133 lines
6.1 KiB
ReStructuredText
133 lines
6.1 KiB
ReStructuredText
|
|
.. _introduction:
|
|
|
|
************
|
|
Introduction
|
|
************
|
|
|
|
This reference manual describes the Python programming language. It is not
|
|
intended as a tutorial.
|
|
|
|
While I am trying to be as precise as possible, I chose to use English rather
|
|
than formal specifications for everything except syntax and lexical analysis.
|
|
This should make the document more understandable to the average reader, but
|
|
will leave room for ambiguities. Consequently, if you were coming from Mars and
|
|
tried to re-implement Python from this document alone, you might have to guess
|
|
things and in fact you would probably end up implementing quite a different
|
|
language. On the other hand, if you are using Python and wonder what the precise
|
|
rules about a particular area of the language are, you should definitely be able
|
|
to find them here. If you would like to see a more formal definition of the
|
|
language, maybe you could volunteer your time --- or invent a cloning machine
|
|
:-).
|
|
|
|
It is dangerous to add too many implementation details to a language reference
|
|
document --- the implementation may change, and other implementations of the
|
|
same language may work differently. On the other hand, CPython is the one
|
|
Python implementation in widespread use (although alternate implementations
|
|
continue to gain support), and its particular quirks are sometimes worth being
|
|
mentioned, especially where the implementation imposes additional limitations.
|
|
Therefore, you'll find short "implementation notes" sprinkled throughout the
|
|
text.
|
|
|
|
Every Python implementation comes with a number of built-in and standard
|
|
modules. These are documented in :ref:`library-index`. A few built-in modules
|
|
are mentioned when they interact in a significant way with the language
|
|
definition.
|
|
|
|
|
|
.. _implementations:
|
|
|
|
Alternate Implementations
|
|
=========================
|
|
|
|
Though there is one Python implementation which is by far the most popular,
|
|
there are some alternate implementations which are of particular interest to
|
|
different audiences.
|
|
|
|
Known implementations include:
|
|
|
|
CPython
|
|
This is the original and most-maintained implementation of Python, written in C.
|
|
New language features generally appear here first.
|
|
|
|
Jython
|
|
Python implemented in Java. This implementation can be used as a scripting
|
|
language for Java applications, or can be used to create applications using the
|
|
Java class libraries. It is also often used to create tests for Java libraries.
|
|
More information can be found at `the Jython website <http://www.jython.org/>`_.
|
|
|
|
Python for .NET
|
|
This implementation actually uses the CPython implementation, but is a managed
|
|
.NET application and makes .NET libraries available. It was created by Brian
|
|
Lloyd. For more information, see the `Python for .NET home page
|
|
<https://pythonnet.github.io/>`_.
|
|
|
|
IronPython
|
|
An alternate Python for .NET. Unlike Python.NET, this is a complete Python
|
|
implementation that generates IL, and compiles Python code directly to .NET
|
|
assemblies. It was created by Jim Hugunin, the original creator of Jython. For
|
|
more information, see `the IronPython website <http://ironpython.net/>`_.
|
|
|
|
PyPy
|
|
An implementation of Python written completely in Python. It supports several
|
|
advanced features not found in other implementations like stackless support
|
|
and a Just in Time compiler. One of the goals of the project is to encourage
|
|
experimentation with the language itself by making it easier to modify the
|
|
interpreter (since it is written in Python). Additional information is
|
|
available on `the PyPy project's home page <http://pypy.org/>`_.
|
|
|
|
Each of these implementations varies in some way from the language as documented
|
|
in this manual, or introduces specific information beyond what's covered in the
|
|
standard Python documentation. Please refer to the implementation-specific
|
|
documentation to determine what else you need to know about the specific
|
|
implementation you're using.
|
|
|
|
|
|
.. _notation:
|
|
|
|
Notation
|
|
========
|
|
|
|
.. index:: BNF, grammar, syntax, notation
|
|
|
|
The descriptions of lexical analysis and syntax use a modified BNF grammar
|
|
notation. This uses the following style of definition:
|
|
|
|
.. productionlist:: notation
|
|
name: `lc_letter` (`lc_letter` | "_")*
|
|
lc_letter: "a"..."z"
|
|
|
|
The first line says that a ``name`` is an ``lc_letter`` followed by a sequence
|
|
of zero or more ``lc_letter``\ s and underscores. An ``lc_letter`` in turn is
|
|
any of the single characters ``'a'`` through ``'z'``. (This rule is actually
|
|
adhered to for the names defined in lexical and grammar rules in this document.)
|
|
|
|
Each rule begins with a name (which is the name defined by the rule) and
|
|
``::=``. A vertical bar (``|``) is used to separate alternatives; it is the
|
|
least binding operator in this notation. A star (``*``) means zero or more
|
|
repetitions of the preceding item; likewise, a plus (``+``) means one or more
|
|
repetitions, and a phrase enclosed in square brackets (``[ ]``) means zero or
|
|
one occurrences (in other words, the enclosed phrase is optional). The ``*``
|
|
and ``+`` operators bind as tightly as possible; parentheses are used for
|
|
grouping. Literal strings are enclosed in quotes. White space is only
|
|
meaningful to separate tokens. Rules are normally contained on a single line;
|
|
rules with many alternatives may be formatted alternatively with each line after
|
|
the first beginning with a vertical bar.
|
|
|
|
.. index:: lexical definitions, ASCII
|
|
|
|
In lexical definitions (as the example above), two more conventions are used:
|
|
Two literal characters separated by three dots mean a choice of any single
|
|
character in the given (inclusive) range of ASCII characters. A phrase between
|
|
angular brackets (``<...>``) gives an informal description of the symbol
|
|
defined; e.g., this could be used to describe the notion of 'control character'
|
|
if needed.
|
|
|
|
Even though the notation used is almost the same, there is a big difference
|
|
between the meaning of lexical and syntactic definitions: a lexical definition
|
|
operates on the individual characters of the input source, while a syntax
|
|
definition operates on the stream of tokens generated by the lexical analysis.
|
|
All uses of BNF in the next chapter ("Lexical Analysis") are lexical
|
|
definitions; uses in subsequent chapters are syntactic definitions.
|
|
|