Created Oct 8, 2001. Last updated on Apr 21, 2013
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Richard Gruet's Python page

 

 

Welcome to this page, entirely dedicated to Python.

Python stuff

A bit of propaganda

I am a big fan of Python, a so called scripting language comparable to Perl but far more readable and elegant (in my opinion, no offense ;-) It is free and available for a wide variety of platforms.
As a programmer I have been using many different languages ranging from Assembly language to Java, including VB, C, C++, Delphi, and even Lisp or Forth. Python is my favorite. It has the clearest syntax I've seen so far, it is Object Oriented (but not limited to ;-), well designed, clever, concise, simple to learn and use yet powerful, has a thriving and friendly community of users and is available for free. I've been using Python not only for scripting or prototyping (where it shines), but also for "serious" corporate applications, and I consider it robust. In particular, I have used it to implement Corba servers using the CORBA ORB omniORB, and created some utilities for that ORB.
I have also updated (with Simon Brunning and Josh Stone) a Python Quick Reference originally written by Chris Hoffmann for Python 1.3.

Eric Raymond, author of the famous essay on the Open Source movement "The Cathedral and the Bazaar" explains why Python is his favorite programming language there.

Just try Python! I suggest that you download the official distribution, or the ActivePython distribution, and then start here.

Python Quick Reference

This is a (relatively) Quick Reference for Python in a single long HTML page. Also exists in PDF. Don't expect a 2 pages cheat sheet, but rather a 40-50 pages digest of the official reference documentation.

  • If you want to print the Quick Ref, try first from your browser (I suggest to select styles Printing or Modern B&W). If it doesn't work for you (right-hand edge truncated), try to print the PDF versions instead.
  • Starting from version 2.2, if you intend to download the PQR and use it offline, you should download the zipped HTML rather than the PQRx.y.html alone, it includes the stylesheets used by the main page.
The following documents are available under the Creative Commons license Creative Commons License :

PQR 2.7

This version of the Quick Reference has been created by Stefan McKinnon Høj-Edwards from the PQR 2.6.

PQR 2.6

PQR 2.5

PQR 2.4

PQR 2.3

PQR 2.2

PQR 2.1

PQR 2.0

PQR 1.52

OmniORBpy utilities

ipy

ipy is a free Python/CORBA utility program that generates Python implementation skeletons from IDL sources (IDL files or Interface Repository). It allows to create very quickly a basic but running Python prototype of a CORBA server, given its IDL definition.
More information here

idlb

idlb is a simple IDL definition textual browser written in Python on top of the ATT's omniORB ORB. It allows you to quickly find the definition of IDL objects in IDL files, given their full or partial names. This is especially handy when you manage big idl files.

For example, if you have an IDL file myIDL.idl, you will be able to retrieve the exact definition (including comments) of any symbol appearing in myIDL.idl or in its included IDL files; if you remember only partially a name, you can use * and ? wildcards.

Warning! idlb has been a suspended work for a while now. I have no idea if I will resume it or not !
More information here

Misc Python packages and modules

I created these modules when I could not find existing ones with the same functionality (but I can be wrong) or when it didn't match my needs. They might be useful to other Pythoners.
Warning (March 2006): these modules are now pretty much outdated. glock.py and getargs.py might still be of some interest, though.

Package
Description
rgutils Misc utilities modules (also detailed below)
scf Simple Corba Framework.

The following modules are bundled in the package rgutils, but also available separately :

Module
Description
async.py Asynchronous function calls utility (so far, only a timed out function call).
getargs.py (Yet Another getopt) Parse command line arguments (updated March 2006)
process.py Simple process management. Allows to launch, kill and see the status of a process independently from the platform (at least on Win32 and Unix).
dataxfer.py Functions for transfering arbitrary sized data in a distributed (client/server) environment via a FTP server.
glock.py Global (inter-process) mutex on Windows and Unix.
pool.py Resource pool management.
message.py Representation of an e-mail. Used by imap.py and pop3.py.
imap.py Utilities for reading IMAP mail.
pop3.py Utilities for reading POP3 mail.
fwdmail.py Script for forwarding IMAP or POP mail.
platform.py Platform information. This one was written by Marc-Andre Lemburg (mal@lemburg.com), I have included it here because it is used by some of my modules.
NB: this module is now part of Python 2.3+ std distribution.

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