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<H1><A NAME="SECTION008000000000000000000"></A>
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6. Generic Operating System Services
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<P>
The modules described in this chapter provide interfaces to operating
system features that are available on (almost) all operating systems,
such as files and a clock.  The interfaces are generally modelled
after the Unix or C interfaces but they are available on most
other systems as well.  Here's an overview:

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  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-os.html">os</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Miscellaneous OS interfaces.</td></tr>
  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-os.path.html">os.path</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Common pathname manipulations.</td></tr>
  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-stat.html">stat</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Utilities for interpreting the results of
  <tt class=function>os.stat()</tt>, <tt class=function>os.lstat()</tt> and <tt class=function>os.fstat()</tt>.</td></tr>
  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-time.html">time</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Time access and conversions.</td></tr>
  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-getpass.html">getpass</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Portable reading of passwords and retrieval of the userid.</td></tr>
  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-getopt.html">getopt</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Parser for command line options.</td></tr>
  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-tempfile.html">tempfile</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Generate temporary file names.</td></tr>
  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-errno.html">errno</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Standard errno system symbols.</td></tr>
  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-glob.html">glob</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Unix shell style pathname pattern expansion.</td></tr>
  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-fnmatch.html">fnmatch</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Unix shell style filename pattern matching.</td></tr>
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      <td>High-level file operations, including copying.</td></tr>
  <tr><td><b><tt><a href="module-locale.html">locale</a></tt></b></td>
      <td>Internationalization services.</td></tr>
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