Browse Standard Documentation

This page documents Python 1.5.2, which is very close to a final release. Documentation for older versions are available here: version 1.4, version 1.5, version 1.5.1, version 1.5.1p1. The version 1.5.2 documentation is more complete and looks better; recent changes are marked as such.

• Tutorial
  (start here)
• Library Reference
  (keep this under your pillow)
• Macintosh Library Modules
  (this too, if you use a Macintosh)
• Language Reference
  (for language lawyers)
• Extending and Embedding
  (tutorial for C/C++ programmers)
• Python/C API
  (reference for C/C++ programmers)

• Download all of the above
  (for off-line browsing)
• Other documentation collections
  (includes additional tutorials and introductions)

If you have comments or suggestions for the Python documentation, please send email to python-docs@python.org. Please do not send programming or installation questions there; see the mailing lists overview instead.

Download Standard Documentation

To download an archive containing the above documents in one of various formats, follow one of these links:

• HTML
• Postscript (also for A4 paper)
• PDF (also for A4 paper)
• GNU Info
• LaTeX source
• MS HTML Help (external link)

If you have problems: For problems downloading or unpacking any of these files on Windows, please don't write us; it works fine for us and the files on the site are not corrupt. Make sure you save the file on disk; don't let the browser open the file. You may have to rename the downloaded file it so that it has the proper extension; all files above should have a ".tgz" extension. If your unpack tools don't understand this file format (gzipped tar), try WinZip 7.0.

Other Documentation Collections

• Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
  (with answers, of course...)
• Introductory material
  (lots of choice for everybody's taste)
• Books about Python
  (order here and support the PSA!)
• Non-English Python Resources
  (Translations, original texts, mailing lists etc. in foreign languages)
• HOWTO collection
  (why not write a HOWTO of your own?)
• Python Topic Guides
  (link collections for specific areas of interest)
• Links to Contributed Hints and Guides
  (collected by Ken Manheimer and Barry Warsaw)
• The Python Journal
  (accumulating journal of Python lore)
• Publications referring to Python
  (in magazines and e-'zines)
• Python compared to other languages
  (Java, Perl, Tcl, Scheme, ...)
• Guido's essays on Python topics
  (from elementary to mindboggling)

Tip: browse the standard library (the subdirectory Lib) and the standard collections of demos (Demo) and tools (Tools) that come with the source distribution. There's a lot you can learn from the source!

Off-site Collections

• Starship library
  (Tkinter, HTMLgen, SWIG, kwParsing, kjBuckets, crypto modules, ...)
• Pythonware library
  (Tkinter, Python Image Library)
• Python at LLNL
  (LLNL's Python Extensions)