# ScientificPython User's Guide

Konrad Hinsen
Centre de Biophysique Molculaire
CNRS
Rue Charles Sadron
45071 Orlans Cedex 2
France
E-Mail: hinsen@cnrs-orleans.fr
Last revision: 2002-6-13

### Introduction

ScientificPython is a collection of Python modules that are useful for scientific computing. Most modules are rather general, others belong to specific domains and will be of interest to only a small number of users (e.g. the module Scientific.IO.PDB). Almost all modules make extensive use of Numerical Python (NumPy), which must be installed prior to Scientific Python. Python 1.5 or later is also required, Scientific.BSP requires 2.1 or later. For more information about Numerical Python and about other packages for scientific computing, see the Topic Guide "Scientific Computing" on the Python home page.

This manual describes version 2.4 of ScientificPython. The 2.x versions are completely revised and not compatible with earlier releases. The major difference is the introduction of a package structure; all modules are now submodules of the top-level module Scientific. The package structure should prevent name clashes with other modules, which have occurred in the past (e.g. the module PDB was indistinguishable from the module pdb in the Python standard library on operating systems without case distinction in filenames).

ScientificPython 2.x can coexist with an 1.x version, as all module names are different. However, the availability of both versions in parallel makes it difficult to verify that code has been fully ported to use the new one.

- Installation

- Reference for Module Scientific