[Tutor] Fwd: Re: Setting Command Line Arguments in IDLE

[Mats Wichmann]

> On 26/05/2019 02:55, Richard Damon wrote:
>> I am working on a python script that will be provided arguments when run
>> from the system command line. Is there any place in IDLE to provide
>> equivalent arguments for testing while developing in IDLE?
>>
> 
> There used to be a dialog for that but in the latest version
> of IDLE I can't find it. I wonder when it disappeared and why?
> 
> The best place to ask is probably on the IDLE-dev list.
> 
> It can be found here:
> 
> https://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/idle-dev

I've seen this question come up on stack overflow, can't recall I've
seen a completely satisfactory answer.

I would suggest, however, that doing the testing you're considering
should be written as unit tests.  You can invoke unit tests from inside
the program by adding something like this (I'm a pytest fan, but it
could be unittest as well of course):

import pytest

# your code here

if __name__ == "__main__":
    pytest.main(["--capture=sys", "name-of-unittest-script.py"])

You can write your own argument array by fiddling with sys.argv; pytest
also provides a mechansim for injecting arguments (I think it's called
pytest_addoption).

The somewhat hacky way for a script to find out that it's running inside
IDLE (note: every time someone asks how to do this, a crowd of people
pop up and say "you don't want to be doing that".  But enabling a
testing scenario might actually be a time you want to?):

import sys

if "idlelib" in sys.modules:
    print("We're running in IDLE")



These aren't really an answer to what you're asking for, but maybe some
tools you might use to think further about the problem?