CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonshellinterpreter
ashchristopher
ashchristopher

Reputation: 26281

How do I add tab completion to the Python shell?

When starting a django application using python manage.py shell, I get an InteractiveConsole shell - I can use tab completion, etc.

Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Apr 15 2008, 22:57:26) 
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5465)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
(InteractiveConsole)

When just starting a python interpreter using python, it doesn't offer tab completion.

Can someone tell me what django is doing to give me an interactive console, or what I need to do to start an interactive console without a django app?

Upvotes: 145

Views: 107805

Answers (8)

Mr.B
Mr.B

Reputation: 91

Fix for Windows 10 shell:

pip install pyreadline3  # previously, pyreadline but that package was abandoned
pip install ipython

Upvotes: 9

Ruwinda Fernando
Ruwinda Fernando

Reputation: 1

Yes. It's built in to 3.6.

fernanr@gnuruwi ~ $ python3.6
Python 3.6.3 (default, Apr 10 2019, 14:37:36)
[GCC 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-16)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> os.
Display all 318 possibilities? (y or n)
os.CLD_CONTINUED             os.O_RDONLY                  os.ST_NOEXEC                 os.environ                   os.getpid(                   os.readlink(                 os.spawnvpe(
os.CLD_DUMPED                os.O_RDWR                    os.ST_NOSUID                 os.environb                  os.getppid(                  os.readv(                    os.st

Upvotes: 0

alan_wang
alan_wang

Reputation: 855

I use ptpython - it is a wonderful tool autocomplete shell cmd.

Installing ptpython is very easy, use pip tool

pip install ptpython

and for django shell, you should import the django env, like this

import os

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "testweb.settings")

Trust me, this is the best way for you!!!

Upvotes: 17

Ruwinda Fernando
Ruwinda Fernando

Reputation: 1

For older versions (2.x) above script works like charm :)

fernanr@crsatx4 ~ $ cat .bashrc | grep -i python
#Tab completion for python shell
export PYTHONSTARTUP=~/.pythonrc
fernanr@crsatx4 ~ $ . ~/.bashrc
fernanr@crsatx4 ~ $ echo $?
0
fernanr@crsatx4 ~ $ python2
Python 2.7.5 (default, Jun 11 2019, 14:33:56)
[GCC 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-39)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> os.
Display all 249 possibilities? (y or n)
os.EX_CANTCREAT             os.O_WRONLY

Upvotes: -2

Peter Hoffmann
Peter Hoffmann

Reputation: 58744

I think django does something like https://docs.python.org/library/rlcompleter.html

If you want to have a really good interactive interpreter have a look at IPython.

Upvotes: 35

TrigonaMinima
TrigonaMinima

Reputation: 1978

In Python3 this feature is enabled by default. My system didn't have the module readline installed. I am on Manjaro. I didn't face this tab completion issue on other linux distributions (elementary, ubuntu, mint).

After pip installing the module, while importing, it was throwing the following error-

ImportError: libncursesw.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

To solve this, I ran-

cd /usr/lib ln -s libncursesw.so libncursesw.so.5

This resolved the import error. And, it also brought the tab completion in the python repl without any creation/changes of .pythonrc and .bashrc.

Upvotes: 1

ashchristopher
ashchristopher

Reputation: 26281

I may have found a way to do it.

Create a file .pythonrc

# ~/.pythonrc
# enable syntax completion
try:
    import readline
except ImportError:
    print("Module readline not available.")
else:
    import rlcompleter
    readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")

then in your .bashrc file, add

export PYTHONSTARTUP=~/.pythonrc

That seems to work.

Upvotes: 238

Thomas Wouters
Thomas Wouters

Reputation: 133513

For the record, this is covered in the tutorial: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/interactive.html

Upvotes: 24

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