Python notes

2023-10-11 Wednesday

^ Overview

Python notes local page on Neela Nurseries wiki

^ Python Questions

Question: what is the syntax or python-ism in this construct?:

if __name__ == '__main__':
     main()

2025-09-16

• https://realpython.com/if-name-main-python/

Question: what is method chaining in Python?

• https://note.nkmk.me/en/python-method-chain-line-break/

Question: what is the difference between a Python library and a Python module?

^ Python Data Types

The following Python3 online documentation page mentions early on how Python distinguishes Unicode strings and 8-bit strings which it also calls 'bytes'. This may be a starting point to understanding how and when Python3 treats data as bytes:

• https://docs.python.org/3/library/re.html

^ Python Libraries

Starting point to describe Python language libraries and cases where they are needed:

• https://docs.python.org/3/library/os.html . . . os library - "Miscellaneous operating system interfaces"
• https://docs.python.org/3/library/sys.html . . . sys library
• https://docs.python.org/3/library/zlib.html . . . zlib library

^ Docstrings

Python document strings or "docstring" instances are an important feature of Python. As a newcomer to Python docstrings sound like a way to document Python functions and modules. Looks like they also provide a way to check return types for correctness or matching to a particular type, and further checks of parameters.

• https://www.datacamp.com/tutorial/docstrings-python

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/14379753/what-does-mean-in-python-function-definitions

^ Python Modules

Python scripting language includes a module called `subprocess`. Sounds like this module is akin to C library's `exec()` family functions, at least in the functionality it provides. Starting notes on Python subprocess here:

• https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/python-subprocess-module/

^ Strings and Long Lines

To express long lines in Python there are a couple of methods. The `textwrap` library or module contains some utils to help with this. To use parentheses about a multi-line string also provides a way.

• https://note.nkmk.me/en/python-long-string/