From the Python Idle shell, the output from the help() command is not paged. Is there any way to achieve this?
As a workaround I've tried to use pydoc.pager() but with no success. The following works in a normal Python shell started from the terminal but not in the Python Idle shell.
import pydoc
def ihelp(thing):
'''Render text documentation, given an object or a path to an object, and
sends the resulting text to a pager.'''
pydoc.pager(pydoc.render_doc(thing))
Edit: Just to avoid misunderstandings. The ihelp() functions gets the help text both in a terminal Python shell and in the IDLE shell. Paging only works in the terminal shell.
You code works in delivering help output but not in paging it. The pager executes in the user code run process and does not know how to interact with an IDLE shell in a separate gui process. I don't believe you can change this.
To address this issue, IDLE has a new feature, starting with 3.6.7 and 3.7.1 (the release candidates are available now, the final releases will be out in a week or so). IDLE squeezes 'long' output to a button. (By default, 'long' is 50 lines, but user can modify this. Shorted output can be squeezed by right-clicking on it.)
>>> help(int)
[ Squeezed text (241 lines) ] # <== tkinter button
>>>
You can expand the text in place, with a double click, or into the clipboard or a separate non-modal view window, with a right click. A separate window lets one scroll or page up and down in the help entry while writing a statement in the Shell.
Related
I know these are questions: this and this and this. I have tried all of these methods in pycharm, but they either a) not work or b) I get a weird character on my screen, that looks like a 0 with diagonal line going through it. I can't copy it for some reason, so I can't show you.
For instance this:
import os
from time import sleep
print("lots of text")
sleep(5)
os.system('cls')
What should happen in the above is tht the message should be displayed for 5 seconds then disappear, but all I get is that weird character... In contrast when I ran my python program from command line, it worked as expected i.e. the screen cleared. I am very confused.
So my questions are:
Why don't any of them work in pycharm?
What does work in pycharm?
Ok, so, I have been having this problem as well — after scouring the internet, the os commands work BUT you need to enable the terminal emulator.
In the PyCharm toolbar, click Run, Edit Configurations, and the toggle for "Emulate Terminal in Output Console" should be under Execution in the pop up. Emulate Terminal toggle
I had to get help from the PyCharm team on this one, so here's to them responding at lightning speed.
Answer
The cls command doesn't work on a standard pycharm project because it is an IDE and certain os commands don't work in the same way it would with the windows command line.
There is currently no way to clear the console output in PyCharm, other than to manually do it by using the cls command through the terminal in PyCharm or through a keyboard shortcut set through the pycharm preferences menu. You can try to emulate a keyboard shortcut, but this would be difficult, and unless you absolutely need it, I would not recommend clearing the terminal output after a program is run.
References and Additional Links
https://teamtreehouse.com/community/clear-screen-for-pycharm-as-if-it-were-on-console-or-cmd
I don't know in which version of PyCharm this was introduced. I guess it must have been after this question was asked.
The way to clear the PyCharm Python Console is by using the context menu. Right mouse click in the upper part of the console (where the lines with >>> prompts are closer together) and select Clear All.
Alse see this PyCharm Support Community article.
Incidentally, none of the questions linked to in the OP's original post relate to PyCharm and do not answer the OP's question.
cls only temporarily clears it. Next command brings back all previous messages. The best option is to right click on the Terminal and choose Clear Buffer
How to print the entire python idle commands history to a text file. For example the list of commands I already typed
One prints the contents of a Shell window the same as an editor or output window. Select File and then Print Window and then OK. Or use the shortcut key, which on Windows, at least, is Control-P. I verified that this works on Windows with 2.7.13 and 3.6.1.
One can also save Shell content with File, Save As and then edit the result. Then print if one wants a paper copy.
https://bugs.python.org/issue11838 is about making it easier to get running code from a shell log. One problem with saving just the user input is that it loses the bug information in tracebacks.
I am using DataNitro to write Python Script in Excel. Its very useful indeed. However, when I open the Idle editor in excel, the accompanying Python Shell is not interactive, in that it does not return print statements, show errors, nothing. It just restarts every time I run the programme. This makes it incredibly hard to debug as I can't use print statements to trace the errors.
Does anyone know if this is a bug with DataNitro, or is it supposed to be that way, or whats going on? are there any solutions?
Thanks so much
Our IDLE editor is just an editor - it doesn't work as a shell.
The best way to debug programs is to raise an exception. This will freeze the shell that opens when a script is run, and you'll be able to inspect the variables and see any print statements that were generated during execution.
For example, if you run:
print Cell("A1").value
x = Cell("B1").value
raise
You'll see the value of A1 printed to the shell, and you can enter "x" at the prompt to see the value of B1.
You can also import a script you're working on into the regular Python shell (the one that opens when you press "shell"). This will execute the code in that script.
We'll be adding a guide to debugging code to the site soon, as well as some features that make it easier.
Source: I'm one of the founders of DataNitro.
