/Misc/python.man

  1.TH PYTHON "1" "$Date: 2009-09-13 04:21:55 +0200 (Sun, 13 Sep 2009) $"
  2
  3.\" To view this file while editing, run it through groff:
  4.\"   groff -Tascii -man python.man | less
  5
  6.SH NAME
  7python \- an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language
  8.SH SYNOPSIS
  9.B python
 10[
 11.B \-d
 12]
 13[
 14.B \-E
 15]
 16[
 17.B \-h
 18]
 19[
 20.B \-i
 21]
 22[
 23.B \-m 
 24.I module-name
 25]
 26[
 27.B \-O
 28]
 29.br
 30       [
 31.B -Q
 32.I argument
 33]
 34[
 35.B \-S
 36]
 37[
 38.B \-t
 39]
 40[
 41.B \-u
 42]
 43.br
 44       [
 45.B \-v
 46]
 47[
 48.B \-V
 49]
 50[
 51.B \-W
 52.I argument
 53]
 54[
 55.B \-x
 56]
 57[
 58.B \-3
 59]
 60.br
 61       [
 62.B \-c
 63.I command
 64|
 65.I script
 66|
 67\-
 68]
 69[
 70.I arguments
 71]
 72.SH DESCRIPTION
 73Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming
 74language that combines remarkable power with very clear syntax.
 75For an introduction to programming in Python you are referred to the
 76Python Tutorial.
 77The Python Library Reference documents built-in and standard types,
 78constants, functions and modules.
 79Finally, the Python Reference Manual describes the syntax and
 80semantics of the core language in (perhaps too) much detail.
 81(These documents may be located via the
 82.B "INTERNET RESOURCES"
 83below; they may be installed on your system as well.)
 84.PP
 85Python's basic power can be extended with your own modules written in
 86C or C++.
 87On most systems such modules may be dynamically loaded.
 88Python is also adaptable as an extension language for existing
 89applications.
 90See the internal documentation for hints.
 91.PP
 92Documentation for installed Python modules and packages can be 
 93viewed by running the 
 94.B pydoc
 95program.  
 96.SH COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
 97.TP
 98.BI "\-c " command
 99Specify the command to execute (see next section).
100This terminates the option list (following options are passed as
101arguments to the command).
102.TP
103.B \-d
104Turn on parser debugging output (for wizards only, depending on
105compilation options).
106.TP
107.B \-E
108Ignore environment variables like PYTHONPATH and PYTHONHOME that modify
109the behavior of the interpreter.
110.TP
111.B \-h
112Prints the usage for the interpreter executable and exits.
113.TP
114.B \-i
115When a script is passed as first argument or the \fB\-c\fP option is
116used, enter interactive mode after executing the script or the
117command.  It does not read the $PYTHONSTARTUP file.  This can be
118useful to inspect global variables or a stack trace when a script
119raises an exception.
120.TP
121.BI "\-m " module-name
122Searches 
123.I sys.path 
124for the named module and runs the corresponding 
125.I .py 
126file as a script.
127.TP
128.B \-O
129Turn on basic optimizations.  This changes the filename extension for
130compiled (bytecode) files from
131.I .pyc
132to \fI.pyo\fP.  Given twice, causes docstrings to be discarded.
133.TP
134.BI "\-Q " argument
135Division control; see PEP 238.  The argument must be one of "old" (the
136default, int/int and long/long return an int or long), "new" (new
137division semantics, i.e. int/int and long/long returns a float),
138"warn" (old division semantics with a warning for int/int and
139long/long), or "warnall" (old division semantics with a warning for
140all use of the division operator).  For a use of "warnall", see the
141Tools/scripts/fixdiv.py script.
142.TP
143.B \-S
144Disable the import of the module
145.I site
146and the site-dependent manipulations of
147.I sys.path
148that it entails.
149.TP
150.B \-t
151Issue a warning when a source file mixes tabs and spaces for
152indentation in a way that makes it depend on the worth of a tab
153expressed in spaces.  Issue an error when the option is given twice.
154.TP
155.B \-u
156Force stdin, stdout and stderr to be totally unbuffered.  On systems
157where it matters, also put stdin, stdout and stderr in binary mode.
