Copy-paste into Python interactive interpreter and indentation

Question

This piece of code, file test.py,

if 1:
   print \"foo\"
print \"bar\"

can be successfully executed with execfile(\"test.py\

Answer 1

I don't know any trick for the standard command prompt, but I can suggest you a more advanced interpreter like IPython that has a special syntax for multi-line paste:

In [1]: %cpaste
Pasting code; enter '--' alone on the line to stop.
:for c in range(3):
:    print c
:
:--
0
1
2

Another option is the bpython interpreter that has an automatic paste mode (if you are typing too fast to be an human):

>>> for c in range(3):
...     print c
... 
0
1
2
>>> 
 <C-r> Rewind  <C-s> Save  <F8> Pastebin  <F9> Pager  <F2> Show Source 

Answer 2

Indentation is probably lost or broken.

Have a look at IPython -- it's an enhanced Python interpreter with many convenient features. One of them is a magic function %paste that allows you to paste multiple lines of code.

It also has tab-completion, auto-indentation... and many more. Have a look at their site.

---

Using %paste in IPython:

And copy-and-paste stuff is one of the things fixed in the Qt console. Here's using a plain old copy-and-paste of your code block that "just works" in the new IPython qtconsole:

Answer 3

One other solution I recently found for a similar problem:

$ python << EOF
if 1:
   print "foo"
print "bar"

EOF

Answer 4

If you are like me and use Notepad++ (to copy and paste from), try to replace tabs by spaces by going to menu Settings → Preferences → Language and check the replace by spaces.

I had this problem myself for so long and I found out that python.exe recognizes spaces.

Answer 5

All of the current answers suggest you change to IPython. For a Python-only solution, you can use textwrap to remove leading whitespace from lines.

For example,

>>> code="""    x='your pasted code'
                y='with common indentation'"""
>>> formatted=textwrap.dedent(code)
>>> exec(formatted)

Answer 6

Do %autoindent to make automatic indentation off. After that, you can paste your code in IPython.