pdb history file should be different per default, not the same with main repl

[skirpichev]

Feature or enhancement

Proposal:

After quitting from debug session (triggered by breakpoint()) to the main repl, I've it's history filled with a bunch of pdb-specific stuff. Usually (always?) these lines have an invalid syntax for python.

Maybe it does make sense have access to recent repl entries after starting pdb, but hardly the main repl's history should have access to pdb history. That should live in a separate file.

Has this already been discussed elsewhere?

No response given

Links to previous discussion of this feature:

No response

[gaogaotiantian]

How did you trigger the pdb? From repl? So like

>>> breakpoint()
(pdb) quit
>>> <up-arrow>

Is there a case where this is actually useful? If you are in repl, you can already do plenty of interactive things and you are probably not debugging a serious script. It's hard for me to imagine a real use case.

[skirpichev]

So like

No. Just breakpoint() in a source code, which was run from the repl.

you are probably not debugging a serious script.

Maybe. But above scenario apparently does make sense for non-serious scripts. The breakpoint() builtin does exits for reasons, eh?

[gaogaotiantian]

As far as I know, the breakpoint() builtin is not often used together with repl. If it's easily solvable, I'm definitely not against the proposal. If we can just ignore pdb history by flipping a switch, let's do it. However, if it's not a trivial task, we probably need to think about the benefit here. How are we going to separate history from pdb? If we do that, how about other repl-like programs? How about input()? We record history from input() now and those are rarely valid Python script. What is the cutoff here?

[skirpichev]

If it's easily solvable

I don't know. But IPython has no such issue: you can fall into pdb session, the quit into repl back. No garbage in the history. And next time, entering pdb session - I see previous pdb commands...

If we can just ignore pdb history by flipping a switch, let's do it.

It should definitely be ignored when you quit from the pdb session back to repl.

PS: I should note, that issue is valid for old repl as well.