I'm not 100% sure what is a library in python. Your example above is importing a module.
Someone else can correct me, but I use libraries to refer to underlying c/c++ code that is required for the python modules to function. So in pure python you are really only dealing with modules. string.replace() I'm 90% sure is a function in the string module. However something like this: foo = "bar" foo.Capitalize() bar.capitalize is executing a method. Actually at this point string.replace() may be a method as well, I don't know for sure as I haven't inspected the string module's code. Read some intro to OOP, for a better understanding, but the main difference between a function and a method, is that a method is associated with some class or object. In Python it's really only objects (even class is an object) Hence when I created the string object foo, and executed Capitalize() it was a method on the string object. the same thing as a function might look something like: # defining a function def capitalize(inStr) #do stuff here to capitalize the string return outStr foo = capitalize("bar") hope this helps. -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list