Portable, powerful, and a breeze to use, Python is the popular open source object-oriented programming language used for both standalone programs and scripting applications. It is now being used by an increasing number of major organizations, including NASA and Google. Updated for Python 2.4, The Python Cookbook, 2nd Edition offers a wealth of useful code for all Python programmers, not just advanced practitioners. Like its predecessor, the new edition provides solutions to problems that Python programmers face everyday. It now includes over 200 recipes that range from simple tasks, such as working with dictionaries and list comprehensions, to complex tasks, such as monitoring a network and building a templating system. This revised version also includes new chapters on topics such as time, money, and metaprogramming. Here's a list of additional topics covered:

• Manipulating text

• Searching and sorting

• Working with files and the filesystem

• Object-oriented programming

• Dealing with threads and processes

• System administration

• Interacting with databases

• Creating user interfaces

• Network and web programming

• Processing XML

• Distributed programming

• Debugging and testing

Another advantage of The Python Cookbook, 2nd Edition is its trio of authors--three well-known Python programming experts, who are highly visible on email lists and in newsgroups, and speak often at Python conferences. With scores of practical examples and pertinent background information, The Python Cookbook, 2nd Edition is the one source you need if you're looking to build efficient, flexible, scalable, and well-integrated systems.

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 42 Ratings

Go to the website - 2009-02-18
Reviewer Rating:
I bought this book when Python was relatively young and it definitely got the job done on more than a few occasions. The language (and the book) has evolved and some of the recipes are a bit outdated. If you look up Python Cookbook recipes on Google or some other search engine, it will take you to the ActiveState site that has all of these recipes and more. Two stars because the book is valuable in that it is concise - searching through a slew of recipes on a site can be a bit of a chore.

Out of date. Not very useful. - 2009-04-01
Reviewer Rating:
This book is in need of an update for Python 2.6/3.0 syntax. It covers the "new" Python 2.4.

I bought the book for a project in Python at work, but I never even consulted it once. YMMV.

Very useful book to see how to best address everyday problems - 2009-03-16
Reviewer Rating:
This is not a learning book, nor a reference book. It is a book that contains "recipes", descriptions of how to perform everyday issues, such as reading a file, sorting a dictionary, etc. It is excellent for this. Buy in conjunction with "Learning Python" or "Python in a Nutshell".

Good Cookbook - 2009-02-06
Reviewer Rating:
I started reading through the Python Cookbook as a beginner with very little experience in Python but fluent in several other languages ranging from Object Oriented to Functional languages. I found the book was very good to learn from by example. I would recommend it to anyone who has had programming experience before and is just starting out on Python to quickly grasp new areas of the language. I would also recommend this to intermediate Python programmers as a resource for being able to quickly identify common problems and elegant solutions to them. I found the book very easy to understand, despite my lack of prior exposure to the language and I felt like it was a very good learning experience. I'm looking forward to using Python more for my day to day tasks now that I have been introduced to many examples of how powerful a language it can really be.

Invaluable - 2008-12-20
Reviewer Rating:
There are so many tricks to be learned here that you can use for either mundane tasks or for more advanced uses of python.

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