[Python-Dev] Hi, and a question about filename completion via readline in Python 2.3 (original) (raw)

Fernando Perez fperez at colorado.edu
Wed Sep 24 16:47:50 EDT 2003

Hi all,

since this is my first post here, I figured I'd briefly introduce myself. I'm the lead developer of ipython (http://ipython.scipy.org), a shell for interactive python work. I've been a fan (and big advocate) of python over the last 2 years, mainly for scientific computing. For those interested, you can find a brief overview of ipython at:

http://ipython.scipy.org/misc/ipython_scipy03.pdf

Besides thanking the python team for this fantastic language, I have a question concerning some changes apparently made to the C part of readline support for python 2.3. If I understood correctly this thread:

http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2002-February/085063.html

as of python 2.3, readline will NOT default anymore to providing filename completions when nothing matches in the available namespaces. There is mention in that thread of making it a configurable parameter, but I failed to find any specifics on how to do that.

While perhaps I'm missing something, so far (after getting this reported as an ipython bug from 2.3 users) I've failed to be able to recover filename completion under 2.3.

While I'm sure you found good reasons for this change, under some environments it turns out to be really quite nasty. One of the strengths of ipython is its tight integration with the underlying system environment, and its users rely constantly on filename/directory completion for navigating their filesystem as they work. I personally (and many others) use ipython as my main python shell, and I fell it provides a superior working environment to anything else I've seen out there (especially if you need to combine python work with manipulating underlying files).

So ultimately my concerns are:

I hope if some of you test ipython, you'll find out that actually that kind of integration with the filesystem can make a very strong argument for python-based shells as fantastic tools for many data-driven environments. I have already knowledge of several projects which are either using or considering ipython as the underlying shell for scientific data analysis environments, and this change will be a major setback for their usability.

Again, many thanks for all your hard work on python.

Best regards,

Fernando.

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