typing ? on the command line brings up IPython help

[burcin]

I was looking over the shoulder of a new user as he started Sage for the first time and typed ? on the command line. This shows the IPython help text which doesn't mention Sage at all.

We should change this to show the text displayed with help().

Printing some more information when someone types help without the parenthesis would also be nice.

sage: help
<function help at 0x1d6fc80>

CC: @vbraun

Component: documentation

Author: Volker Braun

Branch/Commit: 148d8e0

Reviewer: John Palmieri

Issue created by migration from https://trac.sagemath.org/ticket/9015

[kcrisman]

comment:5

This is still the case, though now

sage: help
<function sage.misc.sagedoc.help>

Volker, you are currently the Ipython-in-Sage guru - is there an easy way to fix this?

[jhpalmieri]

comment:6

I was hoping that you could add usage = 'Useful message here' somewhere in DEFAULT_SAGE_CONFIG in sage/repl/interpreter.py`, but that doesn't seem to have any effect. I also tried

diff --git a/src/sage/repl/interpreter.py b/src/sage/repl/interpreter.py
index dbbd683..e748b9e 100644
--- a/src/sage/repl/interpreter.py
+++ b/src/sage/repl/interpreter.py
@@ -502,6 +502,7 @@ class SageCrashHandler(IPAppCrashHandler):
 
 class SageTerminalApp(TerminalIPythonApp):
     name = u'Sage'
+    usage='Useful message here'
     crash_handler_class = SageCrashHandler
     test_shell = False
 

I don't know what else to try right now.

[vbraun]

Branch: u/vbraun/sole_questionmark_on_the_command_line

[vbraun]

Commit: 1ffbb8a

[vbraun]

Author: Volker Braun

[vbraun]

New commits:

1ffbb8a

override IPythons show_usage

[vbraun]

comment:9

If you want to figure out what happens you can always run in under the debugger:

sage: ip = get_ipython()
sage: %debug ip.run_cell('?')

[jhpalmieri]

comment:10

I have two comments. First, I think we should document this way of debugging. I now see that get_ipython() is documented near the top of interpreter.py, which is great. Maybe add a line or two about debugging right there.

Second, do we want to have an easy way of accessing the IPython help? Maybe that information could just be added to the end of the current help string.

I'll see if I can come up with something over the next few days.

[sagetrac-git]

Changed commit from 1ffbb8a to 148d8e0

[sagetrac-git]

Branch pushed to git repo; I updated commit sha1. New commits:

148d8e0

add hint about debugging

[vbraun]

comment:12

IMHO it is confusing to have the IPython help crop up. If there is anything that is necessary to use Sage in there then we should add it to our docs.

[jhpalmieri]

comment:13

I think this is good. Regarding the comment in the ticket description,

Printing some more information when someone types help without the parenthesis would also be nice.

I guess there are ways to do this (see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10875442/possible-to-change-a-functions-repr-in-python), but I don't know if they're worth it. The banner when you start Sage already says

Type "help()" for help.

Positive review from me. Karl-Dieter?

[kcrisman]

comment:14

I won't have time to look at this, the reason I got involved was just checking whether the ticket was still valid. I'm sure you did due diligence :)

[jhpalmieri]

Reviewer: John Palmieri

[vbraun]

Changed branch from u/vbraun/sole_questionmark_on_the_command_line to 148d8e0