| \chapter{Undocumented Modules} |
| \label{undoc} |
| |
| Here's a quick listing of modules that are currently undocumented, but |
| that should be documented. Feel free to contribute documentation for |
| them! (The idea and original contents for this chapter were taken |
| from a posting by Fredrik Lundh; I have revised some modules' status.) |
| |
| |
| \section{Frameworks} |
| |
| Frameworks tend to be harder to document, but are well worth the |
| effort spent. |
| |
| \begin{description} |
| \item[\module{Tkinter}] |
| --- Interface to Tcl/Tk for graphical user interfaces; Fredrik Lundh |
| is working on this one! See |
| \citetitle[http://www.pythonware.com/library.htm]{An Introduction to |
| Tkinter} at \url{http://www.pythonware.com/library.htm} for on-line |
| reference material. |
| |
| \item[\module{Tkdnd}] |
| --- Drag-and-drop support for \module{Tkinter}. |
| |
| \item[\module{turtle}] |
| --- Turtle graphics in a Tk window. |
| |
| \item[\module{test}] |
| --- Regression testing framework. This is used for the Python |
| regression test, but is useful for other Python libraries as well. |
| This is a package rather than a module. |
| \end{description} |
| |
| |
| \section{Miscellaneous useful utilities} |
| |
| Some of these are very old and/or not very robust; marked with ``hmm.'' |
| |
| \begin{description} |
| \item[\module{dircmp}] |
| --- Class to build directory diff tools on (may become a demo or tool). |
| \deprecated{1.6}{The \refmodule{filecmp} module will replace |
| \module{dircmp}.} |
| |
| \item[\module{bdb}] |
| --- A generic Python debugger base class (used by pdb) |
| |
| \item[\module{ihooks}] |
| --- Import hook support (for \refmodule{rexec}; may become obsolete) |
| |
| \item[\module{tzparse}] |
| --- Parse a timezone specification (unfinished; may disappear in the |
| future) |
| \end{description} |
| |
| |
| \section{Platform specific modules} |
| |
| These modules are used to implement the \refmodule{os.path} module, |
| and are not documented beyond this mention. There's little need to |
| document these. |
| |
| \begin{description} |
| \item[\module{dospath}] |
| --- implementation of \module{os.path} on MS-DOS |
| |
| \item[\module{ntpath}] |
| --- implementation on \module{os.path} on 32-bit Windows |
| |
| \item[\module{posixpath}] |
| --- implementation on \module{os.path} on \POSIX{} |
| \end{description} |
| |
| |
| \section{Multimedia} |
| |
| \begin{description} |
| \item[\module{audiodev}] |
| --- Platform-independent API for playing audio data |
| |
| \item[\module{sunaudio}] |
| --- Interpret Sun audio headers (may become obsolete or a tool/demo) |
| |
| \item[\module{toaiff}] |
| --- Convert "arbitrary" sound files to AIFF files; should probably |
| become a tool or demo. Requires the external program \program{sox}. |
| \end{description} |
| |
| |
| \section{Obsolete \label{obsolete-modules}} |
| |
| These modules are not normally available for import; additional work |
| must be done to make them available. |
| |
| Those which are written in Python will be installed into the directory |
| \file{lib-old/} installed as part of the standard library. To use |
| these, the directory must be added to \code{sys.path}, possibly using |
| \envvar{PYTHONPATH}. |
| |
| Obsolete extension modules written in C are not built by default. |
| Under \UNIX, these must be enabled by uncommenting the appropriate |
| lines in \file{Modules/Setup} in the build tree and either rebuilding |
| Python if the modules are statically linked, or building and |
| installing the shared object if using dynamically-loaded extensions. |
| |
| % XXX need Windows instructions! |
| |
| \begin{description} |
| \item[\module{addpack}] |
| --- alternate approach to packages |
| |
| \item[\module{cmp}] |
| --- File comparison function. Use the newer \refmodule{filecmp} instead. |
| |
| \item[\module{cmpcache}] |
| --- Caching version of the obsolete \module{cmp} module. Use the |
| newer \refmodule{filecmp} instead. |
| |
| \item[\module{codehack}] |
| --- Extract function name or line number from a function |
| code object (these are now accessible as attributes: |
| \member{co.co_name}, \member{func.func_name}, |
| \member{co.co_firstlineno}). |
| |
| \item[\module{dircmp}] |
| --- class to build directory diff tools on (may become a demo or tool) |
| |
| \item[\module{dump}] |
| --- Print python code that reconstructs a variable |
| |
| \item[\module{fmt}] |
| --- text formatting abstractions (too slow) |
| |
| \item[\module{lockfile}] |
| --- wrapper around FCNTL file locking (use |
| \function{fcntl.lockf()}/\function{flock()} intead; see \refmodule{fcntl}) |
| |
| \item[\module{newdir}] |
| --- New \function{dir()} function (the standard \function{dir()} is |
| now just as good) |
| |
| \item[\module{Para}] |
| --- helper for fmt.py |
| |
| \item[\module{poly}] |
| --- Polynomials |
| |
| \item[\module{tb}] |
| --- Print tracebacks, with a dump of local variables (use |
| \function{pdb.pm()} or \refmodule{traceback} instead) |
| |
| \item[\module{timing}] |
| --- Measure time intervals to high resolution (use |
| \function{time.clock()} instead). (This is an extension module.) |
| |
| \item[\module{util}] |
| --- Useful functions that don't fit elsewhere. |
| |
| \item[\module{wdb}] |
| --- A primitive windowing debugger based on STDWIN. |
| |
| \item[\module{whatsound}] |
| --- Recognize sound files; use \refmodule{sndhdr} instead. |
| |
| \item[\module{zmod}] |
| --- Compute properties of mathematical "fields" |
| \end{description} |
| |
| |
| The following modules are obsolete, but are likely re-surface as tools |
| or scripts. |
| |
| \begin{description} |
| \item[\module{find}] |
| --- find files matching pattern in directory tree |
| |
| \item[\module{grep}] |
| --- grep |
| |
| \item[\module{packmail}] |
| --- create a self-unpacking \UNIX{} shell archive |
| \end{description} |
| |
| |
| The following modules were documented in previous versions of this |
| manual, but are now considered obsolete. The source for the |
| documentation is still available as part of the documentation source |
| archive. |
| |
| \begin{description} |
| \item[\module{ni}] |
| --- Import modules in ``packages.'' Basic package support is now |
| built in. |
| |
| \item[\module{rand}] |
| --- Old interface to the random number generator. |
| |
| \item[\module{soundex}] |
| --- Algorithm for collapsing names which sound similar to a shared |
| key. (This is an extension module.) |
| \end{description} |
| |
| |
| \section{Extension modules} |
| |
| \begin{description} |
| \item[\module{stdwin}] |
| --- Interface to STDWIN (an old, unsupported |
| platform-independent GUI package). Obsolete; use \module{Tkinter} for |
| a platform-independent GUI instead. |
| \end{description} |
| |
| The following are SGI specific, and may be out of touch with the |
| current version of reality. |
| |
| \begin{description} |
| \item[\module{cl}] |
| --- Interface to the SGI compression library. |
| |
| \item[\module{sv}] |
| --- Interface to the ``simple video'' board on SGI Indigo |
| (obsolete hardware). |
| \end{description} |