.TH PYTHON "1"

.\" To view this file while editing, run it through groff:

.\" groff -Tascii -man python.man | less

.SH NAME

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

.SH SYNOPSIS

.B python

[

.B \-B

]

[

.B \-b

]

[

.B \-d

]

[

.B \-E

]

[

.B \-h

]

[

.B \-i

]

[

.B \-I

]

.br

[

.B \-m

.I module-name

]

[

.B \-q

]

[

.B \-R

]

[

.B \-O

]

[

.B \-OO

]

[

.B \-P

]

[

.B \-s

]

[

.B \-S

]

[

.B \-u

]

.br

[

.B \-v

]

[

.B \-V

]

[

.B \-W

.I argument

]

[

.B \-x

]

[

.B \-X

.I option

]

[

.B \-?

]

.br

[

.B \-\-check-hash-based-pycs

.I default

|

.I always

|

.I never

]

.br

[

.B \-\-help

]

[

.B \-\-help\-env

]

[

.B \-\-help\-xoptions

]

[

.B \-\-help\-all

]

.br

[

.B \-c

.I command

|

.I script

|

\-

]

[

.I arguments

]

.SH 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

.B "INTERNET RESOURCES"

below; they may be installed on your system as well.)

.PP

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.

.PP

Documentation for installed Python modules and packages can be

viewed by running the

.B pydoc

program.

.SH COMMAND LINE OPTIONS

.TP

.B \-B

Don't write

.I .pyc

files on import. See also PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE.

.TP

.B \-b

Issue warnings about str(bytes_instance), str(bytearray_instance)

and comparing bytes/bytearray with str. (\-bb: issue errors)

.TP

.BI "\-c " command

Specify the command to execute (see next section).

This terminates the option list (following options are passed as

arguments to the command).

.TP

.BI "\-\-check\-hash\-based\-pycs " mode

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

.TP

.B \-d

Turn on parser debugging output (for expert only, depending on

compilation options).

.TP

.B \-E

Ignore environment variables like PYTHONPATH and PYTHONHOME that modify

the behavior of the interpreter.

.TP

.B \-h ", " \-? ", "\-\-help

Prints the usage for the interpreter executable and exits.

.TP

.B "\-\-help\-env"

Prints help about Python-specific environment variables and exits.

.TP

.B "\-\-help\-xoptions"

Prints help about implementation-specific \fB\-X\fP options and exits.

.TP

.TP

.B "\-\-help\-all"

Prints complete usage information and exits.

.TP

.B \-i

When a script is passed as first argument or the \fB\-c\fP 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.

.TP

.B \-I

Run Python in isolated mode. This also implies \fB\-E\fP, \fB\-P\fP and \fB\-s\fP. 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.

.TP

.BI "\-m " module-name

Searches

.I sys.path

for the named module and runs the corresponding

.I .py

file as a script. This terminates the option list (following options

are passed as arguments to the module).

.TP

.B \-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.

.TP

.B \-OO

Do \fB\-O\fP and also discard docstrings; change the filename for

compiled (bytecode) files by adding .opt-2 before the .pyc extension.

.TP

.B \-P

Don't automatically prepend a potentially unsafe path to \fBsys.path\fP such

as the current directory, the script's directory or an empty string. See also the

\fBPYTHONSAFEPATH\fP environment variable.

.TP

.B \-q

Do not print the version and copyright messages. These messages are

also suppressed in non-interactive mode.

.TP

.B \-R

Turn on hash randomization. This option only has an effect if the

\fBPYTHONHASHSEED\fR environment variable is set to \fB0\fR, since hash

randomization is enabled by default.

.TP

.B \-s

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

.TP

.B \-S

Disable the import of the module

.I site

and the site-dependent manipulations of

.I sys.path

that it entails. Also disable these manipulations if

.I site

is explicitly imported later.

.TP

.B \-u

Force the stdout and stderr streams to be unbuffered.

This option has no effect on the stdin stream.

.TP

.B \-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.

.TP

.B \-V ", " \-\-version

Prints the Python version number of the executable and exits. When given

twice, print more information about the build.

