How do I manipulate a variable whose name conflicts with PDB commands?

Question

My code is, for better or worse, rife with single letter variables (it\'s physics stuff, so those letters are meaningful), as well as NumPy\'s, which I\'m often interacting

Answer 1

Use an exclamation mark ! before a statement to have it run :

python -m pdb test.py
> /home/user/test.py(1)()
-> print('foo')
(Pdb) !n = 77
(Pdb) !n
77
(Pdb) n
foo
> /home/user/test.py(2)()
-> print('bar')
(Pdb)

The docs say:

! statement

Execute the (one-line) statement in the context of the current stack frame. The exclamation point can be omitted unless the first word of the statement resembles a debugger command. [...]