
Using the Python Interpreter
****************************


Invoking the Interpreter
========================

The Python interpreter is usually installed as
``/usr/local/bin/python`` on those machines where it is available;
putting ``/usr/local/bin`` in your Unix shell's search path makes it
possible to start it by typing the command

   python

to the shell.  Since the choice of the directory where the interpreter
lives is an installation option, other places are possible; check with
your local Python guru or system administrator.  (E.g.,
``/usr/local/python`` is a popular alternative location.)

On Windows machines, the Python installation is usually placed in
``C:\Python26``, though you can change this when you're running the
installer.  To add this directory to your path,  you can type the
following command into the command prompt in a DOS box:

   set path=%path%;C:\python26

Typing an end-of-file character (``Control-D`` on Unix, ``Control-Z``
on Windows) at the primary prompt causes the interpreter to exit with
a zero exit status.  If that doesn't work, you can exit the
interpreter by typing the following command: ``quit()``.

The interpreter's line-editing features usually aren't very
sophisticated.  On Unix, whoever installed the interpreter may have
enabled support for the GNU readline library, which adds more
elaborate interactive editing and history features. Perhaps the
quickest check to see whether command line editing is supported is
typing Control-P to the first Python prompt you get.  If it beeps, you
have command line editing; see Appendix *Interactive Input Editing and
History Substitution* for an introduction to the keys.  If nothing
appears to happen, or if ``^P`` is echoed, command line editing isn't
available; you'll only be able to use backspace to remove characters
from the current line.

The interpreter operates somewhat like the Unix shell: when called
with standard input connected to a tty device, it reads and executes
commands interactively; when called with a file name argument or with
a file as standard input, it reads and executes a *script* from that
file.

A second way of starting the interpreter is ``python -c command [arg]
...``, which executes the statement(s) in *command*, analogous to the
shell's *-c* option.  Since Python statements often contain spaces or
other characters that are special to the shell, it is usually advised
to quote *command* in its entirety with single quotes.

Some Python modules are also useful as scripts.  These can be invoked
using ``python -m module [arg] ...``, which executes the source file
for *module* as if you had spelled out its full name on the command
line.

Note that there is a difference between ``python file`` and ``python
<file``. In the latter case, input requests from the program, such as
calls to ``input()`` and ``raw_input()``, are satisfied from *file*.
Since this file has already been read until the end by the parser
before the program starts executing, the program will encounter end-
of-file immediately.  In the former case (which is usually what you
want) they are satisfied from whatever file or device is connected to
standard input of the Python interpreter.

When a script file is used, it is sometimes useful to be able to run
the script and enter interactive mode afterwards.  This can be done by
passing *-i* before the script.  (This does not work if the script is
read from standard input, for the same reason as explained in the
previous paragraph.)


Argument Passing
----------------

When known to the interpreter, the script name and additional
arguments thereafter are passed to the script in the variable
``sys.argv``, which is a list of strings.  Its length is at least one;
when no script and no arguments are given, ``sys.argv[0]`` is an empty
string.  When the script name is given as ``'-'`` (meaning  standard
input), ``sys.argv[0]`` is set to ``'-'``.  When *-c* *command* is
used, ``sys.argv[0]`` is set to ``'-c'``.  When *-m* *module* is used,
``sys.argv[0]``  is set to the full name of the located module.
Options found after  *-c* *command* or *-m* *module* are not consumed
by the Python interpreter's option processing but left in ``sys.argv``
for  the command or module to handle.


Interactive Mode
----------------

When commands are read from a tty, the interpreter is said to be in
*interactive mode*.  In this mode it prompts for the next command with
the *primary prompt*, usually three greater-than signs (``>>>``); for
continuation lines it prompts with the *secondary prompt*, by default
three dots (``...``). The interpreter prints a welcome message stating
its version number and a copyright notice before printing the first
prompt:

   python
   Python 2.6 (#1, Feb 28 2007, 00:02:06)
   Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
   >>>

Continuation lines are needed when entering a multi-line construct. As
an example, take a look at this ``if`` statement:

   >>> the_world_is_flat = 1
   >>> if the_world_is_flat:
   ...     print "Be careful not to fall off!"
   ...
   Be careful not to fall off!


