# python3(1) - man - phpman > **TLDR:** This command is an alias of `python`. > - View documentation for the original command: `tldr python` *Source: tldr-pages* --- [PYTHON(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/PYTHON/1/markdown) General Commands Manual [PYTHON(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/PYTHON/1/markdown) ## NAME python - an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language ## SYNOPSIS **python** [ **-B** ] [ **-b** ] [ **-d** ] [ **-E** ] [ **-h** ] [ **-i** ] [ **-I** ] [ **-m** _module-name_ ] [ **-q** ] [ **-O** ] [ **-OO** ] [ **-s** ] [ **-S** ] [ **-u** ] [ **-v** ] [ **-V** ] [ **-W** _argument_ ] [ **-x** ] [ **-X** _option_ ] [ **-?** ] [ **--check-hash-based-pycs** _default_ | _always_ | _never_ ] [ **-c** _command_ | _script_ | - ] [ _arguments_ ] ## DESCRIPTION Python is an interpreted, interactive, object-oriented programming language that combines re‐ markable 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, con‐ stants, 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 **INTERNET** **RESOURCES** below; they may be installed on your system as well.) Python's basic power can be extended with your own modules written in C or C++. On most sys‐ tems such modules may be dynamically loaded. Python is also adaptable as an extension lan‐ guage for existing applications. See the internal documentation for hints. Documentation for installed Python modules and packages can be viewed by running the **pydoc** program. ## COMMAND LINE OPTIONS ### -B ### -b bytes/bytearray with str. (-bb: issue errors) ### -c Specify the command to execute (see next section). This terminates the option list (following options are passed as arguments to the command). **--check-hash-based-pycs** _mode_ Configure how Python evaluates the up-to-dateness of hash-based .pyc files. ### -d ### -E of the interpreter. ### -h , -? , --help Prints the usage for the interpreter executable and exits. ### -i -c 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. ### -I -E -s 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. ### -m Searches _sys.path_ for the named module and runs the corresponding _.py_ file as a script. This terminates the option list (following options are passed as arguments to the module). ### -O the filename for compiled (bytecode) files by adding .opt-1 before the .pyc extension. ### -OO -O by adding .opt-2 before the .pyc extension. ### -q non-interactive mode. ### -s ### -S that it entails. Also disable these manipulations if _site_ is explicitly imported later. ### -u the stdin stream. ### -v 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. ### -V , --version Prints the Python version number of the executable and exits. When given twice, print more information about the build. ### -W Warning control. Python's warning machinery by default prints warning messages to _sys.stderr_. The simplest settings apply a particular action unconditionally to all warnings emit‐ ted 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 -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, **-Wi** is the same as **-Wignore** **.** The full form of argument is: _action:message:category:module:lineno_ Empty fields match all values; trailing empty fields may be omitted. For example **-W** [**ignore::DeprecationWarning**](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/perldoc/ignore%3A%3ADeprecationWarning/markdown) ignores all DeprecationWarning warnings. The _action_ field is as explained above but only applies to warnings that match the re‐ maining fields. The _message_ field must match the whole printed warning message; this match is case-in‐ sensitive. The _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 _module_ field matches the (fully-qualified) module name; this match is case-sensi‐ tive. The _lineno_ field matches the line number, where zero matches all line numbers and is thus equivalent to an omitted line number. Multiple **-W** options can be given; when a warning matches more than one option, the ac‐ tion for the last matching option is performed. Invalid **-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 **PYTHONWARNINGS** environment variable and from within a Python program using the warnings module. For example, the warnings.filter‐ warnings() function can be used to use a regular expression on the warning message. ### -X Set implementation specific option. The following options are available: -X faulthandler: enable faulthandler -X showrefcount: 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 -X tracemalloc: 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 -X tracemalloc=NFRAME to start tracing with a traceback limit of NFRAME frames -X importtime: 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 python3 -X importtime -c 'import asyncio' -X dev: 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: * Add default warning filter, as -W default * Install debug hooks on memory allocators: see the PyMem_SetupDebugHooks() C function * Enable the faulthandler module to dump the Python traceback on a crash * Enable asyncio debug mode * Set the dev_mode attribute of sys.flags to True * io.IOBase destructor logs close() exceptions -X utf8: enable UTF-8 mode for operating system interfaces, overriding the default locale-aware mode. -X utf8=0 explicitly disables UTF-8 mode (even when it would otherwise activate automatically). See PYTHONUTF8 for more details -X pycache_prefix=PATH: enable writing .pyc files to a parallel tree rooted at the given directory instead of to the code tree. -X warn_default_encoding: enable opt-in EncodingWarning for 'encoding=None' -X int_max_str_digits=number: 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. ### -x Warning: the line numbers in error messages will be off by one! ## 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 _script_ from that file; when called with **-c** _command_, it executes the Python statement(s) given as _command_. Here _command_ may contain multiple statements separated by newlines. Lead‐ ing whitespace is significant in Python statements! In non-interactive mode, the entire in‐ put is parsed before it is executed. If available, the script name and additional arguments thereafter are passed to the script in the Python variable _sys.argv_, which is a list of strings (you must first _import_ _sys_ to be able to access it). If no script name is given, _sys.argv[0]_ is an empty string; if **-c** is used, _sys.argv[0]_ contains the string _'-c'._ Note that options interpreted by the Python in‐ terpreter itself are not placed in _sys.argv_. 