Comments on: Python, Mac OS X, and Readline.

By: JamieC

JamieC — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 13:10:44 +0000

Thankyou, following the readme worked like a charm on my macbook pro with Python 2.4.3.

By: The Infotainment Telesector / Archive / Alas and Alack

The Infotainment Telesector / Archive / Alas and Alack — Sun, 01 Jul 2007 18:25:07 +0000

[...] Bumgarner on fixing readline support in Mac Python. I’ve never run into this as I use the fine packages over at pythonmac.org; a lot of my code [...]

By: Nicko

Nicko — Wed, 31 May 2006 17:17:48 +0000

Thank you for that. I just got a Intel iMac and realised that I was going to have to finally update my Python readline implementation from way-back. Now I don’t need to! Thank you BBum!

By: tyler

tyler — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 06:14:48 +0000

Thanks for this tip on getting history for the command line python. not having this was driving me bonkers!

By: bbum’s weblog-o-mat » Blog Archive » AppleScript for the rest of us

Fri, 24 Mar 2006 06:31:57 +0000

[...] Furthermore, I can use appscript from within the command line interpreter (read this first to make sure the command line python interpreter is actually useful). [...]

By: Paul Veerasingam

Paul Veerasingam — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 18:41:55 +0000

Thanks for introducing me to doctest! Finally, an easy way to write simple unit tests without resorting to the unittest module.

You’re right, IPython’s output doesn’t look like the output from a standard Python interpreter, so it is incompatible with doctest docstrings. But it’s so convenient for getting the lowdown on modules/classes etc.

Instead of ‘dir(objname)’, you can just type ‘objname.’ and you get a list of methods. To find out how to use a method, all you have to do is type ‘objname.method?’ and the object dictionary, method signature, and docstring pops out. The exception messages in IPython are also more descriptive than in the standard Python interpreter.

But you’re right. The Python interpreter comes standard with every Python installation and it’s easy to use. Guido himself prefers the standard interpreter to IPython.
http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=guido+van+rossum

By: Tim

Tim — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 18:12:06 +0000

What about libedit, the NetBSD readline replacement that ships with Darwin? Can Python be built to use it?

By: Donovan Preston

Donovan Preston — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 17:51:33 +0000

easy_install readline
easy_install ipython

By: Cameron Hayne

Cameron Hayne — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 05:42:49 +0000

After the “hugely annoying” in the intro, when you wrote: “Would be easier if I didn’t also want to sue the latest libreadline”, I actually thought you were talking about legal action.
Then I realized it was just a typo.

By: bbum

bbum — Tue, 07 Mar 2006 05:38:51 +0000

iPython is pretty amazing, but it is also considerably more complex than and adds a lot of verbosity over the standard python command line. I seem to end up switching back and forth between the two (when I remember to use ipython).

Unless I’m mistaken, you can’t use iPython to generate doctest compatible tests. doctest is just too cool; go to the interactive prompt, interact with your objects, save the transcript somewhere, remove any garbage, and feed it all through doctest to ensure that the test behaves the same in the future….