16. 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:

* 16.1. "os" — Miscellaneous operating system interfaces

  * 16.1.1. File Names, Command Line Arguments, and Environment
    Variables

  * 16.1.2. Process Parameters

  * 16.1.3. File Object Creation

  * 16.1.4. File Descriptor Operations

    * 16.1.4.1. Querying the size of a terminal

    * 16.1.4.2. Inheritance of File Descriptors

  * 16.1.5. Files and Directories

    * 16.1.5.1. Linux extended attributes

  * 16.1.6. Process Management

  * 16.1.7. Interface to the scheduler

  * 16.1.8. Miscellaneous System Information

  * 16.1.9. Random numbers

* 16.2. "io" — Core tools for working with streams

  * 16.2.1. Overview

    * 16.2.1.1. Text I/O

    * 16.2.1.2. Binary I/O

    * 16.2.1.3. Raw I/O

  * 16.2.2. High-level Module Interface

    * 16.2.2.1. In-memory streams

  * 16.2.3. Class hierarchy

    * 16.2.3.1. I/O Base Classes

    * 16.2.3.2. Raw File I/O

    * 16.2.3.3. Buffered Streams

    * 16.2.3.4. Text I/O

  * 16.2.4. Performance

    * 16.2.4.1. Binary I/O

    * 16.2.4.2. Text I/O

    * 16.2.4.3. Multi-threading

    * 16.2.4.4. Reentrancy

* 16.3. "time" — Time access and conversions

  * 16.3.1. Functions

  * 16.3.2. Clock ID Constants

  * 16.3.3. Timezone Constants

* 16.4. "argparse" — Parser for command-line options, arguments and
  sub-commands

  * 16.4.1. Example

    * 16.4.1.1. Creating a parser

    * 16.4.1.2. Adding arguments

    * 16.4.1.3. Parsing arguments

  * 16.4.2. ArgumentParser objects

    * 16.4.2.1. prog

    * 16.4.2.2. usage

    * 16.4.2.3. description

    * 16.4.2.4. epilog

    * 16.4.2.5. parents

    * 16.4.2.6. formatter_class

    * 16.4.2.7. prefix_chars

    * 16.4.2.8. fromfile_prefix_chars

    * 16.4.2.9. argument_default

    * 16.4.2.10. allow_abbrev

    * 16.4.2.11. conflict_handler

    * 16.4.2.12. add_help

  * 16.4.3. The add_argument() method

    * 16.4.3.1. name or flags

    * 16.4.3.2. action

    * 16.4.3.3. nargs

    * 16.4.3.4. const

    * 16.4.3.5. default

    * 16.4.3.6. type

    * 16.4.3.7. choices

    * 16.4.3.8. required

    * 16.4.3.9. help

    * 16.4.3.10. metavar

    * 16.4.3.11. dest

    * 16.4.3.12. Action classes

  * 16.4.4. The parse_args() method

    * 16.4.4.1. Option value syntax

    * 16.4.4.2. Invalid arguments

    * 16.4.4.3. Arguments containing "-"

    * 16.4.4.4. Argument abbreviations (prefix matching)

    * 16.4.4.5. Beyond "sys.argv"

