3. Python Runtime Services

The modules described in this chapter provide a wide range of services related to the Python interpreter and its interaction with its environment. Here's an overview:

sys Access system-specific parameters and functions.

gc Interface to the cycle-detecting garbage collector.

weakref Support for weak references and weak dictionaries.

fpectl Provide control for floating point exception handling.

atexit Register and execute cleanup functions.

types Names for all built-in types.

UserDict Class wrapper for dictionary objects.

UserList Class wrapper for list objects.

UserString Class wrapper for string objects.

operator All Python's standard operators as built-in functions.

inspect Extract information and source code from live objects.

traceback Print or retrieve a stack traceback.

linecache This module provides random access to individual lines from text files.

pickle Convert Python objects to streams of bytes and back.

cPickle Faster version of pickle, but not subclassable.

copy_reg Register pickle support functions.

shelve Python object persistence.

copy Shallow and deep copy operations.

marshal Convert Python objects to streams of bytes and back (with different constraints).

warnings Issue warning messages and control their disposition.

imp Access the implementation of the import statement.

code Base classes for interactive Python interpreters.

codeop Compile (possibly incomplete) Python code.

pprint Data pretty printer.

repr Alternate repr() implementation with size limits.

new Interface to the creation of runtime implementation objects.

site A standard way to reference site-specific modules.

user A standard way to reference user-specific modules.

__builtin__ The set of built-in functions.

__main__ The environment where the top-level script is run.

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