Book cover


The Web Page
of the Book of
the Web page


Despite being reviewed multiple times and being read after copyediting, typesetting and proof-reading I'm sorry to say that a lot of errors have slipped through the net. Mostly they are typos and layout errors which should be fairly obvious how to fix. Unfortunately there are a few more serious mistakes. I've listed them all here and will try to get them fixed in any subsequent print runs. If anyone spots any other errors then please let me know via the feedback page.


One note on the descriptions on this page. I try to identify the locations as clearly as I can, normally when referring to paragraph N I do NOT count code segments as paragraphs. Apparently there are a few cases when I've not followed my own rules consistently, apologies and I'll fix it as soon as I can.

Location Correction
Page 7, 2nd last line delete"and some ideas for projects". The projects were removed from the Annex following a reviewers comments that they were not "resources"...
Page 19, last line, first paragraph. Typo: insert comma after "source code"
Page 32, sidebar. Typo: last three examples are all missing a "%" sign before the codes. eg. the last example should read:
>>> print "%9.2f" % 123.456
Page 35, line 3, first paragraph. Typo: delete quotes around washes
Page 50, line 4, paragraph 4. Typo: "data type" should read "date type"
Page 50, last line, paragraph 4. add "which is covered in Chapter 11." to the end.
Page 51, Address discussion Several readers had problems understanding this in the web tutor. I have created an expanded explanation here(CA)
Page 51, line 2, paragraph 4. "fields" is a new term so should be in italics
Page 51, line 3, paragraph 4. Typo: "acheived" should be "achieved"
Page 52, 2nd line of code comment spills onto next line - keep on a single line
Page 53, paragraph 3 Typesetting error: paragraph needs reformatting
Page 57, last code section This is the worst error so far, a whole section of code has gone missing! At the end of the page add the following lines:
    # get B's dimensions
    lenB = totalLength - (lenA + lenC)
    widthB = longA - shortA
    
    # Now calculate areas of A and C
    A = lenA * longA
    C = lenC * widthC
    

In fact there is a clue in the text since it says the program is 18 lines long but in fact there are only 12 lines shown!

Page 71, Sidebar, 1st line of code Typo: delete "{" at end of line
Page 75, last line. Change last sentence to: "Several of the resources listed in Appendix C include GUI tutorials"
Page 83, 1st line Clarification: insert " list or" before "tuple"
Page 83, factors function Formatting: body of function should be in bold face
Page 107, footnote 3, line 2 Typo: replace "whichever" with "the"
Page 108, Second code block, lines 1,2 Formatting: Keep bold face but remove italics
Page 123, 1st paragraph, last line Typo: change "is" to "in"
Page 128, 1st paragraph, line 3 Typo: change "Yourdan" to "Yourdon"
Page 138, 2nd paragraph, line 6 Clarification: change "subroutines" to "functions"
Page 139, 1st code segment Typesetting: "def doKeyEvent(key):" should not be after the event loop. Python needs to see the definition of a function before it can call it, therefore move both event handling functions above the while 1: line and comment on page 138. Also note that this example does not run correctly within IDLE, you must run it from a DOS prompt. Thanks to Britt Green for pointing this out.
Page 139, 1st code segment, line 2 Typesetting: "def doKeyEvent(key):" should not be boldface
Page 145, paragraph 1, line 2 Clarification: Change "sentence" to "line"
Page 164, tip #4, last line Typo: Change "...of to len()-1" to "..of up to len()-1"
Page 167, Paragraph 1, line 2 Correction: Delete sentence "Appendix C contains...yourself"
Page 171, Footnote 2, line 1 Typo: Change "interation" to "interaction"
Page 185, Note 3, line 3,4 Typo: Delete "there are"
Page 188, Code, import line Typo: add , re after string
Page 191, getWords() function Error: The CD ROM source code is generally better for this case study but doesn't match the text exactly. This particular function however, is better written as:
    def getWords(self):
       for i in range(len(self.groups)):
          self.groups[i] = self.ltrim(self.groups[i])
          self.groups[i] = self.rtrim(self.groups[i])
       self.removeExceptions()
    

This change ensures that we overwrite the character group rather than attempting to change it in situ - which should theoretically be impossible since strings are immutable. It is only a foible of Python's accomodating nature that lets us get away with the original code!