.TP

.BI "\-W " argument

Warning control. Python's warning machinery by default prints warning messages

to

.IR 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,

.B \-Wi

is the same as

.B \-Wignore .

The full form of argument is:

.IB action:message:category:module:lineno

Empty fields match all values; trailing empty fields may be omitted. For

example

.B \-W ignore::DeprecationWarning

ignores all DeprecationWarning warnings.

The

.I action

field is as explained above but only applies to warnings that match

the remaining fields.

The

.I message

field must match the whole printed warning message; this match is

case-insensitive.

The

.I 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

.I module

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

The

.I lineno

field matches the line number, where zero matches all line numbers and is thus

equivalent to an omitted line number.

Multiple

.B \-W

options can be given; when a warning matches more than one option, the action

for the last matching option is performed. Invalid

.B \-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

.B 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.

.TP

.BI "\-X " option

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

.RS

.TP

\fB\-X cpu_count=\fIN\fR

Override the return value of \fIos.cpu_count()\fR.

\fB\-X cpu_count=default\fR cancels overriding.

See also \fBPYTHON_CPU_COUNT\fR.

.TP

\fB\-X dev\fR

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:

.RS

.IP \(bu 2

Add default warning filter, as \fB\-W default\fR.

.IP \(bu 2

Install debug hooks on memory allocators: see the

PyMem_SetupDebugHooks() C function.

.IP \(bu 2

Enable the faulthandler module to dump the Python traceback on a crash.

.IP \(bu 2

Enable asyncio debug mode.

.IP \(bu 2

Set the dev_mode attribute of sys.flags to True.

.IP \(bu 2

io.IOBase destructor logs close() exceptions.

.RE

.TP

\fB\-X importtime\fR

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

\fBpython3 \-X importtime \-c 'import asyncio'\fR.

.IP

\fB\-X importtime=2\fR enables additional output that indicates when an

imported module has already been loaded. In such cases, the string

\fBcached\fR will be printed in both time columns.

.TP

\fB\-X faulthandler\fR

Enable faulthandler.

.TP

\fB\-X frozen_modules=\fR[\fBon\fR|\fBoff\fR]

Whether or not frozen modules should be used.

The default is "on" (or "off" if you are running a local build).

.TP

\fB\-X gil=\fR[\fB0\fR|\fB1\fR]

Enable (1) or disable (0) the GIL. See also \fBPYTHON_GIL\fR.

Only available in builds configured with \fB\-\-disable\-gil\fR.

.TP

\fB\-X int_max_str_digits=\fInumber\fR

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.

.TP

\fB\-X no_debug_ranges\fR

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.

.TP

\fB\-X perf\fR

Support the Linux "perf" profiler. See also \fBPYTHONPERFSUPPORT=1\fR.

.TP

\fB\-X perf_jit\fR

Support the Linux "perf" profiler with DWARF support.

See also \fBPYTHON_PERF_JIT_SUPPORT=1\fR.

.TP

\fB\-X presite=\fIMOD\fR

Import this module before site. See also \fBPYTHON_PRESITE\fR.

This only works on debug builds.

.TP

\fB\-X pycache_prefix=\fIPATH\fR

Enable writing .pyc files to a parallel

tree rooted at the given directory instead of to the code tree.

.TP

\fB\-X showrefcount\fR

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.

.TP

\fB\-X tracemalloc\fR

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 \fB\-X tracemalloc=\fINFRAME\fR to start tracing with a

traceback limit of NFRAME frames.

.TP

\fB\-X utf8\fR

Enable UTF-8 mode for operating system interfaces,

overriding the default locale-aware mode. \fB\-X utf8=0\fR explicitly

disables UTF-8 mode (even when it would otherwise activate

automatically). See \fBPYTHONUTF8\fR for more details.

.TP

\fB\-X warn_default_encoding\fR

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

.RE

.TP

.B \-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!

.SH 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

.I script

from that file;

when called with

.B \-c

.IR command ,

it executes the Python statement(s) given as

.IR command .

Here

.I 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.

.PP

If available, the script name and additional arguments thereafter are

passed to the script in the Python variable

.IR sys.argv ,

which is a list of strings (you must first

.I import sys

to be able to access it).

