Python’s extensive standard library comes equipped with a wide array of built-in modules that provide ready-made functions and utilities for various tasks. While Python’s built-in modules are a treasure trove for developers, it’s crucial to know how to access and explore them effectively. In this guide, we’ll delve into the step-by-step process of obtaining the list of built-in modules in Python, along with practical examples to illustrate their usage.
1. Using the `help()` Function.
One of the easiest ways to retrieve the list of built-in modules in Python is by utilizing the `help()` function. By passing the `modules` argument to `help()`, you can display the comprehensive list of built-in modules available in your Python environment.
import sys
# Using the help() function
help('modules')
This simple snippet will provide you with an extensive list of built-in modules, empowering you to explore and leverage Python’s rich collection of pre-built tools.
2. Accessing the `sys` Module.
Another approach to accessing the list of built-in modules involves utilizing the `sys` module. The `sys` module provides access to some variables used or maintained by the Python interpreter and allows you to retrieve a list of built-in module names.
import sys
# Getting a list of all the built-in modules
built_in_modules = sys.builtin_module_names
# Printing the list of built-in modules
for module in built_in_modules:
print(module)
By executing this code snippet, you’ll obtain a list of built-in module names, granting you valuable insights into the wide range of functionalities available within the Python standard library.
Output.
_abc _ast _bisect _blake2 _codecs _codecs_cn _codecs_hk _codecs_iso2022 _codecs_jp _codecs_kr _codecs_tw _collections _contextvars _csv _datetime _functools _heapq _imp _io _json _lsprof _md5 _multibytecodec _opcode _operator _peg_parser _pickle _random _sha1 _sha256 _sha3 _sha512 _signal _sre _stat _statistics _string _struct _symtable _thread _tracemalloc _warnings _weakref _winapi _xxsubinterpreters array atexit audioop binascii builtins cmath errno faulthandler gc itertools marshal math mmap msvcrt nt parser sys time winreg xxsubtype zlib
3. Use The pkgutil Module to List All The Python Builtin Modules.
The `sys.builtin_module_names` method does not include all the built-in modules, particularly those implemented in C. To get a more comprehensive list, you can use the `pkgutil` module. Here’s an example of how to do it:
import pkgutil # List all the built-in modules built_in_modules = [name for _, name, _ in pkgutil.iter_modules()] # Print the list of built-in modules print(built_in_modules)
Output.
['_asyncio', '_bz2', '_ctypes', '_ctypes_test', '_decimal', '_elementtree', '_hashlib', '_lzma', '_msi', '_multiprocessing', '_overlapped', '_queue', '_socket', '_sqlite3', '_ssl', '_testbuffer', '_testcapi', '_testconsole', '_testimportmultiple', '_testinternalcapi', '_testmultiphase', '_tkinter', '_uuid', '_zoneinfo', 'pyexpat', 'select', 'unicodedata', 'winsound', '__future__', '_aix_support', '_bootlocale', '_bootsubprocess', '_collections_abc', '_compat_pickle', '_compression', '_markupbase', '_nsis', '_osx_support', '_py_abc', '_pydecimal', '_pyio', '_sitebuiltins', '_strptime', '_system_path', '_threading_local', '_weakrefset', 'abc', 'aifc', 'antigravity', 'argparse', 'ast', 'asynchat', 'asyncio', 'asyncore', 'base64', 'bdb', 'binhex', 'bisect', 'bz2', 'cProfile', 'calendar', 'cgi', 'cgitb', 'chunk', 'cmd', 'code', 'codecs', 'codeop', 'collections', 'colorsys', 'compileall', 'concurrent', 'configparser', 'contextlib', 'contextvars', 'copy', 'copyreg', 'crypt', 'csv', 'ctypes', 'curses', 'dataclasses', 'datetime', 'dbm', 'decimal', 'difflib', 'dis', 'distutils', 'doctest', 'email', 'encodings', 'ensurepip', 'enum', 'filecmp', 'fileinput', 'fnmatch', 