a short-cut command for globals().clear() ??

[Matimus]

On Sep 22, 2:31 pm, CapnBearbo... at googlemail.com wrote:
> hi all,
>
> forgive me , but the RTFM and Google search approaches are not
> yielding an answer on this question.  I need to know if there's a top
> level python interpreter command that clears all user variables (not
> built-ins) from the global namespace.  In other words a statement, or
> some_command_or_function(), that does this:
>
> >>> x=3
> >>> y=4
> >>> z=[]
> >>> dir()
>
> ['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__', 'x', 'y', 'z']
>
> >>> some_command_or_function()
> >>> dir()
>
> ['__builtins__', '__doc__', '__name__']
>
> thanks,
>    1 desperate snake oil programmer ....

I don't think you will find anything. The interpreter is essentially
the same whether you are in interactive mode or not. That is, there is
very little use for a method that clears globals in general, so why
would we add it just so that it could be used by the interpreter.
There is almost* nothing available to the interactive interpreter
which isn't part of the core language.

* The only difference I can think of is the "_" variable, which is
added to __builtins__ and contains the last value returned in
interactive mode. If you have ever tried to run code that uses the
locale module from the interpreter you will see why having any
differences between the interactive and non-interactive interpreter
can be a pain.

Matt