How do I add tab completion to the Python shell?

Question

When starting a django application using python manage.py shell, I get an InteractiveConsole shell – I can use tab completion, etc.

Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Apr 15 2008, 22:57:26) 
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5465)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
(InteractiveConsole)

When just starting a python interpreter using python, it doesn’t offer tab completion.

Can someone tell me what django is doing to give me an interactive console, or what I need to do to start an interactive console without a django app?

Asked By: ashchristopher

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Source

Answer 1

I think django does something like https://docs.python.org/library/rlcompleter.html

If you want to have a really good interactive interpreter have a look at
IPython.

Answered By: Peter Hoffmann

Answer 2

I may have found a way to do it.

Create a file .pythonrc

# ~/.pythonrc
# enable syntax completion
try:
    import readline
except ImportError:
    print("Module readline not available.")
else:
    import rlcompleter
    readline.parse_and_bind("tab: complete")

then in your .bashrc file, add

export PYTHONSTARTUP=~/.pythonrc

That seems to work.

Answered By: ashchristopher

Answer 3

For the record, this is covered in the tutorial: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/interactive.html

Answered By: Thomas Wouters

Answer 4

I use ptpython – it is a wonderful tool autocomplete shell cmd.

Installing ptpython is very easy, use pip tool

pip install ptpython

and for django shell, you should import the django env, like this

import os

os.environ.setdefault("DJANGO_SETTINGS_MODULE", "testweb.settings")

Trust me, this is the best way for you!!!

Answered By: alan_wang

Answer 5

It looks like python3 has it out-of box!

Answered By: Michel Samia

Answer 6

In Python3 this feature is enabled by default. My system didn’t have the module readline installed. I am on Manjaro. I didn’t face this tab completion issue on other linux distributions (elementary, ubuntu, mint).

After pip installing the module, while importing, it was throwing the following error-

ImportError: libncursesw.so.5: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

To solve this, I ran-

cd /usr/lib ln -s libncursesw.so libncursesw.so.5

This resolved the import error. And, it also brought the tab completion in the python repl without any creation/changes of .pythonrc and .bashrc.

Answered By: TrigonaMinima

Answer 7

Fix for Windows 10 shell:

pip install pyreadline3  # previously, pyreadline but that package was abandoned
pip install ipython

Answered By: Mr.B

Answer 8

Yes. It’s built in to 3.6.

fernanr@gnuruwi ~ $ python3.6
Python 3.6.3 (default, Apr 10 2019, 14:37:36)
[GCC 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-16)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> os.
Display all 318 possibilities? (y or n)
os.CLD_CONTINUED             os.O_RDONLY                  os.ST_NOEXEC                 os.environ                   os.getpid(                   os.readlink(                 os.spawnvpe(
os.CLD_DUMPED                os.O_RDWR                    os.ST_NOSUID                 os.environb                  os.getppid(                  os.readv(                    os.st

Answered By: Ruwinda Fernando

Answer 9

For older versions (2.x) above script works like charm 🙂

fernanr@crsatx4 ~ $ cat .bashrc | grep -i python
#Tab completion for python shell
export PYTHONSTARTUP=~/.pythonrc
fernanr@crsatx4 ~ $ . ~/.bashrc
fernanr@crsatx4 ~ $ echo $?
0
fernanr@crsatx4 ~ $ python2
Python 2.7.5 (default, Jun 11 2019, 14:33:56)
[GCC 4.8.5 20150623 (Red Hat 4.8.5-39)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import os
>>> os.
Display all 249 possibilities? (y or n)
os.EX_CANTCREAT             os.O_WRONLY

Answered By: Ruwinda Fernando

How do I add tab completion to the Python shell?

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