# Use Python with LAMMPS

These pages describe various ways that LAMMPS and Python can be used
together.

::: {.toctree maxdepth="1"}
Python_overview Python_install Python_run Python_module Python_ext
Python_call Python_formats Python_examples Python_error Python_trouble
:::

If you are not familiar with [Python](https://www.python.org)\_, it is a
powerful scripting and programming language which can do almost
everything that compiled languages like C, C++, or Fortran can do in
fewer lines of code. It also comes with a large collection of add-on
modules for many purposes (either bundled or easily installed from
Python code repositories). The major drawback is slower execution speed
of the script code compared to compiled programming languages. But when
the script code is interfaced to optimized compiled code, performance
can be on par with a standalone executable, for as long as the scripting
is restricted to high-level operations. Thus Python is also convenient
to use as a \"glue\" language to \"drive\" a program through its library
interface, or to hook multiple pieces of software together, such as a
simulation code and a visualization tool, or to run a coupled
multi-scale or multi-physics model.

See the [Howto_couple]{.title-ref} page for more ideas about coupling
LAMMPS to other codes. See the [Library]{.title-ref} page for a
description of the LAMMPS library interfaces. That interface is exposed
to Python either when calling LAMMPS from Python or when calling Python
from a LAMMPS input script and then calling back to LAMMPS from Python
code. The C-library interface is designed to be easy to add
functionality to, thus the Python interface to LAMMPS is easy to extend
as well.

If you create interesting Python scripts that run LAMMPS or interesting
Python functions that can be called from a LAMMPS input script, that you
think would be generally useful, please post them as a pull request to
our [GitHub site](https://github.com/lammps/lammps)\_, and they can be
added to the LAMMPS distribution or web page.