6. 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 modelled after the Unix or C interfaces, but they are available on most other systems as well. Here's an overview:

os Miscellaneous OS interfaces.

os.path Common pathname manipulations.

dircache Return directory listing, with cache mechanism.

stat Utilities for interpreting the results of os.stat(), os.lstat() and os.fstat().

statcache Stat files, and remember results.

statvfs Constants for interpreting the result of os.statvfs().

cmp Compare files very efficiently.

cmpcache Compare files very efficiently.

time Time access and conversions.

sched General purpose event scheduler.

getpass Portable reading of passwords and retrieval of the userid.

curses An interface to the curses library.

getopt Parser for command line options.

tempfile Generate temporary file names.

errno Standard errno system symbols.

glob Unix shell style pathname pattern expansion.

fnmatch Unix shell style filename pattern matching.

shutil High-level file operations, including copying.

locale Internationalization services.

mutex Lock and queue for mutual exclusion.

Send comments on this document to python-docs@python.org.

`os`	Miscellaneous OS interfaces.
`os.path`	Common pathname manipulations.
`dircache`	Return directory listing, with cache mechanism.
`stat`	Utilities for interpreting the results of `os.stat()`, `os.lstat()` and `os.fstat()`.
`statcache`	Stat files, and remember results.
`statvfs`	Constants for interpreting the result of `os.statvfs()`.
`cmp`	Compare files very efficiently.
`cmpcache`	Compare files very efficiently.
`time`	Time access and conversions.
`sched`	General purpose event scheduler.
`getpass`	Portable reading of passwords and retrieval of the userid.
`curses`	An interface to the curses library.
`getopt`	Parser for command line options.
`tempfile`	Generate temporary file names.
`errno`	Standard errno system symbols.
`glob`	Unix shell style pathname pattern expansion.
`fnmatch`	Unix shell style filename pattern matching.
`shutil`	High-level file operations, including copying.
`locale`	Internationalization services.
`mutex`	Lock and queue for mutual exclusion.