Python Tutorial, Release 3.12.

sound/ Top-level package

__init__.py Initialize the sound package
formats/ Subpackage for file format conversions
__init__.py
wavread.py
wavwrite.py
aiffread.py
aiffwrite.py
auread.py
auwrite.py
...
effects/ Subpackage for sound effects
__init__.py
echo.py
surround.py
reverse.py
...
filters/ Subpackage for filters
__init__.py
equalizer.py
vocoder.py
karaoke.py
...

When importing the package, Python searches through the directories on sys.path looking for the package subdirec-
tory.
The __init__.py files are required to make Python treat directories containing the file as packages (unless using a
namespace package, a relatively advanced feature). This prevents directories with a common name, such as string,
from unintentionally hiding valid modules that occur later on the module search path. In the simplest case, __init__.
py can just be an empty file, but it can also execute initialization code for the package or set the __all__ variable,
described later.
Users of the package can import individual modules from the package, for example:

import sound.effects.echo

This loads the submodule sound.effects.echo. It must be referenced with its full name.

sound.effects.echo.echofilter(input, output, delay=0.7, atten=4)

An alternative way of importing the submodule is:

from sound.effects import echo

This also loads the submodule echo, and makes it available without its package prefix, so it can be used as follows:

echo.echofilter(input, output, delay=0.7, atten=4)

Yet another variation is to import the desired function or variable directly:

from sound.effects.echo import echofilter

Again, this loads the submodule echo, but this makes its function echofilter() directly available:

echofilter(input, output, delay=0.7, atten=4)

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Note that when using from package import item, the item can be either a submodule (or subpackage) of the
package, or some other name defined in the package, like a function, class or variable. The import statement first tests
whether the item is defined in the package; if not, it assumes it is a module and attempts to load it. If it fails to find it, an
ImportError exception is raised.
Contrarily, when using syntax like import item.subitem.subsubitem, each item except for the last must be
a package; the last item can be a module or a package but can’t be a class or function or variable defined in the previous
item.

6.4.1 Importing * From a Package

Now what happens when the user writes from sound.effects import *? Ideally, one would hope that this
somehow goes out to the filesystem, finds which submodules are present in the package, and imports them all. This
could take a long time and importing sub-modules might have unwanted side-effects that should only happen when the
sub-module is explicitly imported.
The only solution is for the package author to provide an explicit index of the package. The import statement uses
the following convention: if a package’s __init__.py code defines a list named __all__, it is taken to be the list
of module names that should be imported when from package import * is encountered. It is up to the package
author to keep this list up-to-date when a new version of the package is released. Package authors may also decide not
to support it, if they don’t see a use for importing * from their package. For example, the file sound/effects/
__init__.py could contain the following code:

__all__ = ["echo", "surround", "reverse"]

This would mean that from sound.effects import * would import the three named submodules of the
sound.effects package.
Be aware that submodules might become shadowed by locally defined names. For example, if you added a reverse
function to the sound/effects/__init__.py file, the from sound.effects import * would only im-
port the two submodules echo and surround, but not the reverse submodule, because it is shadowed by the locally
defined reverse function:

__all__ = [
"echo", # refers to the 'echo.py' file
"surround", # refers to the 'surround.py' file
"reverse", # !!! refers to the 'reverse' function now !!!
]

def reverse(msg: str): # <-- this name shadows the 'reverse.py' submodule
return msg[::-1] # in the case of a 'from sound.effects import *'

If __all__ is not defined, the statement from sound.effects import * does not import all submodules from
the package sound.effects into the current namespace; it only ensures that the package sound.effects has been
imported (possibly running any initialization code in __init__.py) and then imports whatever names are defined in
the package. This includes any names defined (and submodules explicitly loaded) by __init__.py. It also includes
any submodules of the package that were explicitly loaded by previous import statements. Consider this code:

import sound.effects.echo
import sound.effects.surround
from sound.effects import *

In this example, the echo and surround modules are imported in the current namespace because they are defined in
the sound.effects package when the from...import statement is executed. (This also works when __all__
is defined.)

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Although certain modules are designed to export only names that follow certain patterns when you use import *, it is
still considered bad practice in production code.
Remember, there is nothing wrong with using from package import specific_submodule! In fact, this
is the recommended notation unless the importing module needs to use submodules with the same name from different
packages.

