine Framework

12.5 Python 2.7 Support

12.6 Comparisons to Django

12.7 Morphing “Hello World” into a Simple Blog

12.8 Adding Memcache Service

12.9 Static Files

12.10 Adding Users Service

12.11 Remote API Shell

12.12 Lightning Round (with Python Code)

12.13 Sending Instant Messages by Using XMPP

12.14 Processing Images

12.15 Task Queues (Unscheduled Tasks)

12.16 Profiling with Appstats

12.17 The URLfetch Service

12.18 Lightning Round (without Python Code)

12.19 Vendor Lock-In

12.20 Resources

12.21 Conclusion

12.22 Exercises

Chapter 13 Web Services

13.1 Introduction

13.2 The Yahoo! Finance Stock Quote Server

13.3 Microblogging with Twitter

13.4 Exercises

Part III Supplemental/Experimental

Chapter 14 Text Processing

14.1 Comma-Separated Values

14.2 JavaScript Object Notation

14.3 Extensible Markup Language

14.4 References

14.5 Related Modules

14.6 Exercises

Chapter 15 Miscellaneous

15.1 Jython

15.2 Google+

15.3 Exercises

Appendix A Answers to Selected Exercises

Appendix B Reference Tables

Appendix C Python 3: The Evolution of a Programming Language

C.1 Why Is Python Changing?

C.2 What Has Changed?

C.3 Migration Tools

C.4 Conclusion

C.5 References

Appendix D Python 3 Migration with 2.6+

D.1 Python 3: The Next Generation

D.2 Integers

D.3 Built-In Functions

D.4 Object-Oriented Programming: Two Different Class Objects

D.5 Strings

D.6 Exceptions

D.7 Other Transition Tools and Tips

D.8 Writing Code That is Compatible in Both Versions 2.x and 3.x

D.9 Conclusion

Index