158Note that there is internal buffering in xreadlines(), readlines() and
159file-object iterators ("for line in sys.stdin") which is not
160influenced by this option.  To work around this, you will want to use
161"sys.stdin.readline()" inside a "while 1:" loop.
162.TP
163.B \-v
164Print a message each time a module is initialized, showing the place
165(filename or built-in module) from which it is loaded.  When given
166twice, print a message for each file that is checked for when 
167searching for a module.  Also provides information on module cleanup
168at exit.
169.TP
170.B \-V
171Prints the Python version number of the executable and exits.
172.TP
173.BI "\-W " argument
174Warning control.  Python sometimes prints warning message to
175.IR sys.stderr .
176A typical warning message has the following form:
177.IB file ":" line ": " category ": " message.
178By default, each warning is printed once for each source line where it
179occurs.  This option controls how often warnings are printed.
180Multiple
181.B \-W
182options may be given; when a warning matches more than one
183option, the action for the last matching option is performed.
184Invalid
185.B \-W
186options are ignored (a warning message is printed about invalid
187options when the first warning is issued).  Warnings can also be
188controlled from within a Python program using the
189.I warnings
190module.
191
192The simplest form of
193.I argument
194is one of the following
195.I action
196strings (or a unique abbreviation):
197.B ignore
198to ignore all warnings;
199.B default
200to explicitly request the default behavior (printing each warning once
201per source line);
202.B all
203to print a warning each time it occurs (this may generate many
204messages if a warning is triggered repeatedly for the same source
205line, such as inside a loop);
206.B module
207to print each warning only only the first time it occurs in each
208module;
209.B once
210to print each warning only the first time it occurs in the program; or
211.B error
212to raise an exception instead of printing a warning message.
213
214The full form of
215.I argument
216is
217.IB action : message : category : module : line.
218Here,
219.I action
220is as explained above but only applies to messages that match the
221remaining fields.  Empty fields match all values; trailing empty
222fields may be omitted.  The
223.I message
224field matches the start of the warning message printed; this match is
225case-insensitive.  The
226.I category
227field matches the warning category.  This must be a class name; the
228match test whether the actual warning category of the message is a
229subclass of the specified warning category.  The full class name must
230be given.  The
231.I module
232field matches the (fully-qualified) module name; this match is
233case-sensitive.  The
234.I line
235field matches the line number, where zero matches all line numbers and
236is thus equivalent to an omitted line number.
237.TP
238.B \-x
239Skip the first line of the source.  This is intended for a DOS
240specific hack only.  Warning: the line numbers in error messages will
241be off by one!
242.TP
243.B \-3
244Warn about Python 3.x incompatibilities that 2to3 cannot trivially fix.
245.SH INTERPRETER INTERFACE
246The interpreter interface resembles that of the UNIX shell: when
247called with standard input connected to a tty device, it prompts for
248commands and executes them until an EOF is read; when called with a
249file name argument or with a file as standard input, it reads and
250executes a
251.I script
252from that file;
253when called with
254.B \-c
255.I command,
256it executes the Python statement(s) given as
257.I command.
258Here
259.I command
260may contain multiple statements separated by newlines.
261Leading whitespace is significant in Python statements!
262In non-interactive mode, the entire input is parsed before it is
263executed.
264.PP
265If available, the script name and additional arguments thereafter are
266passed to the script in the Python variable
267.I sys.argv ,
268which is a list of strings (you must first
269.I import sys
270to be able to access it).
271If no script name is given,
272.I sys.argv[0]
273is an empty string; if
274.B \-c
275is used,
276.I sys.argv[0]
277contains the string
278.I '-c'.
279Note that options interpreted by the Python interpreter itself
280are not placed in
281.I sys.argv.
282.PP
283In interactive mode, the primary prompt is `>>>'; the second prompt
284(which appears when a command is not complete) is `...'.
285The prompts can be changed by assignment to
286.I sys.ps1
287or
288.I sys.ps2.
289The interpreter quits when it reads an EOF at a prompt.
290When an unhandled exception occurs, a stack trace is printed and
291control returns to the primary prompt; in non-interactive mode, the
292interpreter exits after printing the stack trace.
