It is assumed that the reader has a working knowledge of both ROOT and python. If not, then their respective websites (http://root.cern.ch and http://www.python.org, respectively) offer sufficient introductory material not to repeat it here.

This document starts out by setting the stage with an overview of what PyROOT enables you, in general terms, to do. The overview can be read like an executive summary: it is self-contained, sufficient for a rough understanding, and all the details are taken care of in subsequent parts of the text. The article then moves on to some practical details: how to obtain, compile, and setup PyROOT (see Section 3, “Installation”), as well as how to use it in your python sessions and scripts. With the basics covered, there are several sections that address the boundary cases of the bindings, and how they have been resolved with, hopefully, the minimum amount of surprises and gotcha's. These sections are required reading if you plan to write more complicated scripts or want to do more than running simple interactive sessions.

The article concludes with recipes on how to work with certain ROOT specific features, and how to perform common ROOT tasks in python. These recipes double as reference material. A glossary and a brief bibliography are provided as well.