6.4.2 Intra-package References

When packages are structured into subpackages (as with the sound package in the example), you can use absolute
imports to refer to submodules of siblings packages. For example, if the module sound.filters.vocoder needs
to use the echo module in the sound.effects package, it can use from sound.effects import echo.
You can also write relative imports, with the from module import name form of import statement. These imports
use leading dots to indicate the current and parent packages involved in the relative import. From the surround module
for example, you might use:

from . import echo

from .. import formats
from ..filters import equalizer

Note that relative imports are based on the name of the current module. Since the name of the main module is always
"__main__", modules intended for use as the main module of a Python application must always use absolute imports.

6.4.3 Packages in Multiple Directories

Packages support one more special attribute, __path__. This is initialized to be a list containing the name of the
directory holding the package’s __init__.py before the code in that file is executed. This variable can be modified;
doing so affects future searches for modules and subpackages contained in the package.
While this feature is not often needed, it can be used to extend the set of modules found in a package.

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 CHAPTER

SEVEN

INPUT AND OUTPUT

There are several ways to present the output of a program; data can be printed in a human-readable form, or written to a
file for future use. This chapter will discuss some of the possibilities.

7.1 Fancier Output Formatting

So far we’ve encountered two ways of writing values: expression statements and the print() function. (A third way is
using the write() method of file objects; the standard output file can be referenced as sys.stdout. See the Library
Reference for more information on this.)
Often you’ll want more control over the formatting of your output than simply printing space-separated values. There are
several ways to format output.
• To use formatted string literals, begin a string with f or F before the opening quotation mark or triple quotation
mark. Inside this string, you can write a Python expression between { and } characters that can refer to variables
or literal values.

>>> year = 2016

>>> event = 'Referendum'
>>> f'Results of the {year} {event}'
'Results of the 2016 Referendum'

• The str.format() method of strings requires more manual effort. You’ll still use { and } to mark where
a variable will be substituted and can provide detailed formatting directives, but you’ll also need to provide the
information to be formatted.

>>> yes_votes = 42_572_654

>>> no_votes = 43_132_495
>>> percentage = yes_votes / (yes_votes + no_votes)
>>> '{:-9} YES votes {:2.2%}'.format(yes_votes, percentage)
' 42572654 YES votes 49.67%'

• Finally, you can do all the string handling yourself by using string slicing and concatenation operations to create
any layout you can imagine. The string type has some methods that perform useful operations for padding strings
to a given column width.
When you don’t need fancy output but just want a quick display of some variables for debugging purposes, you can convert
any value to a string with the repr() or str() functions.
The str() function is meant to return representations of values which are fairly human-readable, while repr() is meant
to generate representations which can be read by the interpreter (or will force a SyntaxError if there is no equivalent
syntax). For objects which don’t have a particular representation for human consumption, str() will return the same

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value as repr(). Many values, such as numbers or structures like lists and dictionaries, have the same representation
using either function. Strings, in particular, have two distinct representations.
Some examples:
>>> s = 'Hello, world.'
>>> str(s)
'Hello, world.'
>>> repr(s)
"'Hello, world.'"
>>> str(1/7)
'0.14285714285714285'
>>> x = 10 * 3.25
>>> y = 200 * 200
>>> s = 'The value of x is ' + repr(x) + ', and y is ' + repr(y) + '...'
>>> print(s)
The value of x is 32.5, and y is 40000...
>>> # The repr() of a string adds string quotes and backslashes:
... hello = 'hello, world\n'
>>> hellos = repr(hello)
>>> print(hellos)
'hello, world\n'
>>> # The argument to repr() may be any Python object:
... repr((x, y, ('spam', 'eggs')))
"(32.5, 40000, ('spam', 'eggs'))"

The string module contains a Template class that offers yet another way to substitute values into strings, using
placeholders like $x and replacing them with values from a dictionary, but offers much less control of the formatting.

7.1.1 Formatted String Literals

Formatted string literals (also called f-strings for short) let you include the value of Python expressions inside a string by
prefixing the string with f or F and writing expressions as {expression}.
An optional format specifier can follow the expression. This allows greater control over how the value is formatted. The
following example rounds pi to three places after the decimal:
>>> import math
>>> print(f'The value of pi is approximately {math.pi:.3f}.')
The value of pi is approximately 3.142.

