Doc/lib/libtypes.tex

   1 \section{\module{types} ---
   2          Names for all built-in types}
   3
   4 \declaremodule{standard}{types}
   5 \modulesynopsis{Names for all built-in types.}
   6
   7
   8 This module defines names for all object types that are used by the
   9 standard Python interpreter, but not for the types defined by various
  10 extension modules.  It is safe to use \samp{from types import *} ---
  11 the module does not export any names besides the ones listed here.
  12 New names exported by future versions of this module will all end in
  13 \samp{Type}.
  14
  15 Typical use is for functions that do different things depending on
  16 their argument types, like the following:
  17
  18 \begin{verbatim}
  19 from types import *
  20 def delete(list, item):
  21     if type(item) is IntType:
  22        del list[item]
  23     else:
  24        list.remove(item)
  25 \end{verbatim}
  26
  27 The module defines the following names:
  28
  29 \begin{datadesc}{NoneType}
  30 The type of \code{None}.
  31 \end{datadesc}
  32
  33 \begin{datadesc}{TypeType}
  34 The type of type objects (such as returned by
  35 \function{type()}\bifuncindex{type}).
  36 \end{datadesc}
  37
  38 \begin{datadesc}{IntType}
  39 The type of integers (e.g. \code{1}).
  40 \end{datadesc}
  41
  42 \begin{datadesc}{LongType}
  43 The type of long integers (e.g. \code{1L}).
  44 \end{datadesc}
  45
  46 \begin{datadesc}{FloatType}
  47 The type of floating point numbers (e.g. \code{1.0}).
  48 \end{datadesc}
  49
  50 \begin{datadesc}{ComplexType}
  51 The type of complex numbers (e.g. \code{1.0j}).
  52 \end{datadesc}
  53
  54 \begin{datadesc}{StringType}
  55 The type of character strings (e.g. \code{'Spam'}).
  56 \end{datadesc}
  57
  58 \begin{datadesc}{UnicodeType}
  59 The type of Unicode character strings (e.g. \code{u'Spam'}).
  60 \end{datadesc}
  61
  62 \begin{datadesc}{TupleType}
  63 The type of tuples (e.g. \code{(1, 2, 3, 'Spam')}).
  64 \end{datadesc}
  65
  66 \begin{datadesc}{ListType}
  67 The type of lists (e.g. \code{[0, 1, 2, 3]}).
  68 \end{datadesc}
  69
  70 \begin{datadesc}{DictType}
  71 The type of dictionaries (e.g. \code{\{'Bacon': 1, 'Ham': 0\}}).
  72 \end{datadesc}
  73
  74 \begin{datadesc}{DictionaryType}
  75 An alternate name for \code{DictType}.
  76 \end{datadesc}
  77
  78 \begin{datadesc}{FunctionType}
  79 The type of user-defined functions and lambdas.
  80 \end{datadesc}
  81
  82 \begin{datadesc}{LambdaType}
  83 An alternate name for \code{FunctionType}.
  84 \end{datadesc}
  85
  86 \begin{datadesc}{CodeType}
  87 The type for code objects such as returned by
  88 \function{compile()}\bifuncindex{compile}.
  89 \end{datadesc}
  90
  91 \begin{datadesc}{ClassType}
  92 The type of user-defined classes.
  93 \end{datadesc}
  94
  95 \begin{datadesc}{InstanceType}
  96 The type of instances of user-defined classes.
  97 \end{datadesc}
  98
  99 \begin{datadesc}{MethodType}
 100 The type of methods of user-defined class instances.
 101 \end{datadesc}
 102
 103 \begin{datadesc}{UnboundMethodType}
 104 An alternate name for \code{MethodType}.
 105 \end{datadesc}
 106
 107 \begin{datadesc}{BuiltinFunctionType}
 108 The type of built-in functions like \function{len()} or
 109 \function{sys.exit()}.
 110 \end{datadesc}
 111
 112 \begin{datadesc}{BuiltinMethodType}
 113 An alternate name for \code{BuiltinFunction}.
 114 \end{datadesc}
 115
 116 \begin{datadesc}{ModuleType}
 117 The type of modules.
 118 \end{datadesc}
 119
 120 \begin{datadesc}{FileType}
 121 The type of open file objects such as \code{sys.stdout}.
 122 \end{datadesc}
 123
 124 \begin{datadesc}{XRangeType}
 125 The type of range objects returned by
 126 \function{xrange()}\bifuncindex{xrange}.
 127 \end{datadesc}
 128
 129 \begin{datadesc}{SliceType}
 130 The type of objects returned by
 131 \function{slice()}\bifuncindex{slice}.
 132 \end{datadesc}
 133
 134 \begin{datadesc}{EllipsisType}
 135 The type of \code{Ellipsis}.
 136 \end{datadesc}
 137
 138 \begin{datadesc}{TracebackType}
 139 The type of traceback objects such as found in
 140 \code{sys.exc_traceback}.
 141 \end{datadesc}
 142
 143 \begin{datadesc}{FrameType}
 144 The type of frame objects such as found in \code{tb.tb_frame} if
 145 \code{tb} is a traceback object.
 146 \end{datadesc}
 147
 148 \begin{datadesc}{BufferType}
 149 The type of buffer objects created by the
 150 \function{buffer()}\bifuncindex{buffer} function.
 151 \end{datadesc}