.inputrc magic-space breaks interactive mode

[stephenk]

BPO	9748
Nosy	@amauryfa

^{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 2010-09-07.11:07:25.416>
created_at = <Date 2010-09-03.02:11:16.761>
labels = ['type-bug', 'invalid']
title = '.inputrc magic-space breaks interactive mode'
updated_at = <Date 2010-09-07.11:07:25.415>
user = 'https://bugs.python.org/stephenk'

bugs.python.org fields:

activity = <Date 2010-09-07.11:07:25.415>
actor = 'amaury.forgeotdarc'
assignee = 'none'
closed = True
closed_date = <Date 2010-09-07.11:07:25.416>
closer = 'amaury.forgeotdarc'
components = ['None']
creation = <Date 2010-09-03.02:11:16.761>
creator = 'stephenk'
dependencies = []
files = []
hgrepos = []
issue_num = 9748
keywords = []
message_count = 3.0
messages = ['115412', '115670', '115675']
nosy_count = 2.0
nosy_names = ['amaury.forgeotdarc', 'stephenk']
pr_nums = []
priority = 'normal'
resolution = 'not a bug'
stage = None
status = 'closed'
superseder = None
type = 'behavior'
url = 'https://bugs.python.org/issue9748'
versions = ['Python 2.6', 'Python 3.1']

[stephenk]

Adding the following line to ~/.inputrc for bash commandline usage will break the python interactive interpreter. Specifically, you can no longer type "space" characters:

Space: magic-space

This is fairly serious for bash users, because once you've lived with magic-space you don't ever want to live without it.

This was tested under 2 different operating systems (Ubuntu 9.10, FreeBSD 6.0) and 3 different python versions, so the problem seems widespread.

[amauryfa]

I didn't know what "magic space" is. But a quick google search shows that it is specific to Bash.

in http://www.ukuug.org/events/linux2003/papers/bash_tips/#S16
"""
There are other readline-based programs without this feature, so make it only apply in Bash:

$if Bash
Space: magic-space
$endif

For example the MySQL client and the Perl debugger can also use the readline library.
"""

Python also uses the readline library; you should add the "$if Bash".

[stephenk]

Didn't know about the inputrc conditional; that works. I verified that magic-space (without the conditional) also interferes with mysql, so this seems like less of an oversight on the side of python and more of a bash-user-beware situation.

Anyway, thanks for the workaround!