Category: Python

Text Processing in Python

Author: David Mertz
Format: plain text
Price: free

Text Processing in Python describes techniques for manipulation of text using the Python programming language. At the broadest level, text processing is simply taking textual information and doing something with it. This might be restructuring or reformatting it, extracting smaller bits of information from it, or performing calculations that depend on the text. Text processing is arguably what most programmers spend most of their time doing.

Because Python is clear, expressive, and object-oriented it is a perfect language for doing text processing, even better than Perl. As the amount of data everywhere continues to increase, this is more and more of a challenge for programmers.

This book is not a tutorial on Python. It has two other goals: helping the programmer get the job done pragmatically and efficiently; and giving the reader an understanding – both theoretically and conceptually – of why what works works and what doesn’t work doesn’t work. Mertz provides practical pointers and tips that emphasize efficient, flexible, and maintainable approaches to the text processing tasks that working programmers face daily.

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Introduction to Programming using Python

Author: Katja Schuerer, Corinne Maufrais, Catherine Letondal, Eric Deveaud, Marie-Agnes Petit
Format: PDF
Price: free

The objective of this course is to teach programming concepts to biologists. It is thus aimed at people who are not professional computer scientists, but who need a better control of computers for their own research.

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Think Python: How to Think Like a Computer Scientist

Author: Allen B. Downey
Format: online HTML, PDF
Price: free

Think Python is an introduction to Python programming for beginners. It starts with basic concepts of programming, and is carefully designed to define all terms when they are first used and to develop each new concept in a logical progression. Larger pieces, like recursion and object-oriented programming are divided into a sequence of smaller steps and introduced over the course of several chapters.

Some examples and exercises are based on Swampy, a Python package written by the author to demonstrate aspects of software design, and to give readers a chance to experiment with simple graphics and animation.

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Dive Into Python 3

Author: Mark Pilgrim
Format: PDF, online HTML, archived HTML
Price: free

Dive Into Python 3 covers Python 3 and its differences from Python 2. Compared to Dive Into Python, it’s about 20% revised and 80% new material.

Chapters include:

What’s New in “Dive Into Python 3”
Installing Python
Your First Python Program
Native Datatypes
Comprehensions
Strings
Regular Expressions
Closures & Generators
Classes & Iterators
Advanced Iterators
Unit Testing
Refactoring
Files
XML
Serializing Python Objects
HTTP Web Services
Case Study: Porting chardet to Python 3
Packaging Python Libraries
Porting Code to Python 3 with 2to3
Special Method Names
Where to Go From Here
Troubleshooting

http://getpython3.com/diveintopython3/

Dive Into Python

Author: Mark Pilgrim
Format: archived PDF, online HTML, archived HTML, Word 97 DOC, plain text, XML
Price: free

Dive Into Python is a free Python book for experienced programmers, published under the GNU Free Documentation License, which gives you enormous freedoms to modify and redistribute it in all its forms..

It was originally hosted at DiveIntoPython.org, but the author has pulled down all copies. It is being mirrored here.

Chapters include:

Installing Python
Your First Python Program
Native Datatypes
The Power Of Introspection
Objects and Object-Orientation
Exceptions and File Handling
Regular Expressions
HTML Processing
XML Processing
Scripts and Streams
HTTP Web Services
SOAP Web Services
Unit Testing
Test-First Programming
Refactoring
Functional Programming
Dynamic functions
Performance Tuning

Read: Dive Into Python

A Byte of Python

Author: Swaroop C H
Format: PDF, online HTML
Price: free

‘A Byte of Python’ is a free book on programming using the Python language. It serves as a tutorial or guide to the Python language for a beginner audience. If all you know about computers is how to save text files, then this is the book for you.

Chapters include:

Introduction
Installation
First Steps
Basics
Operators and Expressions
Control Flow
Functions
Modules
Data Structures
Problem Solving
Object Oriented Programming
Input Output
Exceptions
Standard Library
More
What Next

http://www.swaroopch.com/notes/Python

Learn Python The Hard Way

Author: Zed A. Shaw
Format: online HTML
Price: Free

The book is a very beginner book for people who want to learn to code. If you can already code then the book will probably drive you insane. It’s intended for people who have no coding chops to build up their skills before starting a more detailed book.

The title says it’s the hard way to learn to write code; but it’s actually not. It’s only the “hard” way because it’s the way people used to teach things.

The book is very simple:

52 exercises in all.
26 cover just input/output, variables, and functions.
26 cover logic (boolean algebra, if-statements, while-loops, etc.)

Each exercise is one or two pages and follows the exact same format. You type each one in (no copy-paste!), make it run, do the extra credit, and then move on. If you get stuck, at least type it in and skip the extra credit for later.

