Question

To exit from Python command line, I have to type exit(). If I type exit, it says

Use exit() or Ctrl-Z plus Return to exit

Usually when you type exit, you would want to exit the program. Why does the interpreter give me the above error when it knows I am trying to exit the command line? Why doesn’t it just exit? I know it doesn’t matter and its a silly question but I am curious.

Answer 1

In my python interpreter exit is actually a string and not a function — 'Use Ctrl-D (i.e. EOF) to exit.'. You can check on your interpreter by entering type(exit)

In active python what is happening is that exit is a function. If you do not call the function it will print out the string representation of the object. This is the default behaviour for any object returned. It’s just that the designers thought people might try to type exit to exit the interpreter, so they made the string representation of the exit function a helpful message. You can check this behaviour by typing str(exit) or even print exit.