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 _sys.ps1_ or _sys.ps2_. The interpreter quits when it reads an EOF at a prompt. When an unhandled excep‐ tion occurs, a stack trace is printed and control returns to the primary prompt; in non-in‐ teractive mode, the interpreter exits after printing the stack trace. The interrupt signal raises the _KeyboardInterrupt_ exception; other UNIX signals are not caught (except that SIG‐ PIPE is sometimes ignored, in favor of the _IOError_ exception). Error messages are written to stderr. ## FILES AND DIRECTORIES These are subject to difference depending on local installation conventions; ${prefix} and ${exec_prefix} are installation-dependent and should be interpreted as for GNU software; they may be the same. On Debian GNU/{Hurd,Linux} the default for both is _/usr_. _${exec_prefix}/bin/python_ Recommended location of the interpreter. _${prefix}/lib/python_ _${exec_prefix}/lib/python_ Recommended locations of the directories containing the standard modules. _${prefix}/include/python_ _${exec_prefix}/include/python_ Recommended locations of the directories containing the include files needed for de‐ veloping Python extensions and embedding the interpreter. ## ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES PYTHONHOME Change the location of the standard Python libraries. By default, the libraries are searched in ${prefix}/lib/python and ${exec_prefix}/lib/python, where ${prefix} and ${exec_prefix} are installation-dependent directories, both de‐ faulting to _/usr/local_. When $PYTHONHOME is set to a single directory, its value re‐ places both ${prefix} and ${exec_prefix}. To specify different values for these, set $PYTHONHOME to ${prefix}:${exec_prefix}. 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 di‐ rectories are silently ignored. The default search path is installation dependent, but generally begins with ${prefix}/lib/python (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 _sys.path_. PYTHONPLATLIBDIR Override sys.platlibdir. 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 im‐ ported in it can be used without qualification in the interactive session. You can also change the prompts _sys.ps1_ and _sys.ps2_ in this file. PYTHONOPTIMIZE If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying the **-O** option. If set to an integer, it is equivalent to specifying **-O** multiple times. PYTHONDEBUG If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying the **-d** option. If set to an integer, it is equivalent to specifying **-d** multiple times. PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying the **-B** option (don't try to write _.pyc_ files). PYTHONINSPECT If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying the **-i** option. PYTHONIOENCODING If this is set before running the interpreter, it overrides the encoding used for stdin/stdout/stderr, in the syntax _encodingname_**:**_errorhandler_ The _errorhandler_ part is optional and has the same meaning as in str.encode. For stderr, the _errorhandler_ part is ignored; the handler will always be ´backslashreplace´. PYTHONNOUSERSITE If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying the **-s** option (Don't add the user site directory to sys.path). PYTHONUNBUFFERED If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying the **-u** option. PYTHONVERBOSE If this is set to a non-empty string it is equivalent to specifying the **-v** option. If set to an integer, it is equivalent to specifying **-v** multiple times. PYTHONWARNINGS If this is set to a comma-separated string it is equivalent to specifying the **-W** op‐ tion for each separate value. 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 generat‐ ing the hash() of the types covered by the hash randomization. Its purpose is to al‐ low 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. 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. PYTHONMALLOC Set the Python memory allocators and/or install debug hooks. The available memory al‐ locators are _malloc_ and _pymalloc_. The available debug hooks are _debug_, _malloc_debug_, and _pymalloc_debug_. When Python is compiled in debug mode, the default is _pymalloc_debug_ and the debug hooks are automatically used. Otherwise, the default is _pymalloc_. PYTHONMALLOCSTATS If set to a non-empty string, Python will print statistics of the pymalloc memory al‐ locator every time a new pymalloc object arena is created, and on shutdown. This variable is ignored if the $**PYTHONMALLOC** environment variable is used to force the [**malloc**(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/malloc/3/markdown) allocator of the C library, or if Python is configured without pymalloc support. PYTHONASYNCIODEBUG If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string, enable the debug mode of the asyncio module. PYTHONTRACEMALLOC If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string, start tracing Python memory allocations using the tracemalloc module. The value of the variable is the maximum number of frames stored in a traceback of a trace. For example, _PYTHONTRACEMALLOC=1_ stores only the most recent frame. PYTHONFAULTHANDLER If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string, _faulthandler.enable()_ is called at startup: install a handler for SIGSEGV, SIGFPE, SIGABRT, SIGBUS and SIGILL signals to dump the Python traceback. This is equivalent to the **-X** **faulthandler** option. PYTHONEXECUTABLE If this environment variable is set, _sys.argv[0]_ will be set to its value instead of the value got through the C runtime. Only works on Mac OS X. PYTHONUSERBASE Defines the user base directory, which is used to compute the path of the user _site-_ _packages_ directory and Distutils installation paths for _python_ _setup.py_ _install_ _--user_. PYTHONPROFILEIMPORTTIME If this environment variable is set to a non-empty string, Python will show how long each import takes. This is exactly equivalent to setting **-X** **importtime** on the command line. 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. ### Debug-mode variables Setting these variables only has an effect in a debug build of Python, that is, if Python was configured with the **--with-pydebug** build option. PYTHONTHREADDEBUG If this environment variable is set, Python will print threading debug info. The fea‐ ture is deprecated in Python 3.10 and will be removed in Python 3.12. PYTHONDUMPREFS If this environment variable is set, Python will dump objects and reference counts still alive after shutting down the interpreter. ## AUTHOR The Python Software Foundation: ## INTERNET RESOURCES Main website: Documentation: Developer resources: Downloads: Module repository: Newsgroups: comp.lang.python, comp.lang.python.announce ## 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. [PYTHON(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/PYTHON/1/markdown)