quit should quit

[mchaput]

BPO	1173637
Nosy	@mwhudson, @loewis, @sjoerdmullender, @arigo, @rhettinger

^{Note: these values reflect the state of the issue at the time it was migrated and might not reflect the current state.}

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GitHub fields:

assignee = None
closed_at = <Date 2005-04-17.10:42:38.000>
created_at = <Date 2005-03-30.21:37:00.000>
labels = []
title = 'quit should quit'
updated_at = <Date 2005-04-17.10:42:38.000>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/mchaput'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2005-04-17.10:42:38.000>
actor = 'pernici'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = None
closer = None
components = ['None']
creation = <Date 2005-03-30.21:37:00.000>
creator = 'mchaput'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 1173637
keywords = []
message_count = 11.0
messages = ['24829', '24830', '24831', '24832', '24833', '24834', '24835', '24836', '24837', '24838', '24839']
nosy_count = 8.0
nosy_names = ['mwh', 'loewis', 'sjoerd', 'arigo', 'rhettinger', 'isandler', 'mchaput', 'pernici']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'wont fix'
stage = None
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = None
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue1173637'
versions = []

[mchaput]

When the user types "quit" in the interpreter, instead
of quitting the program gives him or her a lecture on
the "proper" way to quit.

This is very obnoxious.

Since the interpreter obviously understands the "quit"
command, it should just quit, dammit.

[rhettinger]

Logged In: YES
user_id=80475

I concur!

[mwhudson]

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user_id=6656

I'm not so sure typing quit should quit -- that doesn't seem like Python to
me (how would you implement it?)

Having quit be the same object as sys.exit seems sensible.

[isandler]

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I am not sure adding quit to interpreter is such a good idea:

Right now quit is treated as an ordinary (non-keyword)
identifier...
(with a bit of magic: if quit is not defined then lecture
the user :-))...

E.g now you can do this:

 >>> quit=2 
 >>> quit
 2

Would you want to disallow this usage when quit becomes a
"magic word"?

[rhettinger]

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'quit' and 'exit' currently show-up in a dir() of__builtins__.

If the OP's suggestion is accepted, it should probably be
implemented just like a builtin:

    def quit():
        sys.exit()

That approach is not at all magical and still allows shadowing
(quit=2, etc.)

What we have now is an annoying wart.

[sjoerdmullender]

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Something like this instead of the current quit should do
the trick:

class Quit:
    def __repr__(self):
        import sys
        sys.exit(0)
quit = Quit()
del Quit

The problem with the Raymond's suggestion is that you need
to type parentheses.
But of course, this does get a little magical...

[arigo]

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user_id=4771

This discussion keeps coming up time and again. sjoerd's trick has been tried a few times already, until people implementing it realized that trying to display the builtins dict (directly or indirectly) would quit the interpreter!

'quit' cannot just be a synonym for 'sys.exit' either, because typing 'quit' would just print '<built-in function quit>', which is worse than the current situation in term of expliciteness.

[rhettinger]

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class quit:
    def __repr__(self):
        return "Type quit() to exit the interpreter"
    def __call__(self):
        sys.exit()

Requiring the parentheses is not a big deal as long as there
is an advisory where they are omitted.

[loewis]

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user_id=21627

But how is this better than the current

>>> quit
'Use Ctrl-D (i.e. EOF) to exit.'

I'd rather learn that I have to type Ctrl-D instead of
typing quit()

I think the original report is misguided: The interpreter
does not "obviously understand" the quit command. Instead,
it really does not understand it all. The name quit is bound
to a string, and the interpreter displays the string. It
does not understand at all what the string says.

So I'm rejecting the report as "won't fix".

[arigo]

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Raymond, an argument against quit() actually quitting the interpreter is that it suddenly makes quit() a quasi-official piece of the Python API, and we're bound to see user programs start to write quit() instead of sys.exit().

[pernici]

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To allow the builtin quit() only when using
Python interactively, one can put in a start-up quitfile.py

def quit():
  import sys
  sys.exit(0)

and set
export PYTHONSTARTUP=quitfile.py
One could add to this file also
exit = quit
since the builtin exit behaves like quit.