293The interrupt signal raises the
294.I Keyboard\%Interrupt
295exception; other UNIX signals are not caught (except that SIGPIPE is
296sometimes ignored, in favor of the
297.I IOError
298exception).  Error messages are written to stderr.
299.SH FILES AND DIRECTORIES
300These are subject to difference depending on local installation
301conventions; ${prefix} and ${exec_prefix} are installation-dependent
302and should be interpreted as for GNU software; they may be the same.
303The default for both is \fI/usr/local\fP.
304.IP \fI${exec_prefix}/bin/python\fP
305Recommended location of the interpreter.
306.PP
307.I ${prefix}/lib/python<version>
308.br
309.I ${exec_prefix}/lib/python<version>
310.RS
311Recommended locations of the directories containing the standard
312modules.
313.RE
314.PP
315.I ${prefix}/include/python<version>
316.br
317.I ${exec_prefix}/include/python<version>
318.RS
319Recommended locations of the directories containing the include files
320needed for developing Python extensions and embedding the
321interpreter.
322.RE
323.IP \fI~/.pythonrc.py\fP
324User-specific initialization file loaded by the \fIuser\fP module;
325not used by default or by most applications.
326.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
327.IP PYTHONHOME
328Change the location of the standard Python libraries.  By default, the
329libraries are searched in ${prefix}/lib/python<version> and
330${exec_prefix}/lib/python<version>, where ${prefix} and ${exec_prefix}
331are installation-dependent directories, both defaulting to
332\fI/usr/local\fP.  When $PYTHONHOME is set to a single directory, its value
333replaces both ${prefix} and ${exec_prefix}.  To specify different values
334for these, set $PYTHONHOME to ${prefix}:${exec_prefix}.
335.IP PYTHONPATH
336Augments the default search path for module files.
337The format is the same as the shell's $PATH: one or more directory
338pathnames separated by colons.
339Non-existent directories are silently ignored.
340The default search path is installation dependent, but generally
341begins with ${prefix}/lib/python<version> (see PYTHONHOME above).
342The default search path is always appended to $PYTHONPATH.
343If a script argument is given, the directory containing the script is
344inserted in the path in front of $PYTHONPATH.
345The search path can be manipulated from within a Python program as the
346variable
347.I sys.path .
348.IP PYTHONSTARTUP
349If this is the name of a readable file, the Python commands in that
350file are executed before the first prompt is displayed in interactive
351mode.
352The file is executed in the same name space where interactive commands
353are executed so that objects defined or imported in it can be used
354without qualification in the interactive session.
355You can also change the prompts
356.I sys.ps1
357and
358.I sys.ps2
359in this file.
360.IP PYTHONY2K
361Set this to a non-empty string to cause the \fItime\fP module to
362require dates specified as strings to include 4-digit years, otherwise
3632-digit years are converted based on rules described in the \fItime\fP
364module documentation.
365.IP PYTHONOPTIMIZE
366If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying
367the \fB\-O\fP option. If set to an integer, it is equivalent to
368specifying \fB\-O\fP multiple times.
369.IP PYTHONDEBUG
370If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying
371the \fB\-d\fP option. If set to an integer, it is equivalent to
372specifying \fB\-d\fP multiple times.
373.IP PYTHONINSPECT
374If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying
375the \fB\-i\fP option.
376.IP PYTHONUNBUFFERED
377If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying
378the \fB\-u\fP option.
379.IP PYTHONVERBOSE
380If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying
381the \fB\-v\fP option. If set to an integer, it is equivalent to
382specifying \fB\-v\fP multiple times. 
383.SH AUTHOR
384The Python Software Foundation: http://www.python.org/psf
385.SH INTERNET RESOURCES
386Main website:  http://www.python.org/
387.br
388Documentation:  http://docs.python.org/
389.br
390Developer resources:  http://www.python.org/dev/
391.br
392Downloads:  http://python.org/download/
393.br
394Module repository:  http://pypi.python.org/
395.br
396Newsgroups:  comp.lang.python, comp.lang.python.announce
397.SH LICENSING
398Python is distributed under an Open Source license.  See the file
399"LICENSE" in the Python source distribution for information on terms &
400conditions for accessing and otherwise using Python and for a
401DISCLAIMER OF ALL WARRANTIES.