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Home/ Questions/Q 3626752
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Editorial Team
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Editorial Team
Asked: May 18, 20262026-05-18T23:48:07+00:00 2026-05-18T23:48:07+00:00

I want to be able to bring up an interactive python terminal from my

  • 0

I want to be able to bring up an interactive python terminal from my python application. Some, but not all, variables in my program needs to be exposed to the interpreter.

Currently I use a sub-classed and modified QPlainTextEdit and route all “commands” there to eval or exec, and keep track of a separate namespace in a dict. However there got to be a more elegant and robust way! How?

Here is an example doing just what I want, but it is with IPython and pyGTK…
http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/Cookbook/EmbeddingInGTK

Below is what I currently have. But there are so many corner cases that I probably missed some. It is very slow, try a large print loop… It got to be a simpler and less bug prone way, …I hope!!

It is the def runCommand(self) function that is the key to understanding my problem. I ideally don’t want to improve it, I rather want to replace its content with something simpler and smarter.

The functionality of the console.updateNamespace({'myVar1' : app, 'myVar2' : 1234}) statement in “main” is also important.

import sys, os
import traceback
from PyQt4 import QtCore
from PyQt4 import QtGui

class Console(QtGui.QPlainTextEdit):
    def __init__(self, prompt='$> ', startup_message='', parent=None):
        QtGui.QPlainTextEdit.__init__(self, parent)
        self.prompt = prompt
        self.history = []
        self.namespace = {}
        self.construct = []

        self.setGeometry(50, 75, 600, 400)
        self.setWordWrapMode(QtGui.QTextOption.WrapAnywhere)
        self.setUndoRedoEnabled(False)
        self.document().setDefaultFont(QtGui.QFont("monospace", 10, QtGui.QFont.Normal))
        self.showMessage(startup_message)

    def updateNamespace(self, namespace):
        self.namespace.update(namespace)

    def showMessage(self, message):
        self.appendPlainText(message)
        self.newPrompt()

    def newPrompt(self):
        if self.construct:
            prompt = '.' * len(self.prompt)
        else:
            prompt = self.prompt
        self.appendPlainText(prompt)
        self.moveCursor(QtGui.QTextCursor.End)

    def getCommand(self):
        doc = self.document()
        curr_line = unicode(doc.findBlockByLineNumber(doc.lineCount() - 1).text())
        curr_line = curr_line.rstrip()
        curr_line = curr_line[len(self.prompt):]
        return curr_line

    def setCommand(self, command):
        if self.getCommand() == command:
            return
        self.moveCursor(QtGui.QTextCursor.End)
        self.moveCursor(QtGui.QTextCursor.StartOfLine, QtGui.QTextCursor.KeepAnchor)
        for i in range(len(self.prompt)):
            self.moveCursor(QtGui.QTextCursor.Right, QtGui.QTextCursor.KeepAnchor)
        self.textCursor().removeSelectedText()
        self.textCursor().insertText(command)
        self.moveCursor(QtGui.QTextCursor.End)

    def getConstruct(self, command):
        if self.construct:
            prev_command = self.construct[-1]
            self.construct.append(command)
            if not prev_command and not command:
                ret_val = '\n'.join(self.construct)
                self.construct = []
                return ret_val
            else:
                return ''
        else:
            if command and command[-1] == (':'):
                self.construct.append(command)
                return ''
            else:
                return command

    def getHistory(self):
        return self.history

    def setHisory(self, history):
        self.history = history

    def addToHistory(self, command):
        if command and (not self.history or self.history[-1] != command):
            self.history.append(command)
        self.history_index = len(self.history)

    def getPrevHistoryEntry(self):
        if self.history:
            self.history_index = max(0, self.history_index - 1)
            return self.history[self.history_index]
        return ''

    def getNextHistoryEntry(self):
        if self.history:
            hist_len = len(self.history)
            self.history_index = min(hist_len, self.history_index + 1)
            if self.history_index < hist_len:
                return self.history[self.history_index]
        return ''

    def getCursorPosition(self):
        return self.textCursor().columnNumber() - len(self.prompt)

    def setCursorPosition(self, position):
        self.moveCursor(QtGui.QTextCursor.StartOfLine)
        for i in range(len(self.prompt) + position):
            self.moveCursor(QtGui.QTextCursor.Right)

    def runCommand(self):
        command = self.getCommand()
        self.addToHistory(command)

        command = self.getConstruct(command)

        if command:
            tmp_stdout = sys.stdout

            class stdoutProxy():
                def __init__(self, write_func):
                    self.write_func = write_func
                    self.skip = False

                def write(self, text):
                    if not self.skip:
                        stripped_text = text.rstrip('\n')
                        self.write_func(stripped_text)
                        QtCore.QCoreApplication.processEvents()
                    self.skip = not self.skip

            sys.stdout = stdoutProxy(self.appendPlainText)
            try:
                try:
                    result = eval(command, self.namespace, self.namespace)
                    if result != None:
                        self.appendPlainText(repr(result))
                except SyntaxError:
                    exec command in self.namespace
            except SystemExit:
                self.close()
            except:
                traceback_lines = traceback.format_exc().split('\n')
                # Remove traceback mentioning this file, and a linebreak
                for i in (3,2,1,-1):
                    traceback_lines.pop(i)
                self.appendPlainText('\n'.join(traceback_lines))
            sys.stdout = tmp_stdout
        self.newPrompt()

    def keyPressEvent(self, event):
        if event.key() in (QtCore.Qt.Key_Enter, QtCore.Qt.Key_Return):
            self.runCommand()
            return
        if event.key() == QtCore.Qt.Key_Home:
            self.setCursorPosition(0)
            return
        if event.key() == QtCore.Qt.Key_PageUp:
            return
        elif event.key() in (QtCore.Qt.Key_Left, QtCore.Qt.Key_Backspace):
            if self.getCursorPosition() == 0:
                return
        elif event.key() == QtCore.Qt.Key_Up:
            self.setCommand(self.getPrevHistoryEntry())
            return
        elif event.key() == QtCore.Qt.Key_Down:
            self.setCommand(self.getNextHistoryEntry())
            return
        elif event.key() == QtCore.Qt.Key_D and event.modifiers() == QtCore.Qt.ControlModifier:
            self.close()
        super(Console, self).keyPressEvent(event)

welcome_message = '''
   ---------------------------------------------------------------
     Welcome to a primitive Python interpreter.
   ---------------------------------------------------------------
'''

if __name__ == '__main__':
    app = QtGui.QApplication(sys.argv)
    console = Console(startup_message=welcome_message)
    console.updateNamespace({'myVar1' : app, 'myVar2' : 1234})
    console.show();
    sys.exit(app.exec_())
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1 Answer

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  1. Editorial Team
    Editorial Team
    2026-05-18T23:48:08+00:00Added an answer on May 18, 2026 at 11:48 pm

    Bit late I know, but I recommend the code.InteractiveConsole class: http://docs.python.org/py3k/library/code.html#code.InteractiveConsole

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