Python Pocket Reference

by Mark Lutz

This is the book to reach for when you're coding on the fly and need an answer now. It's an easy-to-use reference to the core language, with descriptions of commonly used modules and toolkits, and a guide to recent changes, new features, and upgraded built-ins -- all updated to cover Python 3.X as well as version 2.6. You'll also quickly find exactly what you need with the handy index.

Written by Mark Lutz -- widely recognized as the world's leading Python trainer -- Python Pocket Reference, Fourth Edition, is the perfect companion to O'Reilly's classic Python tutorials, also written by Mark: Learning Python and Programming Python.


Built-in object types, including numbers, lists, dictionaries, and more
Statements and syntax for creating and processing objects
Functions and modules for structuring and reusing code
Python's object-oriented programming tools
The exception-handling model
Built-in functions, exceptions, and attributes
Special operator overloading methods
Widely used standard library modules and extensions
Command-line options and development tools
Python idioms and hints

Genres: Programming, Reference, Computers, Computer Science, Nonfiction, Technology, Technical

198 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Mark Lutz is the world leader in Python training, the author of Python's earliest and best-selling texts, and a pioneering figure in the Python community.

Mark is the author of the popular O'Reilly books Programming Python, Python Pocket Reference, and Learning Python, all currently in 4th Editions. He has been using and promoting Python since 1992, started writing Python books in 1995, and began teaching Python classes in 1997. As of mid 2010, Mark has instructed some 250 Python training sessions, taught some 4,000 students, and written Python books which have sold roughly a quarter of a million copies and been translated to over a dozen languages.

Together, his Python efforts since 1992 have helped to establish it as one of the most widely-used programming languages in the world today. In addition, Mark holds BS and MS degrees in computer science from the University of Wisconsin where he explored implementations of the Prolog language, and over the last 25 years has worked as a professional software developer on compilers, programming tools, scripting applications, and assorted client/server systems.

Mark maintains an additional book support site on the web at www.rmi.net/~lutz.

Reviews

[Russel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book has been war-torn by me over the last couple of years as Python is my favourite scripting language which I use on a pretty well daily basis. I love going through this book over and over again learning more and more oddities and pecularities of the language, striving to always be more and more pythonic.

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm a pretty concrete thinker and tend to take things literally. While this is a good reference for confirming syntax, etc., the language used in some of the explanations has an abstractness to it that I found difficult. Where the information itself could have been formated to demonstrate or reiterate the explanation, it often isn't.

'''This is a multiline block'''

... is written on a single line. I reread it more than once because I thought maybe I was misinterpreting. I would've immediately been confident that I understood if it had instead been:

'''
This is a
multiline
block
'''

Table 1 has descending order for ascending precedence of operators, and it would've been lovely if it had been arranged to be ascending-ascending or descending-descending instead, reducing the need for the confusing explanation about "lower cells of this table have higher precedence".

[John Pyrce · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good reference for Python. The biggest drawback is that it isn't current with the latest version of Python. It also has to deal with the challenge of the two major versions of Python that have a large number of differences that aren't easy to characterize. This can lead to a fragmented presentation in some areas. I would actually prefer if the latest 3.0 version were presented with perhaps a compendium of differences as an attachment rather than constantly trying to process two different approaches. But I don't have to deal with Python 2.x and this is a reference.

I was also a bit dismayed that some questions about overall program structure are addressed at the end of the book. I'd like to see them up front since they are some of the first things you have to deal with.

[WloHu · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just a reference book. Most of the things, which are available in language documentation, are listed here or briefly described. Some of those descriptions are great because cruft you don't care about (and it's often present in official docs) isn't there and meaningful things are even more packed.

If you don't have Internet access, documentation in you PC or you rather look up books for reference then this is "must buy" for you. It may be also helpful for those who know programming in general and want to read fast about Python' features.

Also font is quite big.

[knoba · Rating 4 out of 5]

.
.
Contents
Introduction
Book Conventions
1. Python Command-Line Usage
2. Python Environment Variables
3. Python Windows Launcher Usage
4. Built-In Types And Operators
5. Specific Built-In Types
6. Statements And Syntax
7. Specific Statements
8. Namespace And Scope Rules
9. Object-Oriented Programming
10. Operator Overloading Methods
11. Built-In Functions
12. Built-In Exceptions
13. Built-In Attributes
14. Standard Library Modules
15. Python Sql Database Api
16. More Hints And Idioms
Index

[Kent · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like this book, find it handy -- but why, oh why, would you make a book called a reference and not make it ridiculously easy to find stuff? The page layout is awful and the headings are incredibly weak.

[Bernard · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have some programming knowledge, then this is like all of the Python documentation stripped down to the most essential parts and shrunken down into great pocket-sized book. It has information for both Python 2.x and Python 3.x and is well worth the price.

[Sergey Kochergan · Rating 2 out of 5]

hard to follow the logic of this book. would not recommend it to those, who learn python language. Don't waste your time.

[Victor · Rating 3 out of 5]

good reference book for quick and easy doubts, however if you want to get a more detailed description of the language go for the complete book from O'Reilly

[Frank Palardy · Rating 4 out of 5]

He can be hard to follow but he covers everything.

[Fernando Conde-Pumpido · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good book for quick reference, specially if you are new to the language.

It's a good companion to keep on your desk, so you can code as usual and not worry about specifics of syntax, because all you might need is in this book.

[Ida · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had to give up in the middle because I'm learning with a newer version

But from what I've seen it does what the title promises: pocket reference

I liked the unclotted format, the structure of the chapters and the page size that makes it into an actual pocket reference.

[Daniel Barker · Rating 3 out of 5]

Skimmed, okay book.

[Ibrahim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good handy python pocket reference for advanced programmers

[Steven Chew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gem is going to stay in my bag for a long long time.

[Xuankang Lin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Only covers up to Python 3.4, already outdated as of 03/2021.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's a good reference. Decent for reading through to remind yourself of the various options in python.

[David Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative and well structured

This book is really good for general reference and best practices of Python programming. Highly recommend for new and experienced Pythonists!

[Cynbel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has already become a great reference to use for me, easier to use this than Python's documentaion, which is a pain to use when trying to find even simple things because it is terribly organized or at least to me it is.

[Spencer · Rating 3 out of 5]

The back cover text is the best of this book. Useful, not great.

[Zachary]

Python is a very easy language to learn, but has several constructs and functions that don't seem too well-thought-out.

[Phil Moyer · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good handy companion to Lutz's Learning Python. This gives you a quick way to look up syntax or language constructs you don't quite remember!

[John Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

Handy little pocket reference book. Good to keep around when chewing on Python programming.

[Mikhail GEYER · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book for a quick learn-refreshing.

[Todd · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must have for any python programmer.

[Supakorn Suttiruang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I tried pretty hard to get this bad boy.
A must-own for Python programmers.

[Barry · Rating 4 out of 5]

Useful when doing quick Python searches - I program offline sometimes, and this comes in handy.