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+
+.. _introduction:
+
+************
+Introduction
+************
+
+This reference manual describes the Python programming language. It is not
+intended as a tutorial.
+
+While I am trying to be as precise as possible, I chose to use English rather
+than formal specifications for everything except syntax and lexical analysis.
+This should make the document more understandable to the average reader, but
+will leave room for ambiguities. Consequently, if you were coming from Mars and
+tried to re-implement Python from this document alone, you might have to guess
+things and in fact you would probably end up implementing quite a different
+language. On the other hand, if you are using Python and wonder what the precise
+rules about a particular area of the language are, you should definitely be able
+to find them here. If you would like to see a more formal definition of the
+language, maybe you could volunteer your time --- or invent a cloning machine
+:-).
+
+It is dangerous to add too many implementation details to a language reference
+document --- the implementation may change, and other implementations of the
+same language may work differently.  On the other hand, there is currently only
+one Python implementation in widespread use (although alternate implementations
+exist), and its particular quirks are sometimes worth being mentioned,
+especially where the implementation imposes additional limitations.  Therefore,
+you'll find short "implementation notes" sprinkled throughout the text.
+
+Every Python implementation comes with a number of built-in and standard
+modules.  These are documented in :ref:`library-index`.  A few built-in modules
+are mentioned when they interact in a significant way with the language
+definition.
+
+
+.. _implementations:
+
+Alternate Implementations
+=========================
+
+Though there is one Python implementation which is by far the most popular,
+there are some alternate implementations which are of particular interest to
+different audiences.
+
+Known implementations include:
+
+CPython
+   This is the original and most-maintained implementation of Python, written in C.
+   New language features generally appear here first.
+
+Jython
+   Python implemented in Java.  This implementation can be used as a scripting
+   language for Java applications, or can be used to create applications using the
+   Java class libraries.  It is also often used to create tests for Java libraries.
+   More information can be found at `the Jython website <http://www.jython.org/>`_.
+
+Python for .NET
+   This implementation actually uses the CPython implementation, but is a managed
+   .NET application and makes .NET libraries available.  This was created by Brian
+   Lloyd.  For more information, see the `Python for .NET home page
+   <http://www.zope.org/Members/Brian/PythonNet>`_.
+
+IronPython
+   An alternate Python for .NET.  Unlike Python.NET, this is a complete Python
+   implementation that generates IL, and compiles Python code directly to .NET
+   assemblies.  It was created by Jim Hugunin, the original creator of Jython.  For
+   more information, see `the IronPython website
+   <http://workspaces.gotdotnet.com/ironpython>`_.
+
+PyPy
+   An implementation of Python written in Python; even the bytecode interpreter is
+   written in Python.  This is executed using CPython as the underlying
+   interpreter.  One of the goals of the project is to encourage experimentation
+   with the language itself by making it easier to modify the interpreter (since it
+   is written in Python).  Additional information is available on `the PyPy
+   project's home page <http://codespeak.net/pypy/>`_.
+
+Each of these implementations varies in some way from the language as documented
+in this manual, or introduces specific information beyond what's covered in the
+standard Python documentation.  Please refer to the implementation-specific
+documentation to determine what else you need to know about the specific
+implementation you're using.
+
+
+.. _notation:
+
+Notation
+========
+
+.. index::
+   single: BNF
+   single: grammar
+   single: syntax
+   single: notation
+
+The descriptions of lexical analysis and syntax use a modified BNF grammar
+notation.  This uses the following style of definition:
+
+.. productionlist:: *
+   name: `lc_letter` (`lc_letter` | "_")*
+   lc_letter: "a"..."z"
+
+The first line says that a ``name`` is an ``lc_letter`` followed by a sequence
+of zero or more ``lc_letter``\ s and underscores.  An ``lc_letter`` in turn is
+any of the single characters ``'a'`` through ``'z'``.  (This rule is actually
+adhered to for the names defined in lexical and grammar rules in this document.)
+
+Each rule begins with a name (which is the name defined by the rule) and
+``::=``.  A vertical bar (``|``) is used to separate alternatives; it is the
+least binding operator in this notation.  A star (``*``) means zero or more
+repetitions of the preceding item; likewise, a plus (``+``) means one or more
+repetitions, and a phrase enclosed in square brackets (``[ ]``) means zero or
+one occurrences (in other words, the enclosed phrase is optional).  The ``*``
+and ``+`` operators bind as tightly as possible; parentheses are used for
+grouping.  Literal strings are enclosed in quotes.  White space is only
+meaningful to separate tokens. Rules are normally contained on a single line;
+rules with many alternatives may be formatted alternatively with each line after
+the first beginning with a vertical bar.
+
+.. index::
+   single: lexical definitions
+   single: ASCII@ASCII
+
+In lexical definitions (as the example above), two more conventions are used:
+Two literal characters separated by three dots mean a choice of any single
+character in the given (inclusive) range of ASCII characters.  A phrase between
+angular brackets (``<...>``) gives an informal description of the symbol
+defined; e.g., this could be used to describe the notion of 'control character'
+if needed.
+
+Even though the notation used is almost the same, there is a big difference
+between the meaning of lexical and syntactic definitions: a lexical definition
+operates on the individual characters of the input source, while a syntax
+definition operates on the stream of tokens generated by the lexical analysis.
+All uses of BNF in the next chapter ("Lexical Analysis") are lexical
+definitions; uses in subsequent chapters are syntactic definitions.
+