Beginning Python®: Using Python 2.6 and Python 3.1

Appendix D. Glossary

The following terms are used in the book and are presented here for your convenience.

127.0.0.1

A special IP address used to denote "this computer." See also localhost.

Anonymous

Anonymous functions and variables are not bound to names. Examples of this are the functions created by the lambda function, a list, or a tuple created but never associated with a name.

Base64

An encoding strategy defined by MIME that escapes an entire string as a whole. More efficient than quoted-printable for binary data.

BitTorrent

A peer-to-peer protocol that distributes the cost of hosting a file among all the parties downloading it.

Call stack

When code is executing, the call stack is the list of functions that your code has executed to reach that point in the program. As functions or methods are entered, the location in the file is noted along with the parameters that the function was called with, and the entry point is marked in the call stack. When a function is exited, its entry in the call stack is removed. When an exception occurs, a stack trace is printed that indicates where in the program the problem occurred.

CGI

The Common Gateway Interface: A standard for web servers that makes it easy to expose web interfaces to scripts.

Class

(1) A class is a definition that can be used to create objects. A particular class definition contains the declarations of the data and the methods that objects that are instances of that particular class will have available to them. In Python, functions ...