Python Pocket Reference, 4th Edition

Other Standard Library Modules

This section documents a handful of additional standard library modules. See the Python Library Reference for details on all built-in tools, and the PyPI websites (described in Assorted Hints) or your favorite web search engine for third-party modules and tools.

The math Module

The math module exports C standard math library tools for use in Python. Table 1-25 lists this module’s exports; see the Python Library Reference for more details. Also see the cmath module in the Python library for complex number tools and the NumPy system for advanced numeric work.

Table 1-25. math module exports in Python 3.0 and 2.6

acos	acosh	asin	asinh	atan
atan2	atanh	ceil	copysign	cos
cosh	degrees	e	exp	fabs
factorial	floor	fmod	frexp	fsum
hypot	isinf	isnan	ldexp	log
log10	log1p	modf	pi	pow
radians	sin	sinh	sqrt	tan
tanh	trunc

The time Module

Following is a partial list of time module exports. See the Python Library Reference for more details.

clock()

Returns the CPU time or real time since the start of the process or since the first call to clock(). Precision and semantics is platform-dependent (see Python manuals). Returns seconds expressed as a floating-point number. Useful for benchmarking and timing alternative code sections.

ctime(secs)

Converts a time expressed in seconds since the epoch to a string representing local time (e.g., ctime(time())). The argument is optional and defaults to the current time if omitted.

time()

Returns a floating-point number representing UTC time in seconds since the epoch. On ...