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PYTHON(1)		     General Commands Manual		       PYTHON(1)

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

SYNOPSIS
     python [ -B ] [ -b ] [ -d ] [ -E ] [ -h ] [ -i ] [ -I ]
	    [ -m module-name ] [ -q ] [ -R ] [ -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 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 .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 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.

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

     -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  vari-
	    ables are ignored, too.  Further restrictions may be imposed to pre-
	    vent 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 op-
	    tions 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.

     -R     Turn on hash randomization. This option only has an  effect  if  the
	    PYTHONHASHSEED  environment variable is set to 0, since hash random-
	    ization is enabled by default.

     -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.  Also disable	these  manipula-
	    tions 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 warn-
	    ing messages to sys.stderr.

	    The simplest settings apply a particular action  unconditionally  to
	    all warnings emitted by a process (even those that are otherwise ig-
	    nored 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 Deprecation-
	    Warning 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: "Deprecation-
	    Warning"). This must be a class name; the match test whether the ac-
	    tual 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 avail-
	    able:

	    -X cpu_count=N
		   Override   the   return   value   of   os.cpu_count().     -X
		   cpu_count=default	 cancels     overriding.     See    also
		   PYTHON_CPU_COUNT.

	    -X dev
		   Enable CPython's "development mode",  introducing  additional
		   runtime  checks  which are too expensive to be enabled by de-
		   fault. 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_Se-
		     tupDebugHooks() 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 importtime
		   Show how long each import takes. It shows module name,  cumu-
		   lative time (including nested imports) and self time (exclud-
		   ing	nested	imports).  Note that its output may be broken in
		   multi-threaded application. Typical usage is python3  -X  im-
		   porttime -c 'import asyncio'.

		   -X importtime=2 enables additional output that indicates when
		   an  imported  module  has already been loaded. In such cases,
		   the string cached will be printed in both time columns.

	    -X faulthandler
		   Enable faulthandler.

	    -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 gil=[0|1]
		   Enable (1) or disable (0) the GIL. See also PYTHON_GIL.  Only
		   available in builds configured with --disable-gil.

	    -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 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 perf
		   Support  the  Linux	"perf" profiler. See also PYTHONPERFSUP-
		   PORT=1.

	    -X perf_jit
		   Support the Linux "perf" profiler with  DWARF  support.   See
		   also PYTHON_PERF_JIT_SUPPORT=1.

	    -X presite=MOD
		   Import  this  module  before  site.	See also PYTHON_PRESITE.
		   This only works on debug builds.

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

	    -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 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 automati-
		   cally). See PYTHONUTF8 for more details.

	    -X warn_default_encoding
		   Enable opt-in EncodingWarning for 'encoding=None'.

     -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!

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.

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

     PYTHON_BASIC_REPL
	    If	this  variable is set to any value, the interpreter will not at-
	    tempt to load the Python-based REPL that requires curses  and  read-
	    line, and will instead use the traditional parser-based REPL.

     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.

     PYTHONCOERCECLOCALE
	    If set to the value 0, causes the main Python command line	applica-
	    tion  to skip coercing the legacy ASCII-based C and POSIX locales to
	    a more capable UTF-8 based alternative.

     PYTHON_COLORS
	    If this variable is set to 1, the interpreter will colorize  various
	    kinds of output. Setting it to 0 deactivates this behavior.

     PYTHON_CPU_COUNT
	    If	this variable is set to a positive integer, it overrides the re-
	    turn values of os.cpu_count and os.process_cpu_count.

	    See also the -X cpu_count option.

     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.

     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.

     PYTHONFAULTHANDLER
	    If this environment variable is set to a  non-empty  string,  fault-
	    handler.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.

     PYTHON_FROZEN_MODULES
	    If	this  variable is set to on or off, it determines whether or not
	    frozen modules are ignored by the import machinery.  A value  of  on
	    means they get imported and off means they are ignored.  The default
	    is	on  for  non-debug  builds  (the  normal case) and off for debug
	    builds.

	    See also the -X frozen_modules option.

     PYTHON_GIL
	    If this variable is set to 1, the global interpreter lock (GIL) will
	    be forced on. Setting it to 0 forces the GIL off. Only available  in
	    builds configured with --disable-gil.

	    This is equivalent to the -X gil option.

     PYTHON_HISTORY
	    This  environment variable can be used to set the location of a his-
	    tory file (on Unix, it is ~/.python_history by default).

     PYTHONNODEBUGRANGES
	    If this variable is set, it disables 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 inter-
	    preter displays tracebacks.

     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).

     PYTHONDEVMODE
	    If	this  environment  variable is set to a non-empty string, enable
	    Python's "development mode", introducing additional  runtime  checks
	    that are too expensive to be enabled by default.

	    This is equivalent to the -X dev option.

     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 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 disable hash randomization.

     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}.

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

     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.

	    This is equivalent to the -X int_max_str_digits=NUMBER 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'.

     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.

     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).

     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.

     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.

     PYTHON_PERF_JIT_SUPPORT
	    If	this  variable is set to a nonzero value, it enables support for
	    the Linux perf profiler so Python calls can be detected by it  using
	    DWARF information.	Setting to 0 disables.

	    See also the -X perf_jit option.

     PYTHONPERFSUPPORT
	    If	this  variable is set to a nonzero value, it enables support for
	    the Linux perf profiler so Python calls can be detected by it.  Set-
	    ting to 0 disables.

	    See also the -X perf option.

     PYTHONPLATLIBDIR
	    Override sys.platlibdir.

     PYTHONPROFILEIMPORTTIME
	    If this environment variable is set to 1, Python will show how  long
	    each  import  takes. If set to 2, Python will include output for im-
	    ported modules that have  already  been  loaded.   This  is  exactly
	    equivalent to setting -X importtime on the command line.

     PYTHONPYCACHEPREFIX
	    If	this  is set, Python will write .pyc files in a mirror directory
	    tree at this path, instead of in __pycache__ directories within  the
	    source tree.

	    This is equivalent to specifying the -X pycache_prefix=PATH option.

     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.

     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.

     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.

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

     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.

     PYTHONUTF8
	    If set to 1, enable the Python "UTF-8 Mode". Setting to 0 disables.

     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.

     PYTHONWARNDEFAULTENCODING
	    If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string,	issue  a
	    EncodingWarning when the locale-specific default encoding is used.

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

   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.

     PYTHONDUMPREFSFILE
	    If set, Python will dump objects and reference  counts  still  alive
	    after shutting down the interpreter into a file under the path given
	    as the value to this environment variable.

     PYTHON_PRESITE
	    If	this  variable	is set to a module, that module will be imported
	    early in the interpreter lifecycle, before the site module	is  exe-
	    cuted,  and  before the __main__ module is created.  This only works
	    on debug builds.

	    This is equivalent to the -X presite=module option.

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  WAR-
     RANTIES.

								       PYTHON(1)

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