pocketpy/docs/features/basic.md

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icon: dot title: Language Features

order: 100

Language features

pocketpy supports the core Python constructs used in application scripts. The compatibility guide explains where their behavior differs from CPython; support for a construct does not imply support for every Python variant of it.

Area	Supported examples
Control flow	if/elif/else, for, while, break, continue
Containers	list, tuple, dict, set, slicing, comprehensions
Functions	def, lambda, defaults, *args, **kwargs, decorators, closures
Classes	Single inheritance, methods, super(), property, static and class methods
Iteration	iter(), next(), generators with yield and yield from
Errors	raise, try/except, exception subclasses
Modules	import, from ... import, relative imports
Strings	UTF-8 strings, formatting, f-strings
Other syntax	Unpacking, type annotations, with, simplified match/case
Runtime access	eval(), exec(), getattr(), setattr(), hasattr()

Functions, data, and iteration

def scaled(values, factor=2):
    for value in values:
        yield value * factor

scores = [3, 5, 8]
assert list(scaled(scores, factor=3)) == [9, 15, 24]
assert {score: score * score for score in scores} == {3: 9, 5: 25, 8: 64}

Classes and properties

class Player:
    def __init__(self, name):
        self.name = name
        self.score = 0

    @property
    def rank(self):
        return self.score // 100

player = Player('Ada')
player.score = 250
assert player.rank == 2

Special methods

These are the principal special methods recognized by the runtime. Define them on your own types; do not modify built-in types.

Purpose	Methods
Display and identity	__repr__, __str__, __hash__
Truth and size	__bool__, __len__
Iteration and membership	__iter__, __next__, __contains__
Comparison	__eq__, __ne__, __lt__, __le__, __gt__, __ge__
Unary and numeric helpers	__neg__, __abs__, __round__, __invert__, __divmod__
Arithmetic	__add__, __sub__, __mul__, __truediv__, __floordiv__, __mod__, __pow__, __matmul__
Reflected arithmetic	__radd__, __rsub__, __rmul__, __rtruediv__, __rfloordiv__, __rmod__, __rpow__
Bitwise operations	__lshift__, __rshift__, __and__, __or__, __xor__
Items	__getitem__, __setitem__, __delitem__, __missing__
Construction and calls	__new__, __init__, __call__
Attribute fallback	__getattr__
Context blocks	__enter__, __exit__, with limited cleanup semantics
Serialization	__reduce__; see pickle

In-place hooks such as __iadd__ and reflected bitwise hooks such as __rand__ are not supported. Attributes such as __name__ and __all__ are metadata, rather than callable special methods.

The complete runtime name list is in magics.h.