Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: "We can include other modules through the use of the import statement."

A block of code is set as follows:

def spam():
    return 'spam!'

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

def more_spam():
    spams = ' '.join([spam()] * 5)
    return spams

Any command line input or output is written as follows:

> mayapy --version
Python 2.6.4

Code meant to be entered by the Python interactive interpreter uses its familiar conventions. Input lines are prefixed with ">>>". Continuations for multiline statements are prefixed with "...". Output from the interpreter has no prefix:

>>> 'This is input'.replace('in', 'out')
'This is output'
>>> if True:
...     print 'Hello!'
Hello

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "Clicking on the Next button moves you to the next screen".

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Tip

Tips and tricks appear like this.