Python Language The Interpreter (Command Line Console) Command line arguments

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Example

Python has a variety of command-line switches which can be passed to py. These can be found by performing py --help, which gives this output on Python 3.4:

Python Launcher

usage: py [ launcher-arguments ] [ python-arguments ] script [ script-arguments ]

Launcher arguments:

-2     : Launch the latest Python 2.x version
-3     : Launch the latest Python 3.x version
-X.Y   : Launch the specified Python version
-X.Y-32: Launch the specified 32bit Python version

The following help text is from Python:

usage: G:\Python34\python.exe [option] ... [-c cmd | -m mod | file | -] [arg] ...
Options and arguments (and corresponding environment variables):
-b     : issue warnings about str(bytes_instance), str(bytearray_instance)
         and comparing bytes/bytearray with str. (-bb: issue errors)
-B     : don't write .py[co] files on import; also PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=x
-c cmd : program passed in as string (terminates option list)
-d     : debug output from parser; also PYTHONDEBUG=x
-E     : ignore PYTHON* environment variables (such as PYTHONPATH)
-h     : print this help message and exit (also --help)
-i     : inspect interactively after running script; forces a prompt even
         if stdin does not appear to be a terminal; also PYTHONINSPECT=x
-I     : isolate Python from the user's environment (implies -E and -s)
-m mod : run library module as a script (terminates option list)
-O     : optimize generated bytecode slightly; also PYTHONOPTIMIZE=x
-OO    : remove doc-strings in addition to the -O optimizations
-q     : don't print version and copyright messages on interactive startup
-s     : don't add user site directory to sys.path; also PYTHONNOUSERSITE
-S     : don't imply 'import site' on initialization
-u     : unbuffered binary stdout and stderr, stdin always buffered;
         also PYTHONUNBUFFERED=x
         see man page for details on internal buffering relating to '-u'
-v     : verbose (trace import statements); also PYTHONVERBOSE=x
         can be supplied multiple times to increase verbosity
-V     : print the Python version number and exit (also --version)
-W arg : warning control; arg is action:message:category:module:lineno
         also PYTHONWARNINGS=arg
-x     : skip first line of source, allowing use of non-Unix forms of #!cmd
-X opt : set implementation-specific option
file   : program read from script file
-      : program read from stdin (default; interactive mode if a tty)
arg ...: arguments passed to program in sys.argv[1:]

Other environment variables:
PYTHONSTARTUP: file executed on interactive startup (no default)
PYTHONPATH   : ';'-separated list of directories prefixed to the
               default module search path.  The result is sys.path.
PYTHONHOME   : alternate <prefix> directory (or <prefix>;<exec_prefix>).
               The default module search path uses <prefix>\lib.
PYTHONCASEOK : ignore case in 'import' statements (Windows).
PYTHONIOENCODING: Encoding[:errors] used for stdin/stdout/stderr.
PYTHONFAULTHANDLER: dump the Python traceback on fatal errors.
PYTHONHASHSEED: if this variable is set to 'random', a random value is used
   to seed the hashes of str, bytes and datetime objects.  It can also be
   set to an integer in the range [0,4294967295] to get hash values with a
   predictable seed.


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