    * 16.4.4.6. The Namespace object

  * 16.4.5. Other utilities

    * 16.4.5.1. Sub-commands

    * 16.4.5.2. FileType objects

    * 16.4.5.3. Argument groups

    * 16.4.5.4. Mutual exclusion

    * 16.4.5.5. Parser defaults

    * 16.4.5.6. Printing help

    * 16.4.5.7. Partial parsing

    * 16.4.5.8. Customizing file parsing

    * 16.4.5.9. Exiting methods

  * 16.4.6. Upgrading optparse code

* 16.5. "getopt" — C-style parser for command line options

* 16.6. "logging" — Logging facility for Python

  * 16.6.1. Logger Objects

  * 16.6.2. Logging Levels

  * 16.6.3. Handler Objects

  * 16.6.4. Formatter Objects

  * 16.6.5. Filter Objects

  * 16.6.6. LogRecord Objects

  * 16.6.7. LogRecord attributes

  * 16.6.8. LoggerAdapter Objects

  * 16.6.9. Thread Safety

  * 16.6.10. Module-Level Functions

  * 16.6.11. Module-Level Attributes

  * 16.6.12. Integration with the warnings module

* 16.7. "logging.config" — Logging configuration

  * 16.7.1. Configuration functions

  * 16.7.2. Configuration dictionary schema

    * 16.7.2.1. Dictionary Schema Details

    * 16.7.2.2. Incremental Configuration

    * 16.7.2.3. Object connections

    * 16.7.2.4. User-defined objects

    * 16.7.2.5. Access to external objects

    * 16.7.2.6. Access to internal objects

    * 16.7.2.7. Import resolution and custom importers

  * 16.7.3. Configuration file format

* 16.8. "logging.handlers" — Logging handlers

  * 16.8.1. StreamHandler

  * 16.8.2. FileHandler

  * 16.8.3. NullHandler

  * 16.8.4. WatchedFileHandler

  * 16.8.5. BaseRotatingHandler

  * 16.8.6. RotatingFileHandler

  * 16.8.7. TimedRotatingFileHandler

  * 16.8.8. SocketHandler

  * 16.8.9. DatagramHandler

  * 16.8.10. SysLogHandler

  * 16.8.11. NTEventLogHandler

  * 16.8.12. SMTPHandler

  * 16.8.13. MemoryHandler

  * 16.8.14. HTTPHandler

  * 16.8.15. QueueHandler

  * 16.8.16. QueueListener

* 16.9. "getpass" — Portable password input

* 16.10. "curses" — Terminal handling for character-cell displays

  * 16.10.1. Functions

  * 16.10.2. Window Objects

  * 16.10.3. Constants

* 16.11. "curses.textpad" — Text input widget for curses programs

  * 16.11.1. Textbox objects

* 16.12. "curses.ascii" — Utilities for ASCII characters

* 16.13. "curses.panel" — A panel stack extension for curses

  * 16.13.1. Functions

  * 16.13.2. Panel Objects

* 16.14. "platform" —  Access to underlying platform’s identifying
  data

  * 16.14.1. Cross Platform

  * 16.14.2. Java Platform

  * 16.14.3. Windows Platform

    * 16.14.3.1. Win95/98 specific

  * 16.14.4. Mac OS Platform

  * 16.14.5. Unix Platforms

* 16.15. "errno" — Standard errno system symbols

* 16.16. "ctypes" — A foreign function library for Python

  * 16.16.1. ctypes tutorial

    * 16.16.1.1. Loading dynamic link libraries

    * 16.16.1.2. Accessing functions from loaded dlls

    * 16.16.1.3. Calling functions

    * 16.16.1.4. Fundamental data types

    * 16.16.1.5. Calling functions, continued

    * 16.16.1.6. Calling functions with your own custom data types

    * 16.16.1.7. Specifying the required argument types (function
      prototypes)

    * 16.16.1.8. Return types

    * 16.16.1.9. Passing pointers (or: passing parameters by
      reference)

    * 16.16.1.10. Structures and unions

    * 16.16.1.11. Structure/union alignment and byte order

    * 16.16.1.12. Bit fields in structures and unions

    * 16.16.1.13. Arrays

    * 16.16.1.14. Pointers

    * 16.16.1.15. Type conversions

    * 16.16.1.16. Incomplete Types

    * 16.16.1.17. Callback functions

    * 16.16.1.18. Accessing values exported from dlls

    * 16.16.1.19. Surprises

    * 16.16.1.20. Variable-sized data types

  * 16.16.2. ctypes reference

    * 16.16.2.1. Finding shared libraries

    * 16.16.2.2. Loading shared libraries

    * 16.16.2.3. Foreign functions

    * 16.16.2.4. Function prototypes

    * 16.16.2.5. Utility functions

    * 16.16.2.6. Data types

    * 16.16.2.7. Fundamental data types

    * 16.16.2.8. Structured data types

    * 16.16.2.9. Arrays and pointers