Passing an integer after the ':' will cause that field to be a minimum number of characters wide. This is useful for
making columns line up.
>>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab': 7678}
>>> for name, phone in table.items():
... print(f'{name:10} ==> {phone:10d}')
...
Sjoerd ==> 4127
Jack ==> 4098
Dcab ==> 7678

Other modifiers can be used to convert the value before it is formatted. '!a' applies ascii(), '!s' applies str(),
and '!r' applies repr():
>>> animals = 'eels'
>>> print(f'My hovercraft is full of {animals}.')
(continues on next page)

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(continued from previous page)

My hovercraft is full of eels.
>>> print(f'My hovercraft is full of {animals!r}.')
My hovercraft is full of 'eels'.

The = specifier can be used to expand an expression to the text of the expression, an equal sign, then the representation
of the evaluated expression:

>>> bugs = 'roaches'

>>> count = 13
>>> area = 'living room'
>>> print(f'Debugging {bugs=} {count=} {area=}')
Debugging bugs='roaches' count=13 area='living room'

See self-documenting expressions for more information on the = specifier. For a reference on these format specifications,
see the reference guide for the formatspec.

7.1.2 The String format() Method

Basic usage of the str.format() method looks like this:

>>> print('We are the {} who say "{}!"'.format('knights', 'Ni'))

We are the knights who say "Ni!"

The brackets and characters within them (called format fields) are replaced with the objects passed into the str.
format() method. A number in the brackets can be used to refer to the position of the object passed into the str.
format() method.

>>> print('{0} and {1}'.format('spam', 'eggs'))

spam and eggs
>>> print('{1} and {0}'.format('spam', 'eggs'))
eggs and spam

If keyword arguments are used in the str.format() method, their values are referred to by using the name of the
argument.

>>> print('This {food} is {adjective}.'.format(

... food='spam', adjective='absolutely horrible'))
This spam is absolutely horrible.

Positional and keyword arguments can be arbitrarily combined:

>>> print('The story of {0}, {1}, and {other}.'.format('Bill', 'Manfred',

... other='Georg'))
The story of Bill, Manfred, and Georg.

If you have a really long format string that you don’t want to split up, it would be nice if you could reference the variables
to be formatted by name instead of by position. This can be done by simply passing the dict and using square brackets
'[]' to access the keys.

>>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab': 8637678}

>>> print('Jack: {0[Jack]:d}; Sjoerd: {0[Sjoerd]:d}; '
... 'Dcab: {0[Dcab]:d}'.format(table))
Jack: 4098; Sjoerd: 4127; Dcab: 8637678

This could also be done by passing the table dictionary as keyword arguments with the ** notation.

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>>> table = {'Sjoerd': 4127, 'Jack': 4098, 'Dcab': 8637678}

>>> print('Jack: {Jack:d}; Sjoerd: {Sjoerd:d}; Dcab: {Dcab:d}'.format(**table))
Jack: 4098; Sjoerd: 4127; Dcab: 8637678

This is particularly useful in combination with the built-in function vars(), which returns a dictionary containing all
local variables.
As an example, the following lines produce a tidily aligned set of columns giving integers and their squares and cubes:

>>> for x in range(1, 11):

... print('{0:2d} {1:3d} {2:4d}'.format(x, x*x, x*x*x))
...
1 1 1
2 4 8
3 9 27
4 16 64
5 25 125
6 36 216
7 49 343
8 64 512
9 81 729
10 100 1000

For a complete overview of string formatting with str.format(), see formatstrings.

7.1.3 Manual String Formatting

Here’s the same table of squares and cubes, formatted manually:

>>> for x in range(1, 11):

... print(repr(x).rjust(2), repr(x*x).rjust(3), end=' ')
... # Note use of 'end' on previous line
... print(repr(x*x*x).rjust(4))
...
1 1 1
2 4 8
3 9 27
4 16 64
5 25 125
6 36 216
7 49 343
8 64 512
9 81 729
10 100 1000

(Note that the one space between each column was added by the way print() works: it always adds spaces between its
arguments.)
The str.rjust() method of string objects right-justifies a string in a field of a given width by padding it with spaces
on the left. There are similar methods str.ljust() and str.center(). These methods do not write anything,
they just return a new string. If the input string is too long, they don’t truncate it, but return it unchanged; this will mess
up your column lay-out but that’s usually better than the alternative, which would be lying about a value. (If you really
want truncation you can always add a slice operation, as in x.ljust(n)[:n].)
There is another method, str.zfill(), which pads a numeric string on the left with zeros. It understands about plus
and minus signs:

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>>> '12'.zfill(5)
'00012'
>>> '-3.14'.zfill(7)
'-003.14'
>>> '3.14159265359'.zfill(5)
'3.14159265359'

7.1.4 Old string formatting

The % operator (modulo) can also be used for string formatting. Given 'string' % values, instances of % in
string are replaced with zero or more elements of values. This operation is commonly known as string interpolation.
For example:

>>> import math

>>> print('The value of pi is approximately %5.3f.' % math.pi)
The value of pi is approximately 3.142.

More information can be found in the old-string-formatting section.

7.2 Reading and Writing Files

open() returns a file object, and is most commonly used with two positional arguments and one keyword argument:
open(filename, mode, encoding=None)

>>> f = open('workfile', 'w', encoding="utf-8")

The first argument is a string containing the filename. The second argument is another string containing a few characters
describing the way in which the file will be used. mode can be 'r' when the file will only be read, 'w' for only writing
(an existing file with the same name will be erased), and 'a' opens the file for appending; any data written to the file is
automatically added to the end. 'r+' opens the file for both reading and writing. The mode argument is optional; 'r'
will be assumed if it’s omitted.
Normally, files are opened in text mode, that means, you read and write strings from and to the file, which are encoded
in a specific encoding. If encoding is not specified, the default is platform dependent (see open()). Because UTF-8 is
the modern de-facto standard, encoding="utf-8" is recommended unless you know that you need to use a different
encoding. Appending a 'b' to the mode opens the file in binary mode. Binary mode data is read and written as bytes
objects. You can not specify encoding when opening file in binary mode.
In text mode, the default when reading is to convert platform-specific line endings (\n on Unix, \r\n on Windows) to
just \n. When writing in text mode, the default is to convert occurrences of \n back to platform-specific line endings.
This behind-the-scenes modification to file data is fine for text files, but will corrupt binary data like that in JPEG or EXE
files. Be very careful to use binary mode when reading and writing such files.
It is good practice to use the with keyword when dealing with file objects. The advantage is that the file is properly
closed after its suite finishes, even if an exception is raised at some point. Using with is also much shorter than writing
equivalent try-finally blocks:

>>> with open('workfile', encoding="utf-8") as f:

... read_data = f.read()

>>> # We can check that the file has been automatically closed.
>>> f.closed
True

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If you’re not using the with keyword, then you should call f.close() to close the file and immediately free up any
system resources used by it.

Warning: Calling f.write() without using the with keyword or calling f.close() might result in the
arguments of f.write() not being completely written to the disk, even if the program exits successfully.

After a file object is closed, either by a with statement or by calling f.close(), attempts to use the file object will
automatically fail.

>>> f.close()
>>> f.read()
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ValueError: I/O operation on closed file.

7.2.1 Methods of File Objects

The rest of the examples in this section will assume that a file object called f has already been created.
To read a file’s contents, call f.read(size), which reads some quantity of data and returns it as a string (in text
mode) or bytes object (in binary mode). size is an optional numeric argument. When size is omitted or negative, the entire
contents of the file will be read and returned; it’s your problem if the file is twice as large as your machine’s memory.
Otherwise, at most size characters (in text mode) or size bytes (in binary mode) are read and returned. If the end of the
file has been reached, f.read() will return an empty string ('').

>>> f.read()
'This is the entire file.\n'
>>> f.read()
''

f.readline() reads a single line from the file; a newline character (\n) is left at the end of the string, and is only
omitted on the last line of the file if the file doesn’t end in a newline. This makes the return value unambiguous; if f.
readline() returns an empty string, the end of the file has been reached, while a blank line is represented by '\n',
a string containing only a single newline.

>>> f.readline()
'This is the first line of the file.\n'
>>> f.readline()
'Second line of the file\n'
>>> f.readline()
''

For reading lines from a file, you can loop over the file object. This is memory efficient, fast, and leads to simple code:

>>> for line in f:

... print(line, end='')
...
This is the first line of the file.
Second line of the file

If you want to read all the lines of a file in a list you can also use list(f) or f.readlines().
f.write(string) writes the contents of string to the file, returning the number of characters written.

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