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Intended Audience
=================

Beginning to intermediate programmers.
A basic working knowledge of Python is assumed.


Summary
=======

This tutorial will introduce beginning to intermediate
programmers to the many useful Python tools & techniques for
text and data processing.  Topics will include regular
expressions, filtering data with generators, and parsing.


Outline
=======

* Common data sources needing processing:

  - log files
  - CSV
  - tabular data
  - email
  - XML

* Tools & techniques:

  - lists & dictionaries
  - ``s.join(list)`` instead of accumulating
  - ``for line in file``
  - filters, large data sources: generators
  - decorate-sort-undecorate
  - StringIO

* Regular expressions:

  - pattern matching
  - filtering
  - substitution
  - splitting

* Parsing:

  - ``text.split()``
  - ``text.find()``
  - regular expressions
  - "real" parsers (including XML)
  - state machines

Please send feedback & ideas for further specific topics to the trainer, David Goodger
(`email <goodger@python.org>`_, `home page <http://python.net/~goodger>`_).