'formatter', 'fractions', 'ftplib', 'functools', 'genericpath', 'getopt', 'getpass', 'gettext', 'glob', 'graphlib', 'gzip', 'hashlib', 'heapq', 'hmac', 'html', 'http', 'idlelib', 'imaplib', 'imghdr', 'imp', 'importlib', 'inspect', 'io', 'ipaddress', 'json', 'keyword', 'lib2to3', 'linecache', 'locale', 'logging', 'lzma', 'mailbox', 'mailcap', 'mimetypes', 'modulefinder', 'msilib', 'multiprocessing', 'netrc', 'nntplib', 'ntpath', 'nturl2path', 'numbers', 'opcode', 'operator', 'optparse', 'os', 'pathlib', 'pdb', 'pickle', 'pickletools', 'pipes', 'pkgutil', 'platform', 'plistlib', 'poplib', 'posixpath', 'pprint', 'profile', 'pstats', 'pty', 'py_compile', 'pyclbr', 'pydoc', 'pydoc_data', 'queue', 'quopri', 'random', 're', 'reprlib', 'rlcompleter', 'runpy', 'sched', 'secrets', 'selectors', 'shelve', 'shlex', 'shutil', 'signal', 'site', 'smtpd', 'smtplib', 'sndhdr', 'socket', 'socketserver', 'sqlite3', 'sre_compile', 'sre_constants', 'sre_parse', 'ssl', 'stat', 'statistics', 'string', 'stringprep', 'struct', 'subprocess', 'sunau', 'symbol', 'symtable', 'sysconfig', 'tabnanny', 'tarfile', 'telnetlib', 'tempfile', 'test'', 'turtledemo', 'types', 'typing', 'unittest', 'urllib', 'uu', 'uuid', 'venv', 'warnings', 'wave', 'weakref', 'webbrowser', 'wsgiref', 'xdrlib', 'xml', 'xmlrpc', 'zipapp', 'zipfile', 'zipimport', 'zoneinfo', 'cwp', 'OpenAIAuth', 'aiohttp', 'aiosignal', 'anyio', 'async_timeout', 'attr', 'attrs', 'cachetools', 'charset_normalizer', 'chatgpt', 'cmd_2to3', 'colorama', 'deprecated', 'frozenlist', 'future', 'h11', 'httpcore', 'httpx', 'idna', 'libfuturize', 'libpasteurize', 'markdown_it', 'mdurl', 'multidict', 'openai', 'packaging', 'past', 'pip', 'pyarmor', 'pygments', 'pyparsing', 'redis', 'requests', 'revChatGPT', 'rfc3986', 'rich', 'sniffio', 'tls_client', 'tqdm', 'urllib3', 'whois', 'wrapt', 'yarl', 'Cython', 'IPython', 'OpenSSL', 'PIL', 'PyQt5', 'TBB', '_argon2_cffi_bindings', '_black_version', '_cffi_backend', '_distutils_hack', '_plotly_future_', '_plotly_utils', '_pyrsistent_version', '_pytest', '_yaml', 'adodbapi', 'alabaster', 'anaconda_navigator', 'anaconda_project', 'appdirs', 'argon2', 'arrow', 'astroid', 'astropy', 'asttokens', 'atomicwrites', 'automat', 'autopep8', 'babel', 'backcall', 'backports', 'bcrypt', 'binaryornot', 'binstar_client', 'bitarray', 'bkcharts', 'black', 'blackd', 'bleach', 'blib2to3', 'bokeh', 'boto3', 'botocore', 'bottleneck', 'brotli', 'bs4', 'certifi', 'cffi', 'chardet', 'click', 'cloudpickle', 'clyent', 'colorcet', 'comtypes', 'conda', 'conda_build', 'conda_content_trust', 'conda_env', 'conda_pack', 'conda_package_handling', 'conda_token', 'conda_verify', 'constantly', 'cookiecutter', 'cryptography', 'cssselect', 'curl', 'cycler', 'cython', 'cytoolz', 'daal4py', 'dask', 'datashader', 'datashape', 'dateutil', 'debugpy', 'decorator', 'defusedxml', 'diff_match_patch', 'distributed', 'docutils', 'entrypoints', 'erfa', 'et_xmlfile', 'executing', 'fastjsonschema', 'filelock', 'flake8', 'flask', 'fontTools', 'fsspec', 'gensim', 'glob2', 'google_crc32c', 'greenlet', 'grpc', 'h5py', 'hamcrest', 'heapdict', 'holoviews', 'hvplot', 'hyperlink', 'imagecodecs', 'imageio', 'imagesize', 'importlib_metadata', 'incremental', 'inflection', 'iniconfig', 'intake', 'intervaltree', 'ipykernel', 'ipykernel_launcher', 'ipython_genutils', 'ipywidgets', 'isapi', 'isort', 'isympy', 'itemadapter', 'itemloaders', 'itsdangerous', 'jdcal', 'jedi', 'jinja2', 'jinja2_time', 'jmespath', 'joblib', 'json5', 'jsonschema', 'jupyter', 'jupyter_client', 'jupyter_console', 'jupyter_core', 'jupyter_server', 'jupyterlab', 'jupyterlab_plotly', 'jupyterlab_pygments', 'jupyterlab_server', 'jupyterlab_widgets', 'jwt', 'keyring', 'kiwisolver', 'lazy_object_proxy', 'libarchive', 'lief', 'llvmlite', 'locket', 'lxml', 'markdown', 'markupsafe', 'matplotlib', 'matplotlib_inline', 'mccabe', 