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?

Answer 1

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.