On Fri, 21 Feb 2014 12:12:00 -0800, ApathyBear wrote: > Thanks, I think I have an understanding of what they are, but now am > still a little confused on how one goes about using it: how am I > supposed to know how to use an API in python?
*scratches head* Er, first you learn how to program in Python, then you read the API documentation and do what it says. If the documentation says that the function requires a single string argument, then you give the function a single string argument. I suspect that either your question is much more subtle and complicated than your actual words allow, or you're making things much, much, much more complicated than they actually are. In an earlier post, you said you had some experience programming in Python. If your code works, then you know how to use the APIs of the functions and libraries that you used. Here I am using the API for the len() function: alist = [1, 2, 3] number_of_items = len(alist) That's all. Easy, wasn't it? I'm using the API for the len() function. If you were asking for help with some *specific* API ("I don't understand the multiprocessing module!"), that I could get. Some APIs are complicated, or badly designed, or badly written, or require advanced understanding. But APIs *in general* can be as simple as len(). > or in any other language > for that matter? If an API is defining rules in C, is all hope lost for > trying to use it in python? If an API is defined for a C library or function, then, no, you can't use it in Python, or Lisp, or Ruby, just as you can't use a Lisp function in C or Forth or Pascal. Not unless one or the other language makes special provision to allow such cross-language communication. It might be better for you to give us concrete examples of what you don't understand, rather than to continue talking in vague generalities. -- Steven -- https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list