PYTHON(1) User Commands PYTHON(1)

NAME

python - an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming
language

SYNOPSIS

python [ -B ] [ -b ] [ -d ] [ -E ] [ -h ] [ -i ] [ -I ]
[ -m module-name ] [ -q ] [ -O ] [ -OO ] [ -P ] [ -s ] [ -S ]
[ -u ]
[ -v ] [ -V ] [ -W argument ] [ -x ] [ -X option ] [ -? ]
[ --check-hash-based-pycs default | always | never ]
[ --help ] [ --help-env ] [ --help-xoptions ] [ --help-all ]
[ -c command | script | - ] [ arguments ]

DESCRIPTION

Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming
language that combines remarkable power with very clear syntax. For
an introduction to programming in Python, see the Python Tutorial.
The Python Library Reference documents built-in and standard types,
constants, functions and modules. Finally, the Python Reference
Manual describes the syntax and semantics of the core language in
(perhaps too) much detail. (These documents may be located via the
INTERNET RESOURCES below; they may be installed on your system as
well.)

Python's basic power can be extended with your own modules written in
C or C++. On most systems such modules may be dynamically loaded.
Python is also adaptable as an extension language for existing
applications. See the internal documentation for hints.

Documentation for installed Python modules and packages can be viewed
by running the pydoc program.

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

-B Don't write .pyc files on import. See also
PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE.

-b Issue warnings about str(bytes_instance),
str(bytearray_instance) and comparing bytes/bytearray with
str. (-bb: issue errors)

-c command
Specify the command to execute (see next section). This
terminates the option list (following options are passed as
arguments to the command).

--check-hash-based-pycs mode
Configure how Python evaluates the up-to-dateness of hash-
based .pyc files.

-d Turn on parser debugging output (for expert only, depending on
compilation options).

-E Ignore environment variables like PYTHONPATH and PYTHONHOME
that modify the behavior of the interpreter.

-h , -? , --help
Prints the usage for the interpreter executable and exits.

--help-env
Prints help about Python-specific environment variables and
exits.

--help-xoptions
Prints help about implementation-specific -X options and
exits.

--help-all
Prints complete usage information and exits.

-i When a script is passed as first argument or the -c option is
used, enter interactive mode after executing the script or the
command. It does not read the $PYTHONSTARTUP file. This can
be useful to inspect global variables or a stack trace when a
script raises an exception.

-I Run Python in isolated mode. This also implies -E, -P and -s.
In isolated mode sys.path contains neither the script's
directory nor the user's site-packages directory. All PYTHON*
environment variables are ignored, too. Further restrictions
may be imposed to prevent the user from injecting malicious
code.

-m module-name
Searches sys.path for the named module and runs the
corresponding .py file as a script. This terminates the option
list (following options are passed as arguments to the
module).

-O Remove assert statements and any code conditional on the value
of __debug__; augment the filename for compiled (bytecode)
files by adding .opt-1 before the .pyc extension.

-OO Do -O and also discard docstrings; change the filename for
compiled (bytecode) files by adding .opt-2 before the .pyc
extension.

-P Don't automatically prepend a potentially unsafe path to
sys.path such as the current directory, the script's directory
or an empty string. See also the PYTHONSAFEPATH environment
variable.

-q Do not print the version and copyright messages. These
messages are also suppressed in non-interactive mode.

-s Don't add user site directory to sys.path.

-S Disable the import of the module site and the site-dependent
manipulations of sys.path that it entails. Also disable these
manipulations if site is explicitly imported later.

-u Force the stdout and stderr streams to be unbuffered. This
option has no effect on the stdin stream.

-v Print a message each time a module is initialized, showing the
place (filename or built-in module) from which it is loaded.
When given twice, print a message for each file that is
checked for when searching for a module. Also provides
information on module cleanup at exit.

-V , --version
Prints the Python version number of the executable and exits.
When given twice, print more information about the build.


-W argument
Warning control. Python's warning machinery by default prints
warning messages to sys.stderr.

