1 \chapter{Undocumented Modules
\label{undoc
}}
3 Here's a quick listing of modules that are currently undocumented, but
4 that should be documented. Feel free to contribute documentation for
5 them! (Send via email to
\email{docs@python.org
}.)
7 The idea and original contents for this chapter were taken
8 from a posting by Fredrik Lundh; the specific contents of this chapter
9 have been substantially revised.
14 Frameworks tend to be harder to
document, but are well worth the
18 \item None at this time.
22 \section{Miscellaneous useful utilities
}
24 Some of these are very old and/or not very robust; marked with ``hmm.''
28 --- A generic Python debugger base class (used by pdb).
30 \item[\module{ihooks
}]
31 --- Import hook support (for
\refmodule{rexec
}; may become obsolete).
36 \section{Platform specific modules
}
38 These modules are used to implement the
\refmodule{os.path
} module,
39 and are not documented beyond this mention. There's little need to
43 \item[\module{ntpath
}]
44 --- Implementation of
\module{os.path
} on Win32, Win64, WinCE, and
47 \item[\module{posixpath
}]
48 --- Implementation of
\module{os.path
} on
\POSIX.
50 \item[\module{bsddb185
}]
51 --- Backwards compatibility module for systems which still use the Berkeley
52 DB
1.85 module. It is normally only available on certain BSD
\UNIX-based
53 systems. It should never be used directly.
60 \item[\module{audiodev
}]
61 --- Platform-independent API for playing audio data.
63 \item[\module{linuxaudiodev
}]
64 --- Play audio data on the Linux audio device. Replaced in Python
2.3
65 by the
\module{ossaudiodev
} module.
67 \item[\module{sunaudio
}]
68 --- Interpret Sun audio headers (may become obsolete or a tool/demo).
70 \item[\module{toaiff
}]
71 --- Convert "arbitrary" sound files to AIFF files; should probably
72 become a tool or demo. Requires the external program
\program{sox
}.
76 \section{Obsolete
\label{obsolete-modules
}}
78 These modules are not normally available for import; additional work
79 must be done to make them available.
81 %%% lib-old is empty as of Python 2.5
82 % Those which are written in Python will be installed into the directory
83 % \file{lib-old/} installed as part of the standard library. To use
84 % these, the directory must be added to \code{sys.path}, possibly using
85 % \envvar{PYTHONPATH}.
87 These extension modules written in C are not built by default.
88 Under
\UNIX, these must be enabled by uncommenting the appropriate
89 lines in
\file{Modules/Setup
} in the build tree and either rebuilding
90 Python if the modules are statically linked, or building and
91 installing the shared object if using dynamically-loaded extensions.
93 % XXX need Windows instructions!
96 \item[\module{timing
}]
97 --- Measure time intervals to high resolution (use
\function{time.clock()
}
101 \section{SGI-specific Extension modules
}
103 The following are SGI specific, and may be out of touch with the
104 current version of reality.
108 --- Interface to the SGI compression library.
111 --- Interface to the ``simple video'' board on SGI Indigo