Scripting inside a Python application

Question

I\'d like to include Python scripting in one of my applications, that is written in Python itself.

My application must be able to call extern

Answer 1

If you'd like the user to interactively enter commands, I can highly recommend the code module, part of the standard library. The InteractiveConsole and InteractiveInterpreter objects allow for easy entry and evaluation of user input, and errors are handled very nicely, with tracebacks available to help the user get it right.

Just make sure to catch SystemExit!

$ python
Python 2.5.1 (r251:54863, Jan 17 2008, 19:35:17) 
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5465)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> shared_var = "Set in main console"
>>> import code
>>> ic = code.InteractiveConsole({ 'shared_var': shared_var })
>>> try:
...     ic.interact("My custom console banner!")
... except SystemExit, e:
...     print "Got SystemExit!"
... 
My custom console banner!
>>> shared_var
'Set in main console'
>>> shared_var = "Set in sub-console"
>>> sys.exit()
Got SystemExit!
>>> shared_var
'Set in main console'