The simplest settings apply a particular action
unconditionally to all warnings emitted by a process (even
those that are otherwise ignored by default):

-Wdefault # Warn once per call location
-Werror # Convert to exceptions
-Walways # Warn every time
-Wall # Same as -Walways
-Wmodule # Warn once per calling module
-Wonce # Warn once per Python process
-Wignore # Never warn

The action names can be abbreviated as desired and the
interpreter will resolve them to the appropriate action name.
For example, -Wi is the same as -Wignore .

The full form of argument is:
action:message:category:module:lineno

Empty fields match all values; trailing empty fields may be
omitted. For example -W ignore::DeprecationWarning ignores all
DeprecationWarning warnings.

The action field is as explained above but only applies to
warnings that match the remaining fields.

The message field must match the whole printed warning
message; this match is case-insensitive.

The category field matches the warning category (ex:
"DeprecationWarning"). This must be a class name; the match
test whether the actual warning category of the message is a
subclass of the specified warning category.

The module field matches the (fully-qualified) module name;
this match is case-sensitive.

The lineno field matches the line number, where zero matches
all line numbers and is thus equivalent to an omitted line
number.

Multiple -W options can be given; when a warning matches more
than one option, the action for the last matching option is
performed. Invalid -W options are ignored (though, a warning
message is printed about invalid options when the first
warning is issued).

Warnings can also be controlled using the PYTHONWARNINGS
environment variable and from within a Python program using
the warnings module. For example, the
warnings.filterwarnings() function can be used to use a
regular expression on the warning message.


-X option
Set implementation-specific option. The following options are
available:

-X faulthandler: enable faulthandler

-X showrefcount: output the total reference count and
number of used
memory blocks when the program finishes or after each
statement in the
interactive interpreter. This only works on debug
builds

-X tracemalloc: start tracing Python memory allocations
using the
tracemalloc module. By default, only the most recent
frame is stored in a
traceback of a trace. Use -X tracemalloc=NFRAME to
start tracing with a
traceback limit of NFRAME frames

-X importtime: show how long each import takes. It shows
module name,
cumulative time (including nested imports) and self
time (excluding
nested imports). Note that its output may be broken in
multi-threaded
application. Typical usage is python3 -X importtime -c
'import asyncio'

-X dev: enable CPython's "development mode", introducing
additional runtime
checks which are too expensive to be enabled by
default. It will not be
more verbose than the default if the code is correct:
new warnings are
only emitted when an issue is detected. Effect of the
developer mode:
* Add default warning filter, as -W default
* Install debug hooks on memory allocators: see the
PyMem_SetupDebugHooks()
C function
* Enable the faulthandler module to dump the Python
traceback on a crash
* Enable asyncio debug mode
* Set the dev_mode attribute of sys.flags to True
* io.IOBase destructor logs close() exceptions

-X utf8: enable UTF-8 mode for operating system
interfaces, overriding the default
locale-aware mode. -X utf8=0 explicitly disables UTF-8
mode (even when it would
otherwise activate automatically). See PYTHONUTF8 for
more details

-X pycache_prefix=PATH: enable writing .pyc files to a
parallel tree rooted at the
given directory instead of to the code tree.

-X warn_default_encoding: enable opt-in EncodingWarning
for 'encoding=None'

-X no_debug_ranges: disable the inclusion of the tables
mapping extra location
information (end line, start column offset and end
column offset) to every
instruction in code objects. This is useful when
smaller code objects and pyc
files are desired as well as suppressing the extra
visual location indicators
when the interpreter displays tracebacks.

-X frozen_modules=[on|off]: whether or not frozen modules
should be used.
The default is "on" (or "off" if you are running a
local build).

-X int_max_str_digits=number: limit the size of int<->str
conversions.
This helps avoid denial of service attacks when parsing
untrusted data.
The default is sys.int_info.default_max_str_digits. 0
disables.


-x Skip the first line of the source. This is intended for a DOS
specific hack only. Warning: the line numbers in error
messages will be off by one!