Page 192, Last paragraph line 2 Typo: "< or >" shoulb be "< and >"
Page 192, Last paragraph line 3 Typo: getWords becomes getCharGroups
Page 192, Last paragraph, last line Typo: delete trim
Page 193, class HTMLDocument Typo: This code is faulty - it uses self.lines which does not exist! If you look at the code on the CD you will see why its been done that way. A better solution all round is to change the class definition to look like this:
    class HTMLDocument(TextDocument):
       def getCharGroups(self):
          tag = re.compile("<.+?>")
          para = re.compile("<[pP]>") # identify paragraph tags
          self.para_count = 0     # using <p>'s not empty lines
          f = open(self.filename,"r")   # should use try/except 
          lines = f.readlines() 
          n = 0
          while n < len(lines):
            if len(lines[n]) > 1: # if its not blank
               if para.search(lines[n]): # its a paragraph
                  self.para_count = self.para_count + 1
               lines[n] = tag.sub('',lines[n]) # lose tags
               if len(lines[n]) <= 1: # empty or '\n' left
                  del(lines[n])
               else:
                  self.groups=self.groups+string.split(lines[n])
                  n = n + 1
            else: n = n + 1
          self.line_count = len(lines)
    

This is a big change but has the advantage that we can reuse all of the other TextDocument methods without change.

Page 194, printStats method, 2nd statement Typesetting error:
used:" should be on same line as the print statement above
Page 207, line 3 Typo: Change "is" to "in"
Page 207, 2nd last paragraph, line 1 Typo: Game should NOT be in bold face
Page 208, Paragraph 1, line 1 Typo: Guess should NOT be in bold face
Page 208, Paragraph 3, line 3 Typo: Game should NOT be in bold face
Page 208, __init__ method of Game class, line 3 Typo: Comment should be in bold face
Page 212, Paragraph 3, line 7 Typo: delete "new" - we already created it in the abstract Target class
Page 213, getResult function, 5th last line Typo: remove parens around c in guessed
Page 214, 1st two paragraphs Typo: play, Game and Guess should NOT be in bold face
Page 214, 2nd last line align index = ... with other lines in block, and use line continuation chacter '\', thus:
        wrdFile.close()
        index = int( whrandom.random()  * \
                     (len(wordList) - 1) )
        self.goal = wordList[index][:-1] # lose \n
    
Page 215, 3rd line Typesetting error: align with line above
Page 216, line 7 Typo: delete 's' at end of "programs"
Page 218, lines 4,5,13 Typo: Replace "lives" with "outcome". I originally used lives but decided outcome was a more generic name for the abstract framework we were creating
Page 218, line after # update image typesetting problem:
'.gif' should be part of the line above. Use line continuation to tidy up:
        theFile = self.imgpath + 'hm' + \
                  str(self.outcome) + '.gif'
        
Page 219, line 2 Typo: Replace "lives" with "outcome" as above
Page 220, Line 8,11,12 Typesetting error: align options under arguments to widget constructor. For example:
        c = Frame(self, border=1, relief=RAISED,
                  background='blue')
        
Page 222, paragraph 2, last line Typo: insert "which" before "must"
Page 222, paragraph 4, line 4 Typo: delete 'as'
Page 223, paragraph 1, line 1 Typo: make 'thinks' singular
Page 227, Last 2 lines. Typo: Delete "and...investigation"
Page 232, line 3 Make "Web" all lowercase
Page 239, line 8 Typo: insert space between 'm' and '='

The above errors have been reported to Addison Wesley and are fixed in the second printing. The only exceptions are the errors on Page 71, page 139(first error), page 192(2nd and 3rd errors). A few others have not been corrected completely but the good news is that there are no more errors that actually prevent code working from the list above. You can tell whether you have a second print by looking at the bottom of the page facing the dedication.

