The Python Tutorial — Python 3.14.3 documentation

The Python Tutorial¶ Tip This tutorial is designed for programmers that are new to the Python language, not beginners who are new to programming. Python is an easy to learn, powerful programming language. It has efficient high-level data structures and a simple but effective approach to object-oriented programming. Python’s elegant syntax and dynamic typing, together with its interpreted nature, make it an ideal language for scripting and rapid application development in many areas on most platforms. The Python interpreter and the extensive standard library are freely available in source or binary form for all major platforms from the Python website, https://www.python.org/, and may be freely distributed. The same site also contains distributions of and pointers to many free third party Python modules, programs and tools, and additional documentation. The Python interpreter is easily extended with new functions and data types implemented in C or C++ (or other languages callable from C). Python is also suitable as an extension language for customizable applications. This tutorial introduces the reader informally to the basic concepts and features of the Python language and system. Be aware that it expects you to have a basic understanding of programming in general. It helps to have a Python interpreter handy for hands-on experience, but all examples are self-contained, so the tutorial can be read off-line as well. For a description of standard objects and modules, see The Python Standard Library. The Python Language Reference gives a more formal definition of the language. To write extensions in C or C++, read Extending and Embedding the Python Interpreter and Python/C API reference manual. There are also several books covering Python in depth. This tutorial does not attempt to be comprehensive and cover every single feature, or even every commonly used feature. Instead, it introduces many of Python’s most noteworthy features, and will give you a good idea of the language’s flavor and style. After reading it, you will be able to read and write Python modules and programs, and you will be ready to learn more about the various Python library modules described in The Python Standard Library. The Glossary is also worth going through. 1. Whetting Your Appetite 2. Using the Python Interpreter 2.1. Invoking the Interpreter 2.1.1. Argument Passing 2.1.2. Interactive Mode 2.2. The Interpreter and Its Environment 2.2.1. Source Code Encoding 3. An Informal Introduction to Python 3.1. Using Python as a Calculator 3.1.1. Numbers 3.1.2. Text 3.1.3. Lists 3.2. First Steps Towards Programming 4. More Control Flow Tools 4.1. if Statements 4.2. for Statements 4.3. The range() Function 4.4. break and continue Statements 4.5. else Clauses on Loops 4.6. pass Statements 4.7. match Statements 4.8. Defining Functions 4.9. More on Defining Functions 4.9.1. Default Argument Values 4.9.2. Keyword Arguments 4.9.3. Special parameters 4.9.3.1. Positional-or-Keyword Arguments 4.9.3.2. Positional-Only Parameters 4.9.3.3. Keyword-Only Arguments 4.9.3.4. Function Examples 4.9.3.5. Recap 4.9.4. Arbitrary Argument Lists 4.9.5. Unpacking Argument Lists 4.9.6. Lambda Expressions 4.9.7. Documentation Strings 4.9.8. Function Annotations 4.10. Intermezzo: Coding Style 5. Data Structures 5.1. More on Lists 5.1.1. Using Lists as Stacks 5.1.2. Using Lists as Queues 5.1.3. List Comprehensions 5.1.4. Nested List Comprehensions 5.2. The del statement 5.3. Tuples and Sequences 5.4. Sets 5.5. Dictionaries 5.6. Looping Techniques 5.7. More on Conditions 5.8. Comparing Sequences and Other Types 6. Modules 6.1. More on Modules 6.1.1. Executing modules as scripts 6.1.2. The Module Search Path 6.1.3. “Compiled” Python files 6.2. Standard Modules 6.3. The dir() Function 6.4. Packages 6.4.1. Importing * From a Package 6.4.2. Intra-package References 6.4.3. Packages in Multiple Directories 7. Input and Output 7.1. Fancier Output Formatting 7.1.1. Formatted String Literals 7.1.2. The String format() Method 7.1.3. Manual String Formatting 7.1.4. Old string formatting 7.2. Reading and Writing Files 7.2.1. Methods of File Objects 7.2.2. Saving structured data with json 8. Errors and Exceptions 8.1. Syntax Errors 8.2. Exceptions 8.3. Handling Exceptions 8.4. Raising Exceptions 8.5. Exception Chaining 8.6. User-defined Exceptions 8.7. Defining Clean-up Actions 8.8. Predefined Clean-up Actions 8.9. Raising and Handling Multiple Unrelated Exceptions 8.10. Enriching Exceptions with Notes 9. Classes 9.1. A Word About Names and Objects 9.2. Python Scopes and Namespaces 9.2.1. Scopes and Namespaces Example 9.3. A First Look at Classes 9.3.1. Class Definition Syntax 9.3.2. Class Objects 9.3.3. Instance Objects 9.3.4. Method Objects 9.3.5. Class and Instance Variables 9.4. Random Remarks 9.5. Inheritance 9.5.1. Multiple Inheritance 9.6. Private Variables 9.7. Odds and Ends 9.8. Iterators 9.9. Generators 9.10. Generator Expressions 10. Brief Tour of the Standard Library 10.1. Operating System Interface 10.2. File Wildcards 10.3. Command Line Arguments 10.4. Error Output Redirection and Program Termination 10.5. String Pattern Matching 10.6. Mathematics 10.7. Internet Access 10.8. Dates and Times 10.9. Data Compression 10.10. Performance Measurement 10.11. Quality Control 10.12. Batteries Included 11. Brief Tour of the Standard Library — Part II 11.1. Output Formatting 11.2. Templating 11.3. Working with Binary Data Record Layouts 11.4. Multi-threading 11.5. Logging 11.6. Weak References 11.7. Tools for Working with Lists 11.8. Decimal Floating-Point Arithmetic 12. Virtual Environments and Packages 12.1. Introduction 12.2. Creating Virtual Environments 12.3. Managing Packages with pip 13. What Now? 14. Interactive Input Editing and History Substitution 14.1. Tab Completion and History Editing 14.2. Alternatives to the Interactive Interpreter 15. Floating-Point Arithmetic: Issues and Limitations 15.1. Representation Error 16. Appendix 16.1. Interactive Mode 16.1.1. Error Handling 16.1.2. Executable Python Scripts 16.1.3. The Interactive Startup File 16.1.4. The Customization Modules © Copyright 2001 Python Software Foundation. This page is licensed under the Python Software Foundation License Version 2. Examples, recipes, and other code in the documentation are additionally licensed under the Zero Clause BSD License. See History and License for more information. The Python Software Foundation is a non-profit corporation. Please donate. Last updated on Feb 28, 2026 (07:29 UTC). Found a bug? Created using Sphinx 8.2.3.