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}{GeneratorType}
  87 The type of generator-iterator objects, produced by calling a
  88 generator function.
  89 \versionadded{2.2}
  90 \end{datadesc}
  91
  92 \begin{datadesc}{CodeType}
  93 The type for code objects such as returned by
  94 \function{compile()}\bifuncindex{compile}.
  95 \end{datadesc}
  96
  97 \begin{datadesc}{ClassType}
  98 The type of user-defined classes.
  99 \end{datadesc}
 100
 101 \begin{datadesc}{InstanceType}
 102 The type of instances of user-defined classes.
 103 \end{datadesc}
 104
 105 \begin{datadesc}{MethodType}
 106 The type of methods of user-defined class instances.
 107 \end{datadesc}
 108
 109 \begin{datadesc}{UnboundMethodType}
 110 An alternate name for \code{MethodType}.
 111 \end{datadesc}
 112
 113 \begin{datadesc}{BuiltinFunctionType}
 114 The type of built-in functions like \function{len()} or
 115 \function{sys.exit()}.
 116 \end{datadesc}
 117
 118 \begin{datadesc}{BuiltinMethodType}
 119 An alternate name for \code{BuiltinFunction}.
 120 \end{datadesc}
 121
 122 \begin{datadesc}{ModuleType}
 123 The type of modules.
 124 \end{datadesc}
 125
 126 \begin{datadesc}{FileType}
 127 The type of open file objects such as \code{sys.stdout}.
 128 \end{datadesc}
 129
 130 \begin{datadesc}{XRangeType}
 131 The type of range objects returned by
 132 \function{xrange()}\bifuncindex{xrange}.
 133 \end{datadesc}
 134
 135 \begin{datadesc}{SliceType}
 136 The type of objects returned by
 137 \function{slice()}\bifuncindex{slice}.
 138 \end{datadesc}
 139
 140 \begin{datadesc}{EllipsisType}
 141 The type of \code{Ellipsis}.
 142 \end{datadesc}
 143
 144 \begin{datadesc}{TracebackType}
 145 The type of traceback objects such as found in
 146 \code{sys.exc_traceback}.
 147 \end{datadesc}
 148
 149 \begin{datadesc}{FrameType}
 150 The type of frame objects such as found in \code{tb.tb_frame} if
 151 \code{tb} is a traceback object.
 152 \end{datadesc}
 153
 154 \begin{datadesc}{BufferType}
 155 The type of buffer objects created by the
 156 \function{buffer()}\bifuncindex{buffer} function.
 157 \end{datadesc}
 158
 159 \begin{datadesc}{StringTypes}
 160 A list containing \var{StringType} and \var{UnicodeType} used to
 161 facilitate easier checking for any string object, e.g. \code{s in
 162 types.StringTypes}.
 163 \end{datadesc}