I have what I think is a fairly low impact quality of life improvement to
suggest for the python CLI.
When I'm not working in Python I tend to be working in bash. But often I
want to break out and do something quick in Python. I find the `python -c `
CLI very useful for this. For one liners it's perfect. E.g.
NEW_VAR=$(python -c "import pathlib;
print(pathlib.Path('$MYVAR').parent.parent)")
And even if I want to do something multi-line it's pretty easy
NEW_VAR=$(python -c "
import pathlib
for _ in range(10):
print('this is a demo, bear with me')
")
But the problem is when I'm writing bash inside a function or some other
nested code, I would like to have nice indentation in my bash file, but if
I write something like this:
mybashfunc(){
python -c "
import pathlib
for _ in range(10):
print('this is a demo, bear with me')
"
}
I get `IndentationError: unexpected indent`.
This means I have to write the function ugly like this:
mybashfunc(){
python -c "
import pathlib
for _ in range(10):
print('this is a demo, bear with me')
"
}
Or use a helper function like this:
codeblock()
{
__doc__='
copy-pastable implementation
Prevents indentation errors in bash
'
echo "$1" | python -c "import sys; from textwrap import dedent;
print(dedent(sys.stdin.read()).strip('\n'))"
}
mybashfunc(){
python -c $(codeblock "
import pathlib
for _ in range(10):
print('this is a demo, bear with me')
")
}
Or more recently I found that this is a low-impact workaround:
mybashfunc(){
python -c "if 1:
import pathlib
for _ in range(10):
print('this is a demo, bear with me')
"
}
But as a certain Python dev may say: "There must be a better way."
Would there be any downside to the Python CLI automatically dedenting the
input string given to -c? I can't think of any case off the top of my head
where it would make a previously valid program invalid. Unless I'm missing
something this would strictly make previously invalid strings valid.
Thoughts?
--
-Dr. Jon Crall (him)
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