user
As a policy, Python doesn't run user-specified code on startup of
Python programs. (Only interactive sessions execute the script
specified in the PYTHONSTARTUP
environment variable if it exists).
However, some programs or sites may find it convenient to allow users to have a standard customization file, which gets run when a program requests it. This module implements such a mechanism. A program that wishes to use the mechanism must execute the statement
import user
The user
module looks for a file `.pythonrc.py
' in the user's
home directory and if it can be opened, exececutes it (using
execfile()
) in its own (i.e. the module user
's) global
namespace. Errors during this phase are not caught; that's up to the
program that imports the user
module, if it wishes. The home
directory is assumed to be named by the HOME
environment
variable; if this is not set, the current directory is used.
The user's `.pythonrc.py
' could conceivably test for
sys.version
if it wishes to do different things depending on
the Python version.
A warning to users: be very conservative in what you place in your
`.pythonrc.py
' file. Since you don't know which programs will
use it, changing the behavior of standard modules or functions is
generally not a good idea.
A suggestion for programmers who wish to use this mechanism: a simple
way to let users specify options for your package is to have them
define variables in their `.pythonrc.py
' file that you test in
your module. For example, a module spam
that has a verbosity
level can look for a variable user.spam_verbose
, as follows:
import user try: verbose = user.spam_verbose # user's verbosity preference except AttributeError: verbose = 0 # default verbosity
Programs with extensive customization needs are better off reading a program-specific customization file.
Programs with security or privacy concerns should not import
this module; a user can easily break into a a program by placing
arbitrary code in the `.pythonrc.py
' file.
Modules for general use should not import this module; it may interfere with the operation of the importing program.
For a site-wide customization mechanism, see module site
.
guido@CNRI.Reston.Va.US