2. Built-in Functions¶

The Python interpreter has a number of functions built into it that are always available. They are listed here in alphabetical order.

		Built-in Functions
`abs()`	`divmod()`	`input()`	`open()`	`staticmethod()`
`all()`	`enumerate()`	`int()`	`ord()`	`str()`
`any()`	`eval()`	`isinstance()`	`pow()`	`sum()`
`basestring()`	`execfile()`	`issubclass()`	`print()`	`super()`
`bin()`	`file()`	`iter()`	`property()`	`tuple()`
`bool()`	`filter()`	`len()`	`range()`	`type()`
`bytearray()`	`float()`	`list()`	`raw_input()`	`unichr()`
`callable()`	`format()`	`locals()`	`reduce()`	`unicode()`
`chr()`	`frozenset()`	`long()`	`reload()`	`vars()`
`classmethod()`	`getattr()`	`map()`	`repr()`	`xrange()`
`cmp()`	`globals()`	`max()`	`reversed()`	`zip()`
`compile()`	`hasattr()`	`memoryview()`	`round()`	`__import__()`
`complex()`	`hash()`	`min()`	`set()`
`delattr()`	`help()`	`next()`	`setattr()`
`dict()`	`hex()`	`object()`	`slice()`
`dir()`	`id()`	`oct()`	`sorted()`

In addition, there are other four built-in functions that are no longer considered essential: apply(), buffer(), coerce(), and intern(). They are documented in the Non-essential Built-in Functions section.

abs(x)¶: Return the absolute value of a number. The argument may be a plain or long integer or a floating point number. If the argument is a complex number, its magnitude is returned.

all(iterable)¶

Return True if all elements of the iterable are true (or if the iterable is empty). Equivalent to:

def all(iterable):
    for element in iterable:
        if not element:
            return False
    return True

New in version 2.5.

any(iterable)¶

Return True if any element of the iterable is true. If the iterable is empty, return False. Equivalent to:

def any(iterable):
    for element in iterable:
        if element:
            return True
    return False

New in version 2.5.

basestring()¶: This abstract type is the superclass for str and unicode. It cannot be called or instantiated, but it can be used to test whether an object is an instance of str or unicode. isinstance(obj, basestring) is equivalent to isinstance(obj, (str, unicode)).

New in version 2.3.

bin(x)¶: Convert an integer number to a binary string. The result is a valid Python expression. If x is not a Python int object, it has to define an __index__() method that returns an integer.

New in version 2.6.

class bool([x])¶: Return a Boolean value, i.e. one of True or False. x is converted using the standard truth testing procedure. If x is false or omitted, this returns False; otherwise it returns True. bool is also a class, which is a subclass of int. Class bool cannot be subclassed further. Its only instances are False and True.

New in version 2.2.1.

Changed in version 2.3: If no argument is given, this function returns False.

class bytearray([source[, encoding[, errors]]])¶

Return a new array of bytes. The bytearray class is a mutable sequence of integers in the range 0 <= x < 256. It has most of the usual methods of mutable sequences, described in Mutable Sequence Types, as well as most methods that the str type has, see String Methods.

The optional source parameter can be used to initialize the array in a few different ways:

If it is unicode, you must also give the encoding (and optionally, errors) parameters; bytearray() then converts the unicode to bytes using unicode.encode().
If it is an integer, the array will have that size and will be initialized with null bytes.
If it is an object conforming to the buffer interface, a read-only buffer of the object will be used to initialize the bytes array.
If it is an iterable, it must be an iterable of integers in the range 0 <= x < 256, which are used as the initial contents of the array.

Without an argument, an array of size 0 is created.

New in version 2.6.

callable(object)¶: Return True if the object argument appears callable, False if not. If this returns true, it is still possible that a call fails, but if it is false, calling object will never succeed. Note that classes are callable (calling a class returns a new instance); class instances are callable if they have a __call__() method.

chr(i)¶: Return a string of one character whose ASCII code is the integer i. For example, chr(97) returns the string 'a'. This is the inverse of ord(). The argument must be in the range [0..255], inclusive; ValueError will be raised if i is outside that range. See also