Expert Python Programming - Third Edition

Incorporating shells in your own scripts and programs

Sometimes, there is a need to incorporate a read-eval-print loop (REPL), similar to Python's interactive session, inside of your own software. This allows for easier experimentation with your code and inspection of its internal state. The simplest module that allows for emulating Python's interactive interpreter already comes with the standard library and is named code.

The script that starts interactive sessions consists of one import and single function call:

import codecode.interact()

You can easily do some minor tuning, such as modify a prompt value or add banner and exit messages, but anything more fancy will require a lot more work. If you want to have more features, such as code ...