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author | Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> | 1995-03-30 16:01:33 (GMT) |
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committer | Guido van Rossum <guido@python.org> | 1995-03-30 16:01:33 (GMT) |
commit | 2ddd978fcc6fbd1a90cfbddceeec1e2f59d5507d (patch) | |
tree | 1293badf9cc2a149ea1ee2cf4771014f6085c8a0 /Doc/lib/lib.tex | |
parent | 233aa1d4fc3eca921b353524abe1b9678691c70f (diff) | |
download | cpython-2ddd978fcc6fbd1a90cfbddceeec1e2f59d5507d.zip cpython-2ddd978fcc6fbd1a90cfbddceeec1e2f59d5507d.tar.gz cpython-2ddd978fcc6fbd1a90cfbddceeec1e2f59d5507d.tar.bz2 |
rewritten Abstract
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-rw-r--r-- | Doc/lib/lib.tex | 35 |
1 files changed, 29 insertions, 6 deletions
diff --git a/Doc/lib/lib.tex b/Doc/lib/lib.tex index bf0f3ad..66d326a 100644 --- a/Doc/lib/lib.tex +++ b/Doc/lib/lib.tex @@ -22,12 +22,35 @@ \begin{abstract} \noindent -This document describes the built-in and standard types, exceptions, -functions and modules that come with the Python system. It assumes -basic knowledge about the Python language. For an informal -introduction to the language, see the {\em Python Tutorial}. The {\em -Python Reference Manual} gives a more formal definition of the -language. +Python is an extensible, interpreted, object-oriented programming +language. It supports a wide range of applications, from simple text +processing scripts to interactive WWW browsers. + +While the {\em Python Reference Manual} describes the exact syntax and +semantics of the language, it does not describe the standard library +that is distributed with the language, and which greatly enhances its +immediate usability. This library contains built-in modules (written +in C) that provide access to system functionality such as file I/O +that would otherwise be inaccessible to Python programmers, as well as +modules written in Python that provide standardized solutions for many +problems that occur in everyday programming. Some of these modules +are explicitly designed to encourage and enhance the portability of +Python programs. + +This library reference manual documents Python's standard library, as +well as many optional library modules (which may or may not be +available, depending on whether the underlying platform supports them +and on the configuration choices made at compile time). It also +documents the standard types of the language and its built-in +functions and exceptions, many of which are not or incompletely +documented in the Reference Manual. + +This manual assumes basic knowledge about the Python language. For an +informal introduction to Python, see the {\em Python Tutorial}; the +Python Reference Manual remains the highest authority on syntactic and +semantic questions. Finally, the manual entitled {\em Extending and +Embedding the Python Interpreter} describes how to add new extensions +to Python and how to embed it in other applications. \end{abstract} |