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PYTHON(1)		     General Commands Manual		       PYTHON(1)

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

SYNOPSIS
     python [ -B ] [ -d ] [ -E ] [ -h ] [ -i ] [ -m module-name ]
	    [ -O ] [ -OO ] [ -R ] [ -Q argument ] [ -s ] [ -S ] [ -t ] [ -u ]
	    [ -v ] [ -V ] [ -W argument ] [ -x ] [ -3 ] [ -?  ]
	    [ -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 Ref-
     erence documents built-in and standard types, constants, functions and mod-
     ules.  Finally, the Python Reference Manual describes the syntax and seman-
     tics  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 .py[co] files on import. See  also  PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTE-
	    CODE.

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

     -d     Turn on parser debugging output (for wizards only, depending on com-
	    pilation 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.

     -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 in-
	    spect global variables or a stack trace when a script raises an  ex-
	    ception.

     -m module-name
	    Searches  sys.path	for  the named module and runs the corresponding
	    .py file as a script.

     -O     Turn on basic optimizations.  This changes	the  filename  extension
	    for  compiled  (bytecode)  files  from  .pyc  to .pyo.  Given twice,
	    causes docstrings to be discarded.

     -OO    Discard docstrings in addition to the -O optimizations.

     -R     Turn on "hash randomization", so that  the	hash()	values	of  str,
	    bytes  and	datetime  objects  are	"salted"  with	an unpredictable
	    pseudo-random value.  Although they remain constant within an  indi-
	    vidual Python process, they are not predictable between repeated in-
	    vocations of Python.

	    This  is  intended to provide protection against a denial of service
	    caused by carefully-chosen inputs that exploit the worst  case  per-
	    formance   of   a	dict   construction,   O(n^2)  complexity.   See
	    http://www.ocert.org/advisories/ocert-2011-003.html for details.

     -Q argument
	    Division control; see PEP 238.  The argument must be  one  of  "old"
	    (the  default,  int/int  and long/long return an int or long), "new"
	    (new division  semantics,  i.e.  int/int  and  long/long  returns  a
	    float),  "warn"  (old  division semantics with a warning for int/int
	    and long/long), or "warnall" (old division semantics with a  warning
	    for  all use of the division operator).  For a use of "warnall", see
	    the Tools/scripts/fixdiv.py script.

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

     -S     Disable the import of the module site and the site-dependent manipu-
	    lations of sys.path that it entails.

     -t     Issue a warning when a source file mixes tabs and spaces for  inden-
	    tation in a way that makes it depend on the worth of a tab expressed
	    in spaces.	Issue an error when the option is given twice.

     -u     Force stdin, stdout and stderr to be totally unbuffered.  On systems
	    where  it matters, also put stdin, stdout and stderr in binary mode.
	    Note that there is internal buffering in  xreadlines(),  readlines()
	    and file-object iterators ("for line in sys.stdin") which is not in-
	    fluenced  by this option.  To work around this, you will want to use
	    "sys.stdin.readline()" inside a "while 1:" loop.

     -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.

     -W argument
	    Warning  control.	Python	sometimes  prints  warning  message   to
	    sys.stderr.   A  typical  warning  message	has  the following form:
	    file:line: category: message.  By default, each warning  is  printed
	    once for each source line where it occurs.	This option controls how
	    often  warnings are printed.  Multiple -W options may be given; when
	    a warning matches more than one option,  the  action  for  the  last
	    matching  option  is  performed.   Invalid -W options are ignored (a
	    warning message is printed about  invalid  options	when  the  first
	    warning  is  issued).  Warnings can also be controlled from within a
	    Python program using the warnings module.

	    The simplest form of argument is one of the following action strings
	    (or a unique abbreviation): ignore to ignore all  warnings;  default
	    to	explicitly  request  the default behavior (printing each warning
	    once per source line); all to print a warning each	time  it  occurs
	    (this  may	generate many messages if a warning is triggered repeat-
	    edly for the same source line, such as inside  a  loop);  module  to
	    print  each  warning  only	the first time it occurs in each module;
	    once to print each warning only the first time it occurs in the pro-
	    gram; or error to raise an exception instead of printing  a  warning
	    message.

	    The  full  form  of argument is action:message:category:module:line.
	    Here, action is as explained above but only applies to messages that
	    match the remaining fields.  Empty fields match all values; trailing
	    empty fields may be omitted.  The message field matches the start of
	    the warning message printed; this match  is  case-insensitive.   The
	    category  field  matches the warning category.  This must be a class
	    name; the match test whether the actual warning category of the mes-
	    sage is a subclass of the  specified  warning  category.   The  full
	    class name must be given.  The module field matches the (fully-qual-
	    ified)  module  name;  this match is case-sensitive.  The line field
	    matches the line number, where zero matches all line numbers and  is
	    thus equivalent to an omitted line number.

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

     -3     Warn  about  Python 3.x incompatibilities that 2to3 cannot trivially
	    fix.

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 in-
     terpreter 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-interac-
     tive  mode,  the interpreter exits after printing the stack trace.  The in-
     terrupt 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  conven-
     tions;  ${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 in-
	    terpreter.

     ~/.pythonrc.py
	    User-specific initialization file loaded by  the  user  module;  not
	    used by default or by most applications.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
     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_pre-
	    fix} 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  dif-
	    ferent  values  for  these, set $PYTHONHOME to ${prefix}:${exec_pre-
	    fix}.

     PYTHONPATH
	    Augments the default search path for module files.	 The  format  is
	    the same as the shell's $PATH: one or more directory pathnames sepa-
	    rated  by  colons.	 Non-existent  directories are silently ignored.
	    The default search path is installation dependent, but generally be-
	    gins 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 manipu-
	    lated from within a Python program as the variable sys.path.

     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 interac-
	    tive mode.	The file is executed in the same name space where inter-
	    active 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.

     PYTHONY2K
	    Set this to a non-empty string to cause the time module  to  require
	    dates  specified  as  strings  to  include	4-digit years, otherwise
	    2-digit years are converted based on rules	described  in  the  time
	    module documentation.

     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 .py[co] 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 en-
	    coding used for stdin/stdout/stderr, in the syntax	encodingname:er-
	    rorhandler	The errorhandler part is optional and has the same mean-
	    ing 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 spec-
	    ifying the -W option for each separate value.

     PYTHONHASHSEED
	    If this variable is set to "random", the effect is the same as spec-
	    ifying the -R option: a random value is used to seed the  hashes  of
	    str, bytes and datetime 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 ran-
	    domization.  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 lead to the same  hash	values	as  when
	    hash randomization is disabled.

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

INTERNET RESOURCES
     Main website:  https://www.python.org/
     Documentation:  https://docs.python.org/2/
     Developer resources:  https://docs.python.org/devguide/
     Downloads:  https://www.python.org/downloads/
     Module repository:  https://pypi.python.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 WAR-
     RANTIES.

								       PYTHON(1)

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