go to python' website at links there this website also has simple searching utility for the manuals however you get startedbe sure to pick the library manual for things such as systhis manual documents all of the standard librarybuilt-in types and functionsand more python' standard manual set also includes short tutoriala language referenceextending referencesand more commercially published references at the risk of sounding like marketing droidi should mention that you can also purchase the python manual setprinted and boundsee the book information page at books are also available todayincluding python essential referencepython in nutshellpython standard libraryand python pocket reference some of these books are more complete and come with examplesbut the last one serves as convenient memory jogger once you've taken library tour or two introducing the sys module but enough about documentation sources (and scripting basics)--let' move on to system module details as mentioned earlierthe sys and os modules form the core of much of python' system-related tool set to see howwe'll turn to quickinteractive tour through some of the tools in these two modules before applying them in bigger examples we'll start with systhe smaller of the tworemember that to see full list of all the attributes in sysyou need to pass it to the dir function (or see where we did so earlier in this platforms and versions like most modulessys includes both informational names and functions that take action for instanceits attributes give us the name of the underlying operating system on which the platform code is runningthe largest possible "natively sizedinteger on this machine (though integers can be arbitrarily long in python )and the version number of the python interpreter running our codec:\pp \systempython import sys full disclosurei also wrote the last of the books listed as replacement for the reference appendix that appeared in the first edition of this bookit' meant to be supplement to the text you're readingand its latest edition also serves as translation resource for python readers as explained in the prefacethe book you're holding is meant as tutorialnot referenceso you'll probably want to find some sort of reference resource eventually (though ' nearly narcissistic enough to require that it be mine system tools