Chapters include:

The Hard Way Is Easier
Exercise 0: The Setup
Exercise 1: A Good First Program
Exercise 2: Comments And Pound Characters
Exercise 3: Numbers And Math
Exercise 4: Variables And Names
Exercise 5: More Variables And Printing
Exercise 6: Strings And Text
Exercise 7: More Printing
Exercise 8: Printing, Printing
Exercise 9: Printing, Printing, Printing
Exercise 10: What Was That?
Exercise 11: Asking Questions
Exercise 12: Prompting People
Exercise 13: Parameters, Unpacking, Variables
Exercise 14: Prompting And Passing
Exercise 15: Reading Files
Exercise 16: Reading And Writing Files
Exercise 17: More Files
Exercise 18: Names, Variables, Code, Functions
Exercise 19: Functions And Variables
Exercise 20: Functions And Files
Exercise 21: Functions Can Return Something
Exercise 22: What Do You Know So Far?
Exercise 23: Read Some Code
Exercise 24: More Practice
Exercise 25: Even More Practice
Exercise 26: Congratulations, Take A Test!
Exercise 27: Memorizing Logic
Exercise 28: Boolean Practice
Exercise 29: What If
Exercise 30: Else And If
Exercise 31: Making Decisions
Exercise 32: Loops And Lists
Exercise 33: While Loops
Exercise 34: Accessing Elements Of Lists
Exercise 35: Branches and Functions
Exercise 36: Designing and Debugging
Exercise 37: Symbol Review
Exercise 38: Reading Code
Exercise 39: Doing Things To Lists
Exercise 40: Dictionaries, Oh Lovely Dictionaries
Exercise 41: A Room With A View Of A Bear With A Broadsword
Exercise 42: Getting Classy
Exercise 43: You Make A Game
Exercise 44: Evaluating Your Game
Exercise 45: Is-A, Has-A, Objects, and Classes
Exercise 46: A Project Skeleton
Exercise 47: Automated Testing
Exercise 48: Advanced User Input
Exercise 49: Making Sentences
Exercise 50: Your First Work Assignment
Exercise 51: Reviewing Your Game
Exercise 52: Teach Someone Else What You Know
Next Steps
Advice From An Old Programmer

http://learnpythonthehardway.org/book/

Practical Programming in Python

Author: Jeffrey Elkner, Allen B. Downey, Chris Meyers, Brendan McCane, Iain Hewson, and Nick Meek
Format: PDF
Price: free

This is an open source introductory textbook to learn practical programming skills in the Python language. The textbook is meant as a first programming course and is tightly aligned with the University of Otago introductory programming course called Practical Programming.

This textbook is a modified version of “How to Think Like a Computer Scientist: Learning with Python 2nd Edition“, by Jeffrey Elkner, Allen B. Downey and Chris Meyers.

Chapters include:

The way of the program
Variables, expressions and statements
Python built-ins (batteries included)
Functions: part 1
Functions: part 2
Conditionals
Fruitful functions
Test driven development
Strings part 1
Files and modules
Iteration: part 1
Iteration: part 2
Strings part 2
Lists part 1
Lists part 2
Classes and objects
Graphical user interface programming
Case study: Catch
Case study: Catch continued
Dictionaries
Tuples
System programming
Case study 2
The last lecture

https://launchpad.net/practical-programming

Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python

Author: Al Sweigart
Format: online HTML
Price: free (printed edition available on Amazon)

Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python is a free book that teaches you how to program in the Python programming language. Each chapter gives you the complete source code for a new game, and then teaches the programming concepts from the example. Games include Guess the Number, Hangman, Tic Tac Toe, and Reversi.

It was written to be understandable by kids as young as 10 to 12 years old, although it is great for anyone of any age who has never programmed before.

This fourth edition has revised and expanded content, including using the Pygame library to make 2D games with graphics, animation, and sound.

Chapters include:

Introduction
Chapter 1 – The Interactive Shell
Chapter 2 – Writing Programs
Chapter 3 – Guess the Number
Chapter 4 – A Joke-Telling Program
Chapter 5 – Dragon Realm
Chapter 6 – Using the Debugger
Chapter 7 – Designing Hangman with Flowcharts
Chapter 8 – Writing the Hangman Code
Chapter 9 – Extending Hangman
Chapter 10 – Tic-Tac-Toe
Chapter 11 – The Bagels Deduction Game
Chapter 12 – The Cartesian Coordinate System
Chapter 13 – Sonar Treasure Hunt
Chapter 14 – Caesar Cipher
Chapter 15 – The Reversegam Game
Chapter 16 – Reversegam AI Simulation
Chapter 17 – Creating Graphics
Chapter 18 – Animating Graphics
Chapter 19 – Collision Detection
Chapter 20 – Using Sounds And Images
Chapter 21 – A Dodger Game with Sounds and Images

Read: Invent Your Own Computer Games with Python

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Extending and Embedding the Python Interpreter

Author: Python Software Foundation
Format: online HTML
Price: free

This document describes how to write modules in C or C++ to extend the Python interpreter with new modules. Those modules can define new functions but also new object types and their methods. The document also describes how to embed the Python interpreter in another application, for use as an extension language. Finally, it shows how to compile and link extension modules so that they can be loaded dynamically (at run time) into the interpreter, if the underlying operating system supports this feature.

This document assumes basic knowledge about Python.

Chapters include:

Extending Python with C or C++
A Simple Example
Intermezzo: Errors and Exceptions
Back to the Example
The Module’s Method Table and Initialization Function
Compilation and Linkage
Calling Python Functions from C
Extracting Parameters in Extension Functions
Keyword Parameters for Extension Functions
Building Arbitrary Values
Reference Counts
Writing Extensions in C++
Providing a C API for an Extension Module
Defining New Types
The Basics
Type Methods
Building C and C++ Extensions with distutils
Distributing your extension modules
Building C and C++ Extensions on Windows
A Cookbook Approach
Differences Between Unix and Windows
Using DLLs in Practice
Embedding Python in Another Application
Very High Level Embedding
Beyond Very High Level Embedding: An overview
Pure Embedding
Extending Embedded Python
Embedding Python in C++
Linking Requirements

http://docs.python.org/extending/index.html