The following errors have been found after my post production review, where reported by a reader credit is given in parens:

Location Correction
Page 33, second paragraph, 3rd line Typo: "because is is a" should be "because it is a" (CA)
Page 57, 1st code segment, 1st line Typo: "Radius" should be "Area" (AW)
Page 58, 1st paragraph, 5th line Typo: "top 5 lines" should be "top 6 lines" (CA)
Page 70, second code example Typo: add a colon(:) after 'else' (CA)
Page 70, last paragraph Error: This says that we should put the largest valued test first but in fact that won't work either, since the >10 line will then not be executed! Instead to do this kind of check you need to miss out the 'else's completely and just have a series of if tests like so:
    val = 100
    if val > 10: print 'OK'
    if val > 50: print 'OK too'
    if val > 100: print 'not this time'
    

Where you would use if/elif is where you want to select the first valid choice out of several, in which case the book's warning is correct. Start high and work down to the lowest value. If the tests were for 'less than' of course you would start at the lowest value:

    val = 100
    if val < 10: 
       print 'Low'
    elif val < 50: 
       print 'Higher'
    elif val < 100: 
       print 'higher still'
    else: print 'too high for me!'
    
(CA)
Page 74&75, Command-Line Values Section Clarification: The code for this section will not work from the interactive python prompt you must enter it into a script file(say args.py) and run it from an operating system command prompt. To see any parameters being printed you must provide some, thus:

    C:PYTHON\PROJECTS> python args.py 7 23 spam
    args.py
    7
    23
    spam
    the first real argument was: 1
    

Note that if using Pythonwin you can enter areguments in the Run dialog that pops up after you hit the Run button. IDLE does not provide this facility so you must use the OS prompt as shown above.

Page 78, 2nd code example (first using string.split), last line Error: replace words = with print. Otherwise you don't see the result!
Page 93, Sidebar Clarification: Add >>> import struct before second code segment
Page 82, line before last code segment Typo: "us" should be "use"
Page 118, 2nd code segment, 2nd line Typo: import printlist should be should be import printList (CA)
Page 124, last line Error: "print function" is incorrect. print is technically a command not a function and thus has a different lookup mechanism. To be correct the example segment should look like this:
    if Z > W:
        # pow function comes from builtin namespace
        print pow(Z,W)
        ...etc...
(JE)
Page 125, 3rd paragraph, 2nd line Typo: "modul." should be "module." (CA)
Page 138, Code listing This code will not run correctly under Pythonwin, it seems to cause an infinite loop displaying 255. The solution is to save the file and run it from a DOS prompt. (BR)
Page 138, event loop code block, line 6 Layout: This line should be indented under the if (key == '\000')... line. [Its purpose is to ignore the dummy prefix character on special keys(F10 etc) and read the real value] (BR)
Page 158, 1st PDB listing, line 5 Layout: The return in line 5 should be indented like line 3 (AW)
Page 158, 1st PDB listing, line 8 Layout: The 'from' should be aligned with the 'if' in line 9 (AW)
Page 159, sidebar, last line Typo: "more effective that..." should be "more effective than..." (CA)
Page 192 Ommission: The reportStats method is not shown. This is not a huge problem because we rewrite it on page 194 anyway so use the code there instead. Sorry about that!
Page 194, generateStats function, line 4 Error: sentence_count should be self.sentence_count (CA)
Page 213, __init__() function, 2nd line Typo: guessType should be GuessType
Page 220, 3rd last line Typo: delete colon immediately after 'lambda'
Page 241, Perl, Line 2 Mistake: Pathetically -> Pathalogically (MC)
Page 242, Message class definition Mistake: $self should be defined outside the methods, otherwise it is a local variable to the method. Thus package should look like:
package Message;

my $self = {};

sub new {
  my $class = shift;

  $self->{txt} = shift;
  bless ($self, $class);
  return $self;
}

sub print {
  if ($self->{txt} eq "") {
    print "No message";
  } else {
    for ($i = 0; $i < 3; $i++) {
      print $self->{txt}, "\n";
    }
  }
}

1;

(MC)
Page 242, print subroutine, 2nd print statement Typo: missing semi-colon at end of line, see above for correction(MC)
Page 242, hello.pl, 2nd line Stylistic error: $m = ... should be: my $m = ...
It works as is but Perl stylists prefer to have the my.(MC)
Page 245, Lisp, 2nd Line Typo: McArthy -> McCarthy(MC)

The following people spotted mistakes and reported them. Many thanks to:

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