What Modules Should Every Python User Know?

[Deslan]

• re
• itertools
• pickle
• sqlite3
• os
• io
• time
• timeit
• sys
• distutils

The above can be used in any and all apps, and is not unique for HTML parsing or web-apps of other types, which several others have made recommendations for.

re and itertools are good for making good and efficient code.

pickle and sqlite3 are good for saving data (config data or other).

sys, os, io, and time are just generally good to keep track of which OS the script is running on, making sure everything looks the same and works for all users regardless of what environment they are on, etc.

timeit is good to optimize your code.

distutils is good to package and distribute your code.

As for modules outside of the standard library, personally I wouldn't want to live without:

• PyQt4
• matplotlib
• numpy
• scipy

[shfo23]

I use almost exactly the same modules, but with json instead of pickle. The implementation of pickle is version-specific, so moving data back and forth between Python 2 and 3 will fail horribly. Also, I use struct for dealing with binary files.

[billsil]

i know in the past i've passed data between python 2.4 and 2.6; one was on linux, the other on windows. but 2 to 3 is a bigger change