Libraries in Python

Python library

Python is one of the most famous programming language today. Know for its easy of use and for the variety of purposes it can be used for.  

We have already discusses the concept of a library in a previous post "What is a library in Programming"

Python also comes with it set of libraries which can be used for different set of purpose.  Having the knowledge of the list of libraries can help our efforts in coding and writing better and efficient code (as discussed in previous post about libraries).

Types of libraries in python

• Standard Libraries:

  • Are built-in libraries that come with the programming language.
  • In Python, libraries like math, os, sys, and datetime
  • Are part of the standard library and don’t require installation.

• Third-party Libraries:

  • These libraries are created by other developers or organizations
  • Are available for use via package managers like Python’s pip.
  • Examples include libraries like NumPy, Pandas, and TensorFlow.

• External Libraries:

  • Sometimes libraries are packaged as standalone software
  • Must be downloaded and installed, as opposed to being built into the language.
  • Examples are OpenCV (for computer vision) or Django (for web development).

Few of the Standard Libraries and their purpose

1. math - Mathematical operations
2. sys - System-specific functions
3. os - File and directory management
4. datetime - Date and time manipulation
5. json - JSON parsing and handling
6. csv - Reading and writing CSV files
7. random - Random number generation
8. re - Regular expressions
9. http - HTTP request and response handling
10. collections - Specialized containers like Counter, deque
11. itertools - Iterators for efficient looping
12. subprocess - Running external commands
13. socket - Networking interfaces
14. pickle - Serialization and deserialization of Python objects
15. urllib - Working with URLs and web requests
16. traceback - Exception traceback handling
17. email - Handling email messages
18. hashlib - Secure hashing algorithms
19. xml - Parsing and creating XML data
20. platform - Platform information (OS, architecture, etc.)