15. Generic Operating System Services

The modules described in this chapter provide interfaces to operating system features that are available on (almost) all operating systems, such as files and a clock. The interfaces are generally modeled after the Unix or C interfaces, but they are available on most other systems as well. Here’s an overview:

• 15.1. os — Miscellaneous operating system interfaces
  • 15.1.1. Process Parameters
  • 15.1.2. File Object Creation
  • 15.1.3. File Descriptor Operations
  • 15.1.4. Files and Directories
  • 15.1.5. Process Management
  • 15.1.6. Miscellaneous System Information
  • 15.1.7. Miscellaneous Functions
• 15.2. time — Time access and conversions
• 15.3. optparse — More powerful command line option parser
  • 15.3.1. Background
    • 15.3.1.1. Terminology
    • 15.3.1.2. What are options for?
    • 15.3.1.3. What are positional arguments for?
  • 15.3.2. Tutorial
    • 15.3.2.1. Understanding option actions
    • 15.3.2.2. The store action
    • 15.3.2.3. Handling boolean (flag) options
    • 15.3.2.4. Other actions
    • 15.3.2.5. Default values
    • 15.3.2.6. Generating help
    • 15.3.2.7. Printing a version string
    • 15.3.2.8. How optparse handles errors
    • 15.3.2.9. Putting it all together
  • 15.3.3. Reference Guide
    • 15.3.3.1. Creating the parser
    • 15.3.3.2. Populating the parser
    • 15.3.3.3. Defining options
    • 15.3.3.4. Standard option actions
    • 15.3.3.5. Option attributes
    • 15.3.3.6. Standard option types
    • 15.3.3.7. Parsing arguments
    • 15.3.3.8. Querying and manipulating your option parser
    • 15.3.3.9. Conflicts between options
    • 15.3.3.10. Cleanup
    • 15.3.3.11. Other methods
  • 15.3.4. Option Callbacks
    • 15.3.4.1. Defining a callback option
    • 15.3.4.2. How callbacks are called
    • 15.3.4.3. Raising errors in a callback
    • 15.3.4.4. Callback example 1: trivial callback
    • 15.3.4.5. Callback example 2: check option order
    • 15.3.4.6. Callback example 3: check option order (generalized)
    • 15.3.4.7. Callback example 4: check arbitrary condition
    • 15.3.4.8. Callback example 5: fixed arguments
    • 15.3.4.9. Callback example 6: variable arguments
  • 15.3.5. Extending optparse
    • 15.3.5.1. Adding new types
    • 15.3.5.2. Adding new actions
• 15.4. getopt — Parser for command line options
• 15.5. logging — Logging facility for Python
  • 15.5.1. Logging tutorial
    • 15.5.1.1. Simple examples
    • 15.5.1.2. Loggers
    • 15.5.1.3. Handlers
    • 15.5.1.4. Formatters
    • 15.5.1.5. Configuring Logging
    • 15.5.1.6. Configuring Logging for a Library
  • 15.5.2. Logging Levels
  • 15.5.3. Logger Objects
  • 15.5.4. Basic example
  • 15.5.5. Logging to multiple destinations
  • 15.5.6. Adding contextual information to your logging output
  • 15.5.7. Sending and receiving logging events across a network
  • 15.5.8. Handler Objects
    • 15.5.8.1. StreamHandler
    • 15.5.8.2. FileHandler
    • 15.5.8.3. WatchedFileHandler
    • 15.5.8.4. RotatingFileHandler
    • 15.5.8.5. TimedRotatingFileHandler
    • 15.5.8.6. SocketHandler
    • 15.5.8.7. DatagramHandler
    • 15.5.8.8. SysLogHandler
    • 15.5.8.9. NTEventLogHandler
    • 15.5.8.10. SMTPHandler
    • 15.5.8.11. MemoryHandler
    • 15.5.8.12. HTTPHandler
  • 15.5.9. Formatter Objects
  • 15.5.10. Filter Objects
  • 15.5.11. LogRecord Objects
  • 15.5.12. LoggerAdapter Objects
  • 15.5.13. Thread Safety
  • 15.5.14. Configuration
    • 15.5.14.1. Configuration functions
    • 15.5.14.2. Configuration file format
    • 15.5.14.3. Configuration server example
  • 15.5.15. More examples
    • 15.5.15.1. Multiple handlers and formatters
    • 15.5.15.2. Using logging in multiple modules
• 15.6. getpass — Portable password input
• 15.7. platform — Access to underlying platform’s identifying data.
  • 15.7.1. Cross Platform
  • 15.7.2. Java Platform
  • 15.7.3. Windows Platform
    • 15.7.3.1. Win95/98 specific
  • 15.7.4. Mac OS Platform
  • 15.7.5. Unix Platforms
• 15.8. errno — Standard errno system symbols