If no script name is given,

.I sys.argv[0]

is an empty string; if

.B \-c

is used,

.I sys.argv[0]

contains the string

.I '\-c'.

Note that options interpreted by the Python interpreter itself

are not placed in

.IR sys.argv .

.PP

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

.I sys.ps1

or

.IR 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

.I Keyboard\%Interrupt

exception; other UNIX signals are not caught (except that SIGPIPE is

sometimes ignored, in favor of the

.I IOError

exception). Error messages are written to stderr.

.SH 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 \fI/usr/local\fP.

.IP \fI${exec_prefix}/bin/python\fP

Recommended location of the interpreter.

.PP

.I ${prefix}/lib/python<version>

.br

.I ${exec_prefix}/lib/python<version>

.RS

Recommended locations of the directories containing the standard

modules.

.RE

.PP

.I ${prefix}/include/python<version>

.br

.I ${exec_prefix}/include/python<version>

.RS

Recommended locations of the directories containing the include files

needed for developing Python extensions and embedding the

interpreter.

.RE

.SH ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

.IP PYTHONASYNCIODEBUG

If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string, enable the debug

mode of the asyncio module.

.IP PYTHON_BASIC_REPL

If this variable is set to any value, the interpreter will not attempt to

load the Python-based REPL that requires curses and readline, and will instead

use the traditional parser-based REPL.

.IP 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.

.IP PYTHONCOERCECLOCALE

If set to the value 0, causes the main Python command line application to skip

coercing the legacy ASCII-based C and POSIX locales to a more capable UTF-8

based alternative.

.IP PYTHON_COLORS

If this variable is set to 1, the interpreter will colorize various kinds of

output. Setting it to 0 deactivates this behavior.

.IP PYTHON_CPU_COUNT

If this variable is set to a positive integer, it overrides the return

values of \fIos.cpu_count\fR and \fIos.process_cpu_count\fR.

.IP

See also the \fB\-X cpu_count\fR option.

.IP PYTHONDEBUG

If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying

the \fB\-d\fP option. If set to an integer, it is equivalent to

specifying \fB\-d\fP multiple times.

.IP PYTHONEXECUTABLE

If this environment variable is set,

.IB sys.argv[0]

will be set to its value instead of the value got through the C runtime. Only

works on Mac OS X.

.IP PYTHONFAULTHANDLER

If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string,

.IR faulthandler.enable()

is called at startup: install a handler for SIGSEGV, SIGFPE, SIGABRT, SIGBUS

and SIGILL signals to dump the Python traceback.

.IP

This is equivalent to the \fB\-X faulthandler\fP option.

.IP PYTHON_FROZEN_MODULES

If this variable is set to \fBon\fR or \fBoff\fR, it determines whether or not

frozen modules are ignored by the import machinery. A value of \fBon\fR means

they get imported and \fBoff\fR means they are ignored. The default is \fBon\fR

for non-debug builds (the normal case) and \fBoff\fR for debug builds.

.IP

See also the \fB\-X frozen_modules\fR option.

.IP 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 \fB\-\-disable\-gil\fP.

.IP

This is equivalent to the \fB\-X gil\fR option.

.IP PYTHON_HISTORY

This environment variable can be used to set the location of a history file

(on Unix, it is \fI~/.python_history\fP by default).

.IP 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 interpreter displays tracebacks.

.IP PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE

If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying

the \fB\-B\fP option (don't try to write

.I .pyc

files).

.IP 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.

.IP

This is equivalent to the \fB\-X dev\fR option.

.IP 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.

.IP 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

\fI/usr/local\fP. 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}.

.IP PYTHONINSPECT

If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying

the \fB\-i\fP option.

.IP 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.

.IP

This is equivalent to the \fB\-X int_max_str_digits=\fINUMBER\fR option.

.IP PYTHONIOENCODING

If this is set before running the interpreter, it overrides the encoding used

for stdin/stdout/stderr, in the syntax

.IB encodingname ":" errorhandler

The

.IB errorhandler

part is optional and has the same meaning as in str.encode. For stderr, the

.IB errorhandler

part is ignored; the handler will always be \'backslashreplace\'.