INTERPRETER INTERFACE

The interpreter interface resembles that of the UNIX shell: when
called with standard input connected to a tty device, it prompts for
commands and executes them until an EOF is read; when called with a
file name argument or with a file as standard input, it reads and
executes a script from that file; when called with -c command, it
executes the Python statement(s) given as command. Here command may
contain multiple statements separated by newlines. Leading
whitespace is significant in Python statements! In non-interactive
mode, the entire input is parsed before it is executed.

If available, the script name and additional arguments thereafter are
passed to the script in the Python variable sys.argv, which is a list
of strings (you must first import sys to be able to access it). If
no script name is given, sys.argv[0] is an empty string; if -c is
used, sys.argv[0] contains the string '-c'. Note that options
interpreted by the Python interpreter itself are not placed in
sys.argv.

In interactive mode, the primary prompt is `>>>'; the second prompt
(which appears when a command is not complete) is `...'. The prompts
can be changed by assignment to sys.ps1 or sys.ps2. The interpreter
quits when it reads an EOF at a prompt. When an unhandled exception
occurs, a stack trace is printed and control returns to the primary
prompt; in non-interactive mode, the interpreter exits after printing
the stack trace. The interrupt signal raises the KeyboardInterrupt
exception; other UNIX signals are not caught (except that SIGPIPE is
sometimes ignored, in favor of the IOError exception). Error
messages are written to stderr.

FILES AND DIRECTORIES

These are subject to difference depending on local installation
conventions; ${prefix} and ${exec_prefix} are installation-dependent
and should be interpreted as for GNU software; they may be the same.
The default for both is /usr/local.

${exec_prefix}/bin/python
Recommended location of the interpreter.

${prefix}/lib/python<version>
${exec_prefix}/lib/python<version>
Recommended locations of the directories containing the
standard modules.

${prefix}/include/python<version>
${exec_prefix}/include/python<version>
Recommended locations of the directories containing the
include files needed for developing Python extensions and
embedding the interpreter.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

PYTHONSAFEPATH
If this is set to a non-empty string, don't automatically
prepend a potentially unsafe path to sys.path such as the
current directory, the script's directory or an empty string.
See also the -P option.

PYTHONHOME
Change the location of the standard Python libraries. By
default, the libraries are searched in
${prefix}/lib/python<version> and
${exec_prefix}/lib/python<version>, where ${prefix} and
${exec_prefix} are installation-dependent directories, both
defaulting to /usr/local. When $PYTHONHOME is set to a single
directory, its value replaces both ${prefix} and
${exec_prefix}. To specify different values for these, set
$PYTHONHOME to ${prefix}:${exec_prefix}.

PYTHONPATH
Augments the default search path for module files. The format
is the same as the shell's $PATH: one or more directory
pathnames separated by colons. Non-existent directories are
silently ignored. The default search path is installation
dependent, but generally begins with
${prefix}/lib/python<version> (see PYTHONHOME above). The
default search path is always appended to $PYTHONPATH. If a
script argument is given, the directory containing the script
is inserted in the path in front of $PYTHONPATH. The search
path can be manipulated from within a Python program as the
variable sys.path.

PYTHONPLATLIBDIR
Override sys.platlibdir.

PYTHONSTARTUP
If this is the name of a readable file, the Python commands in
that file are executed before the first prompt is displayed in
interactive mode. The file is executed in the same name space
where interactive commands are executed so that objects
defined or imported in it can be used without qualification in
the interactive session. You can also change the prompts
sys.ps1 and sys.ps2 in this file.

PYTHONOPTIMIZE
If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to
specifying the -O option. If set to an integer, it is
equivalent to specifying -O multiple times.

PYTHONDEBUG
If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to
specifying the -d option. If set to an integer, it is
equivalent to specifying -d multiple times.

PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE
If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to
specifying the -B option (don't try to write .pyc files).

PYTHONINSPECT
If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to
specifying the -i option.

