15 Generic Operating System Services

The modules described in this chapter provide interfaces to operating system features that are available on (almost) all operating systems, such as files and a clock. The interfaces are generally modeled after the Unix or C interfaces, but they are available on most other systems as well. Here’s an overview:

• 1. os — Miscellaneous operating system interfaces
• 2. io — Core tools for working with streams
• 3. argparse — Parser for command-line options, arguments and sub-commands
• 4. optparse — Parser for command line options
• 5. getopt — C-style parser for command line options
• 6. logging — Logging facility for Python
• 7. logging.config — Logging configuration
• 8. logging.handlers — Logging handlers
• 9. getpass — Portable password input
• 10. curses — Terminal handling for character-cell displays
• 11. curses.textpad — Text input widget for curses programs
• 12. curses.ascii — Utilities for ASCII characters
• 13. curses.panel — A panel stack extension for curses
• 14. platform — Access to underlying platform’s identifying data
• 15. errno — Standard errno system symbols
• 16. ctypes — A foreign function library for Python