.IP PYTHONMALLOC

Set the Python memory allocators and/or install debug hooks. The available

memory allocators are

.IR malloc

and

.IR pymalloc .

The available debug hooks are

.IR debug ,

.IR malloc_debug ,

and

.IR pymalloc_debug .

.IP

When Python is compiled in debug mode, the default is

.IR pymalloc_debug

and the debug hooks are automatically used. Otherwise, the default is

.IR pymalloc .

.IP 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.

.IP

This variable is ignored if the

.RB $ PYTHONMALLOC

environment variable is used to force the

.BR malloc (3)

allocator of the C library, or if Python is configured without pymalloc support.

.IP PYTHONNOUSERSITE

If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying the

\fB\-s\fP option (Don't add the user site directory to sys.path).

.IP PYTHONOPTIMIZE

If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying

the \fB\-O\fP option. If set to an integer, it is equivalent to

specifying \fB\-O\fP multiple times.

.IP 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

.IR sys.path .

.IP 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.

.IP

See also the \fB\-X perf_jit\fR option.

.IP 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.

Setting to 0 disables.

.IP

See also the \fB\-X perf\fR option.

.IP PYTHONPLATLIBDIR

Override sys.platlibdir.

.IP PYTHONPROFILEIMPORTTIME

If this environment variable is set to \fB1\fR, Python will show

how long each import takes. If set to \fB2\fR, Python will include output for

imported modules that have already been loaded.

This is exactly equivalent to setting \fB\-X importtime\fP on the command line.

.IP PYTHONPYCACHEPREFIX

If this is set, Python will write \fB.pyc\fR files in a mirror directory tree

at this path, instead of in \fB__pycache__\fR directories within the source

tree.

.IP

This is equivalent to specifying the \fB\-X pycache_prefix=\fIPATH\fR option.

.IP PYTHONSAFEPATH

If this is set to a non-empty string, don't automatically prepend a potentially

unsafe path to \fBsys.path\fP such as the current directory, the script's

directory or an empty string. See also the \fB\-P\fP option.

.IP 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

.I sys.ps1

and

.I sys.ps2

in this file.

.IP PYTHONTRACEMALLOC

If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string, start tracing

Python memory allocations using the tracemalloc module.

.IP

The value of the variable is the maximum number of frames stored in a

traceback of a trace. For example,

.IB PYTHONTRACEMALLOC=1

stores only the most recent frame.

.IP PYTHONUNBUFFERED

If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying

the \fB\-u\fP option.

.IP PYTHONUSERBASE

Defines the user base directory, which is used to compute the path of the user

.IR site\-packages

directory and installation paths for

.IR "python \-m pip install \-\-user" .

.IP PYTHONUTF8

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

.IP PYTHONVERBOSE

If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying

the \fB\-v\fP option. If set to an integer, it is equivalent to

specifying \fB\-v\fP multiple times.

.IP PYTHONWARNDEFAULTENCODING

If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string, issue a

\fIEncodingWarning\fR when the locale-specific default encoding is used.

.IP PYTHONWARNINGS

If this is set to a comma-separated string it is equivalent to

specifying the \fB\-W\fP option for each separate value.

.SS Debug-mode variables

Setting these variables only has an effect in a debug build of Python, that is,

if Python was configured with the

\fB\-\-with\-pydebug\fP build option.

.IP PYTHONDUMPREFS

If this environment variable is set, Python will dump objects and reference

counts still alive after shutting down the interpreter.

.IP 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.

.IP PYTHON_PRESITE

If this variable is set to a module, that module will be imported

early in the interpreter lifecycle, before the \fIsite\fR module is

executed, and before the \fI__main__\fR module is created.

This only works on debug builds.

.IP

This is equivalent to the \fB\-X presite=\fImodule\fR option.

.SH AUTHOR

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

.SH INTERNET RESOURCES

Main website: https://www.python.org/

.br

Documentation: https://docs.python.org/

.br

Developer resources: https://devguide.python.org/

.br

Downloads: https://www.python.org/downloads/

.br

Module repository: https://pypi.org/

.br

Newsgroups: comp.lang.python, comp.lang.python.announce

.SH 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.