The Interpreter and Its Environment
===================================


Error Handling
--------------

When an error occurs, the interpreter prints an error message and a
stack trace. In interactive mode, it then returns to the primary
prompt; when input came from a file, it exits with a nonzero exit
status after printing the stack trace. (Exceptions handled by an
``except`` clause in a ``try`` statement are not errors in this
context.)  Some errors are unconditionally fatal and cause an exit
with a nonzero exit; this applies to internal inconsistencies and some
cases of running out of memory.  All error messages are written to the
standard error stream; normal output from executed commands is written
to standard output.

Typing the interrupt character (usually Control-C or DEL) to the
primary or secondary prompt cancels the input and returns to the
primary prompt. [1] Typing an interrupt while a command is executing
raises the ``KeyboardInterrupt`` exception, which may be handled by a
``try`` statement.


Executable Python Scripts
-------------------------

On BSD'ish Unix systems, Python scripts can be made directly
executable, like shell scripts, by putting the line

   #! /usr/bin/env python

(assuming that the interpreter is on the user's **PATH**) at the
beginning of the script and giving the file an executable mode.  The
``#!`` must be the first two characters of the file.  On some
platforms, this first line must end with a Unix-style line ending
(``'\n'``), not a Windows (``'\r\n'``) line ending.  Note that the
hash, or pound, character, ``'#'``, is used to start a comment in
Python.

The script can be given an executable mode, or permission, using the
**chmod** command:

   $ chmod +x myscript.py

On Windows systems, there is no notion of an "executable mode".  The
Python installer automatically associates ``.py`` files with
``python.exe`` so that a double-click on a Python file will run it as
a script.  The extension can also be ``.pyw``, in that case, the
console window that normally appears is suppressed.


Source Code Encoding
--------------------

It is possible to use encodings different than ASCII in Python source
files. The best way to do it is to put one more special comment line
right after the ``#!`` line to define the source file encoding:

   # -*- coding: encoding -*-

With that declaration, all characters in the source file will be
treated as having the encoding *encoding*, and it will be possible to
directly write Unicode string literals in the selected encoding.  The
list of possible encodings can be found in the Python Library
Reference, in the section on ``codecs``.

For example, to write Unicode literals including the Euro currency
symbol, the ISO-8859-15 encoding can be used, with the Euro symbol
having the ordinal value 164.  This script will print the value 8364
(the Unicode codepoint corresponding to the Euro symbol) and then
exit:

   # -*- coding: iso-8859-15 -*-

   currency = u"€"
   print ord(currency)

If your editor supports saving files as ``UTF-8`` with a UTF-8 *byte
order mark* (aka BOM), you can use that instead of an encoding
declaration. IDLE supports this capability if
``Options/General/Default Source Encoding/UTF-8`` is set. Notice that
this signature is not understood in older Python releases (2.2 and
earlier), and also not understood by the operating system for script
files with ``#!`` lines (only used on Unix systems).

By using UTF-8 (either through the signature or an encoding
declaration), characters of most languages in the world can be used
simultaneously in string literals and comments.  Using non-ASCII
characters in identifiers is not supported. To display all these
characters properly, your editor must recognize that the file is
UTF-8, and it must use a font that supports all the characters in the
file.


The Interactive Startup File
----------------------------

When you use Python interactively, it is frequently handy to have some
standard commands executed every time the interpreter is started.  You
can do this by setting an environment variable named **PYTHONSTARTUP**
to the name of a file containing your start-up commands.  This is
similar to the ``.profile`` feature of the Unix shells.

This file is only read in interactive sessions, not when Python reads
commands from a script, and not when ``/dev/tty`` is given as the
explicit source of commands (which otherwise behaves like an
interactive session).  It is executed in the same namespace where
interactive commands are executed, so that objects that it defines or
imports can be used without qualification in the interactive session.
You can also change the prompts ``sys.ps1`` and ``sys.ps2`` in this
file.

If you want to read an additional start-up file from the current
directory, you can program this in the global start-up file using code
like ``if os.path.isfile('.pythonrc.py'): execfile('.pythonrc.py')``.
If you want to use the startup file in a script, you must do this
explicitly in the script:

   import os
   filename = os.environ.get('PYTHONSTARTUP')
   if filename and os.path.isfile(filename):
       execfile(filename)

-[ Footnotes ]-

[1] A problem with the GNU Readline package may prevent this.
