Web Standards Programmer's Reference: HTML, CSS, JavaScript®, Perl, Python®, and PHP

E.1. Built-in Functions

The following sections cover the functions built into Python. These functions are always available and do not require that a specific module be imported for their use.

Syntax	Description
__import__(mod)	Imports the module represented by the string mod, especially useful for dynamically importing a list of modules: myModules = ['sys','os','cgi','cgitb'] modules = map(__import__,myModules)
abs(n)	Returns the absolute value of n.
basestring()	Constructor for the built-in type that can be used to test whether an object is an instance of str or Unicode. This function can't be called or instantiated but is used like this: if isinstance(obj, basestring):
bool([x])	Returns True or False depending on the value of x. If x is a false statement or empty, returns False; otherwise, returns True.
callable(obj)	Returns 1 if obj can be called; otherwise, returns 0.
chr(i)	Returns a string of one character whose ASCII code is the integer i.
classmethod(func)	Returns a class method for func in the following format: class C: @classmethod def func(cls, arg1, arg2...):
cmp(a,b)	Compares values a and b, returning a negative value if a < b, 0 if a = = b, and a positive value if a > b.
compile(string, filename, kind[,flags[, don't inherit]])	Compiles string into a code object. Filename is the file containing the code. Kind denotes what kind of code to compile.
complex([real[,imag]])	Returns a complex number with value real+imag*j.
delattr(obj,string)	Removes the attribute of obj whose name is string