Not as knowledgeable as Ben, but have been using DataNitro quite a bit and here are some tips:
The shell automatically closes once the script has run. If you want to inspect some prints or even interact with the shell I normally place following at end of my script.
raw_input("Press Enter to Exit shell")
Not very elegant, but I have even created a small loop that displays text options in the console. Can then interact with your program and sheet from there. Clever and more elegant way would be to have your script poll an excel cell and then take action form there.
Something else that you might find nice is that it also also you to run Ipython instead of the default python shell. Cannot imagine using python without Ipython... so you get benefits of tab completion Ipython debugging etc. To activate that just click the "Use Ipython" Checkbox in DataNitro Settings (don't know if this is version dependent).
IDLE is being very dodgy as to when it will actually show an Auto-complete menu. As of late it hasn't been working at all, or, more specifically, only works during an interactive session.
I've been using Code Blocks for C, and have gotten really used to the very nice auto-complete features, so it's a bit frustrating not having them -- especially while trying to learn a new frame work and what class is associated with which methods, etc, etc..
Is there an easy fix to get IDLE auto-complete working again? I'm using python version 2.7.
Is there perhaps a simple editor I should look into? I've tried Vim, which was a little too heavy for my simple needs, Ninja, which I couldn't get to work for anything, and Sublime text 2, which I couldn't get my wxpython stuff to play with. What would a nice option be? Anything similar to Code Blocks would be cool, although, I'd be perfectly happy with IDLE if it would consistently work!
REQUESTED CLARIFICATION:
OK, so it seems I may have some of my terminology backwards. By non-interactive, I mean, for instance, right clicking on a python file and selecting "edit with IDLE". This brings up what I guess could be described as a text editor. You can enter all you code here. Once ready, you then hit F5, or select Run, and it launches (what I've been referring to as) the interactive terminal. It's here that you can type in code, press return, and instantly have that code evaluated.
What my question is referring to it the former, the part of IDLE where you edit the code. Sometimes while typing, after a . it will display the available methods, or after an open parenthesis it'll give hints as to the values expected. but the thing is, sometimes it does these things, sometimes it doesn't.
The only thing i found so far is that if an editing session of IDLE is connected with python shell (called "interactive mode" in the question, i.e. after an attempt to run the edited script) then "non-interactive" IDLE can autocomplete based on values in interactive window. For example, if I type
a = [];
a.appen
and then hit < Tab > it will do nothing, but if I previously type
a = []
in corresponding python shell, IDLE will autocomplete correctly.
So my only suggestion is import same modules with same names in python shell window in order to make them "visible" for non-interactive IDLE editor.
I had the same problem with IDLE, because I want to learn Qt and therefore autocompletion is very useful.
As it says in the settings of IDLE, you can trigger the autocomplete with "Control + Space", e.g. after a "QtGui.". Then a menu opens where you can arrow-scroll through the entries.
using the 'IDLE Editor window', you need to save and execute your code first.
The application running, turn back to the Editor window to use the auto-completion.
In my case, I had to open Options menu -> Extensions tab on the editor and look to make sure AutoComplete and other relevant options were enabled. They actually were, but by just clicking on 'Apply' even though I dint have to change anything did the trick for me.
Sometimes it has to do with the time you have to wait to get a suggestions.
When you go to options > extensions > general at completions popup wait you can change it to about 500ms.
In my case it was 2000ms by default.
Can someone help me out please...I'm trying to start my first programming project. It will be implemented in python.
I need to have a textbox (which i am using wxpython for). If the user enters any text into this text box, then I want it to appear as arabic. I wanted to this by automagically changing the users Keyboard to an arabic layout when the cursor lands in the given text box.
So i found this pywin32 module, which has a function LoadKeyboardLayout()
So i am trying to test this in IDLE, to see if I can make it accept arabic text into IDLE, to see if it works. So I enter, into IDLE:
win32api.LoadKeyboardLayout('00000401',1)
This then returns, 67175425, the decimal equivalent of hex:'4010401' whcih I believe is the locale ID for Arabic. SO I think wow! I've done it, but when I try typing after this, in the IDLE window, it continues to type normal english characters.
Can someone please explain my errors and guide me towards a good solution.
UPDATE
Okay, I've been trying to solve this problem ever since posting the damn question.
No luck.
Then, I thought, "ok, screw it, instead of testing it quicly in IDLE, I will just try it out, in situ, in my source code for the project."
WTF - it worked first time, giving exact behaviour that I wanted.
Then I tried it in a different IDE, in the interpreted window, and again, IT WORKED straight away!
So clearly my issue is with IDLE, in its interpreting mode.
Can anyone explain why it doesn't work in the IDLE shell???
Keyboard layout setting in Windows is per-process (and inherited from the parent process)
IDLE runs your Python script in a background process separate from its GUI
So you have successfully changed the keyboard layout of the background Python process that is running your script, but not of IDLE's GUI.