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}{BooleanType}
  39 The type of the \class{bool} values \code{True} and \code{False}; this
  40 is an alias of the built-in \function{bool()} function.
  41 \versionadded{2.3}
  42 \end{datadesc}
  43
  44 \begin{datadesc}{IntType}
  45 The type of integers (e.g. \code{1}).
  46 \end{datadesc}
  47
  48 \begin{datadesc}{LongType}
  49 The type of long integers (e.g. \code{1L}).
  50 \end{datadesc}
  51
  52 \begin{datadesc}{FloatType}
  53 The type of floating point numbers (e.g. \code{1.0}).
  54 \end{datadesc}
  55
  56 \begin{datadesc}{ComplexType}
  57 The type of complex numbers (e.g. \code{1.0j}).  This is not defined
  58 if Python was built without complex number support.
  59 \end{datadesc}
  60
  61 \begin{datadesc}{StringType}
  62 The type of character strings (e.g. \code{'Spam'}).
  63 \end{datadesc}
  64
  65 \begin{datadesc}{UnicodeType}
  66 The type of Unicode character strings (e.g. \code{u'Spam'}).  This is
  67 not defined if Python was built without Unicode support.
  68 \end{datadesc}
  69
  70 \begin{datadesc}{TupleType}
  71 The type of tuples (e.g. \code{(1, 2, 3, 'Spam')}).
  72 \end{datadesc}
  73
  74 \begin{datadesc}{ListType}
  75 The type of lists (e.g. \code{[0, 1, 2, 3]}).
  76 \end{datadesc}
  77
  78 \begin{datadesc}{DictType}
  79 The type of dictionaries (e.g. \code{\{'Bacon': 1, 'Ham': 0\}}).
  80 \end{datadesc}
  81
  82 \begin{datadesc}{DictionaryType}
  83 An alternate name for \code{DictType}.
  84 \end{datadesc}
  85
  86 \begin{datadesc}{FunctionType}
  87 The type of user-defined functions and lambdas.
  88 \end{datadesc}
  89
  90 \begin{datadesc}{LambdaType}
  91 An alternate name for \code{FunctionType}.
  92 \end{datadesc}
  93
  94 \begin{datadesc}{GeneratorType}
  95 The type of generator-iterator objects, produced by calling a
  96 generator function.
  97 \versionadded{2.2}
  98 \end{datadesc}
  99
 100 \begin{datadesc}{CodeType}
 101 The type for code objects such as returned by
 102 \function{compile()}\bifuncindex{compile}.
 103 \end{datadesc}
 104
 105 \begin{datadesc}{ClassType}
 106 The type of user-defined classes.
 107 \end{datadesc}
 108
 109 \begin{datadesc}{InstanceType}
 110 The type of instances of user-defined classes.
 111 \end{datadesc}
 112
 113 \begin{datadesc}{MethodType}
 114 The type of methods of user-defined class instances.
 115 \end{datadesc}
 116
 117 \begin{datadesc}{UnboundMethodType}
 118 An alternate name for \code{MethodType}.
 119 \end{datadesc}
 120
 121 \begin{datadesc}{BuiltinFunctionType}
 122 The type of built-in functions like \function{len()} or
 123 \function{sys.exit()}.
 124 \end{datadesc}
 125
 126 \begin{datadesc}{BuiltinMethodType}
 127 An alternate name for \code{BuiltinFunction}.
 128 \end{datadesc}
 129
 130 \begin{datadesc}{ModuleType}
 131 The type of modules.
 132 \end{datadesc}
 133
 134 \begin{datadesc}{FileType}
 135 The type of open file objects such as \code{sys.stdout}.
 136 \end{datadesc}
 137
 138 \begin{datadesc}{XRangeType}
 139 The type of range objects returned by
 140 \function{xrange()}\bifuncindex{xrange}.
 141 \end{datadesc}
 142
 143 \begin{datadesc}{SliceType}
 144 The type of objects returned by
 145 \function{slice()}\bifuncindex{slice}.
 146 \end{datadesc}
 147
 148 \begin{datadesc}{EllipsisType}
 149 The type of \code{Ellipsis}.
 150 \end{datadesc}
 151
 152 \begin{datadesc}{TracebackType}
 153 The type of traceback objects such as found in
 154 \code{sys.exc_traceback}.
 155 \end{datadesc}
 156
 157 \begin{datadesc}{FrameType}
 158 The type of frame objects such as found in \code{tb.tb_frame} if
 159 \code{tb} is a traceback object.
 160 \end{datadesc}
 161
 162 \begin{datadesc}{BufferType}
 163 The type of buffer objects created by the
 164 \function{buffer()}\bifuncindex{buffer} function.
 165 \end{datadesc}
 166
 167 \begin{datadesc}{StringTypes}
 168 A sequence containing \code{StringType} and \code{UnicodeType} used to
 169 facilitate easier checking for any string object.  Using this is more
 170 portable than using a sequence of the two string types constructed
 171 elsewhere since it only contains \code{UnicodeType} if it has been
 172 built in the running version of Python.  For example:
 173 \code{isinstance(s, types.StringTypes)}.
 174 \versionadded{2.2}
 175 \end{datadesc}