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Kenneth Reitz
113 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
113 lines
4.1 KiB
Plaintext
bpython - A fancy curses interface to the Python interactive interpreter
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=======
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Dependencies
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============
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Pygments
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pyparsing
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(apt-get install python-pyparsing python-pygments)
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Introduction
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============
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A few people asked for stuff like syntax highlighting
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and autocomplete for the Python interactive interpreter.
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IPython seems to offer this (plus you can get readline
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behaviour in the vanilla interpreter) but I tried
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IPython a couple of times. Perhaps I didn't really get
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it, but I get the feeling that the ideas behind IPython
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are pretty different to bpython. I didn't want to create
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a whole development environment; I simply wanted to
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provide a couple of neat features that already exist
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and turn them into something a little more interactive.
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The idea is to provide the user with all the features
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in-line, much like modern IDEs, but in a simple,
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lightweight package that can be run in a terminal
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window, so curses seemed like the best choice.
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Sorry if you use Windows.
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bpython doesn't attempt to create anything new or
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groundbreaking, it simply brings together a few neat
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ideas and focuses on practicality and usefulness.
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For this reason, the "Rewind" function should be
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taken with a pinch of salt, but personally I have
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found it to be very useful. I use bpython now
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whenever I would normally use the vanilla interpreter,
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e.g. for testing out solutions to people's problems
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on IRC, quickly testing a method of doing something
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without creating a temporary file, etc..
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I hope you find it useful and please feel free to
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submit any bugs/patches (yeah right)/suggestions
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to:
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robertanthonyfarrell@gmail.com
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Features
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========
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* In-line syntax highlighting.
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This uses Pygments for lexing the code as you type,
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and colours appropriately. Pygments does a great job
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of doing all of the tricky stuff and really leaving
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me with very little to do except format the tokens
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in all my favourite colours.
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* Readline-like autocomplete with suggestions displayed
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as you type.
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Thanks to Python's readline interface to libreadline
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and a ready-made class for using a Python interpreter's
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scope as the dataset, the only work here was displaying
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the readline matches as you type in a separate curses
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window below/above the cursor.
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* Expected parameter list.
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As in a lot of modern IDEs, bpython will attempt to
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display a list of parameters for any function you
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call. The inspect module is tried first, which works
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with any Python function, and then pydoc if that fails,
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which seems to be pretty adequate, but obviously
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in some cases it's simply not possible. I used pyparsing
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to cure my nested parentheses woes; again, it was
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nice and easy.
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* Rewind.
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I didn't call this "Undo" because I thought that would
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be misleading, but "Rewind" is probably as bad. The
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idea is that the code entered is kept in memory and
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when the Rewind function is called, the last line is
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popped and the entire code is re-evaluated. As you can
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imagine, this has a lot of potential problems, but for
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defining classes and functions, I've found it to be
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nothing but useful.
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* Pastebin code/write to file.
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I don't really use the save thing much, but the pastebin
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thing's great. Hit a key and what you see on the screen
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will be sent to a pastebin and a URL is returned for you
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to do what you like with. I've hardcoded rafb.net/paste
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in for now, that needs to be fixed so it's configurable.
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Next release, I promise. Support for gist.github.com
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was just added. Just add use_gist to your ~/.bpythorc
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file, and you'll be pasting strait to Gists instead.
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* Flush curses screen to stdout.
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A featurette, perhaps, but I thought it was worth noting.
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I can't personally recall a curses app that does this,
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perhaps it's often not useful, but when you quit bpython,
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the screen data will be flushed to stdout, so it basically
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looks the same as if you had quit the vanilla interpreter.
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Configuration
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=============
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See the sample-rc file for a list of available options.
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You should save your rc file as ~/.bpythonrc or specify
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at the command line:
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bpython /path/to/bpythonrc
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Known Bugs
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==========
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* Triple quoted strings over multiple lines work, but they're
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not highlighted properly.
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