Context-aware return

[Akira Li]

Grant Edwards <invalid at invalid.invalid> writes:

> On 2015-09-10, Steven D'Aprano <steve at pearwood.info> wrote:
>
>> I have a function which is intended for use at the interactive interpreter,
>> but may sometimes be used non-interactively. I wish to change it's output
>> depending on the context of how it is being called.
>
> [...]
>
> Sounds like an excellent way to waste somebody's afternoon when they
> start to troubleshoot code that's using your function.  Over and over
> and over we tell newbies who have questions about what something
> returns or how it works
>
>     "Start up an interactive session, and try it!".
>
> If word gets out about functions like yours, we sort of end up looking
> like twits.  
>
>> If I did this thing, would people follow me down the street booing
>> and jeering and throwing things at me?
>
> Only the people who use your function. :)

There are cases when it might be justified to alter the behavior e.g.,
*colorama* allows to strip ANSI codes (e.g., disable colored output) if
stdout is not a tty or *win-unicode-console* make sys.stdout to use
WriteConsoleW() to write Unicode to Windows console (interactive case).