PYTHONIOENCODING
If this is set before running the interpreter, it overrides
the encoding used for stdin/stdout/stderr, in the syntax
encodingname:errorhandler The errorhandler part is optional
and has the same meaning as in str.encode. For stderr, the
errorhandler
part is ignored; the handler will always be
'backslashreplace'.

PYTHONNOUSERSITE
If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to
specifying the -s option (Don't add the user site directory to
sys.path).

PYTHONUNBUFFERED
If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to
specifying the -u option.

PYTHONVERBOSE
If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to
specifying the -v option. If set to an integer, it is
equivalent to specifying -v multiple times.

PYTHONWARNINGS
If this is set to a comma-separated string it is equivalent to
specifying the -W option for each separate value.

PYTHONHASHSEED
If this variable is set to "random", a random value is used to
seed the hashes of str and bytes objects.

If PYTHONHASHSEED is set to an integer value, it is used as a
fixed seed for generating the hash() of the types covered by
the hash randomization. Its purpose is to allow repeatable
hashing, such as for selftests for the interpreter itself, or
to allow a cluster of python processes to share hash values.

The integer must be a decimal number in the range
[0,4294967295]. Specifying the value 0 will disable hash
randomization.

PYTHONINTMAXSTRDIGITS
Limit the maximum digit characters in an int value when
converting from a string and when converting an int back to a
str. A value of 0 disables the limit. Conversions to or from
bases 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32 are never limited.

PYTHONMALLOC
Set the Python memory allocators and/or install debug hooks.
The available memory allocators are malloc and pymalloc. The
available debug hooks are debug, malloc_debug, and
pymalloc_debug.

When Python is compiled in debug mode, the default is
pymalloc_debug and the debug hooks are automatically used.
Otherwise, the default is pymalloc.

PYTHONMALLOCSTATS
If set to a non-empty string, Python will print statistics of
the pymalloc memory allocator every time a new pymalloc object
arena is created, and on shutdown.

This variable is ignored if the $PYTHONMALLOC environment
variable is used to force the malloc(3) allocator of the C
library, or if Python is configured without pymalloc support.

PYTHONASYNCIODEBUG
If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string,
enable the debug mode of the asyncio module.

PYTHONTRACEMALLOC
If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string,
start tracing Python memory allocations using the tracemalloc
module.

The value of the variable is the maximum number of frames
stored in a traceback of a trace. For example,
PYTHONTRACEMALLOC=1 stores only the most recent frame.

PYTHONFAULTHANDLER
If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string,
faulthandler.enable() is called at startup: install a handler
for SIGSEGV, SIGFPE, SIGABRT, SIGBUS and SIGILL signals to
dump the Python traceback.

This is equivalent to the -X faulthandler option.

PYTHONEXECUTABLE
If this environment variable is set, sys.argv[0] will be set
to its value instead of the value got through the C runtime.
Only works on Mac OS X.

PYTHONUSERBASE
Defines the user base directory, which is used to compute the
path of the user site-packages directory and installation
paths for python -m pip install --user.

PYTHONPROFILEIMPORTTIME
If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string,
Python will show how long each import takes. This is exactly
equivalent to setting -X importtime on the command line.

PYTHONBREAKPOINT
If this environment variable is set to 0, it disables the
default debugger. It can be set to the callable of your
debugger of choice.

Debug-mode variables
Setting these variables only has an effect in a debug build of
Python, that is, if Python was configured with the --with-pydebug
build option.

PYTHONDUMPREFS
If this environment variable is set, Python will dump objects
and reference counts still alive after shutting down the
interpreter.

AUTHOR

The Python Software Foundation: https://www.python.org/psf/

INTERNET RESOURCES

Main website: https://www.python.org/
Documentation: https://docs.python.org/
Developer resources: https://devguide.python.org/
Downloads: https://www.python.org/downloads/
Module repository: https://pypi.org/
Newsgroups: comp.lang.python, comp.lang.python.announce

LICENSING

Python is distributed under an Open Source license. See the file
"LICENSE" in the Python source distribution for information on terms
& conditions for accessing and otherwise using Python and for a
DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES.

PYTHON(1)