'menuinst', 'mistune', 'mkl', 'mkl_fft', 'mkl_random', 'mock', 'mpmath', 'msgpack', 'multipledispatch', 'munkres', 'mypy_extensions', 'nacl', 'navigator_updater', 'nbclassic', 'nbclient', 'nbconvert', 'nbformat', 'nest_asyncio', 'networkx', 'nltk', 'nose', 'notebook', 'numba', 'numbergen', 'numexpr', 'numpy', 'numpydoc', 'olefile', 'onedal', 'openpyxl', 'pandas', 'pandocfilters', 'panel', 'param', 'paramiko', 'parsel', 'parso', 'partd', 'pathspec', 'patsy', 'pep8', 'pexpect', 'pickleshare', 'pkg_resources', 'pkginfo', 'plotly', 'pluggy', 'poyo', 'prometheus_client', 'prompt_toolkit', 'protego', 'psutil', 'ptyprocess', 'pure_eval', 'pvectorc', 'py', 'pyasn1', 'pyasn1_modules', 'pycodestyle', 'pycosat', 'pycparser', 'pyct', 'pycurl', 'pydispatch', 'pydocstyle', 'pyflakes', 'pylab', 'pylint', 'pyls_spyder', 'pylsp', 'pylsp_black', 'pylsp_jsonrpc', 'pyodbc', 'pyreadline', 'pyrsistent', 'pytest', 'pythoncom', 'pytz', 'pyviz_comms', 'pywt', 'pyximport', 'qdarkstyle', 'qstylizer', 'qtawesome', 'qtconsole', 'qtpy', 'queuelib', 'readline', 'regex', 'repo_cli', 'requests_file', 'rope', 'rsa', 'rtree', 'ruamel_yaml', 'run', 's3transfer', 'scipy', 'scrapy', 'seaborn', 'send2trash', 'service_identity', 'setuptools', 'sip', 'sipconfig', 'sipdistutils', 'six', 'skimage', 'sklearn', 'sklearnex', 'slugify', 'smart_open', 'snappy', 'snowballstemmer', 'socks', 'sockshandler', 'sortedcollections', 'sortedcontainers', 'soupsieve', 'sphinx', 'spyder', 'spyder_kernels', 'sqlalchemy', 'stack_data', 'statsmodels', 'sympy', 'tables', 'tabulate', 'tbb', 'tblib', 'tenacity', 'terminado', 'test_pycosat', 'testpath', 'text_unidecode', 'textdistance', 'threadpoolctl', 'three_merge', 'tifffile', 'tinycss', 'tldextract', 'tlz', 'toml', 'tomli', 'toolz', 'tornado', 'traitlets', 'twisted', 'typed_ast', 'typing_extensions', 'ujson', 'unidecode', 'w3lib', 'watchdog', 'wcwidth', 'webencodings', 'websocket', 'werkzeug', 'wheel', 'widgetsnbextension', 'win32com', 'win32ctypes', 'win_inet_pton', 'win_unicode_console', 'wincertstore', 'winpty', 'xarray', 'xlrd', 'xlsxwriter', 'xlwings', 'yaml', 'yapf', 'yapftests', 'zict', 'zipp', 'zmq', 'zope', 'vboxapi', '_win32sysloader', '_winxptheme', 'mmapfile', 'odbc', 'perfmon', 'servicemanager', 'timer', 'win32api', 'win32clipboard', 'win32console', 'win32cred', 'win32crypt', 'win32event', 'win32evtlog', 'win32file', 'win32gui', 'win32help', 'win32inet', 'win32job', 'win32lz', 'win32net', 'win32pdh', 'win32pipe', 'win32print', 'win32process', 'win32profile', 'win32ras', 'win32security', 'win32service', 'win32trace', 'win32transaction', 'win32ts', 'win32wnet', 'winxpgui', 'afxres', 'commctrl', 'dbi', 'mmsystem', 'netbios', 'ntsecuritycon', 'pywin32_bootstrap', 'pywin32_testutil', 'pywintypes', 'rasutil', 'regcheck', 'regutil', 'sspi', 'sspicon', 'win2kras', 'win32con', 'win32cryptcon', 'win32evtlogutil', 'win32gui_struct', 'win32inetcon', 'win32netcon', 'win32pdhquery', 'win32pdhutil', 'win32rcparser', 'win32serviceutil', 'win32timezone', 'win32traceutil', 'win32verstamp', 'winerror', 'winioctlcon', 'winnt', 'winperf', 'winxptheme', 'dde', 'pywin', 'win32ui', 'win32uiole']
This method will give you a more exhaustive list, which includes the `os` module and other built-in modules that might not be listed using `sys.builtin_module_names`.
4. Conclusion.
In conclusion, Python’s built-in modules offer a plethora of resources that can significantly streamline the development process. By mastering the techniques for accessing and exploring built-in modules, you can unlock the full potential of Python’s standard library, thereby enhancing the efficiency and robustness of your code.
By incorporating the methods outlined in this guide, you can seamlessly access the list of built-in modules and harness their power to create sophisticated and feature-rich Python applications.