When commands are read from a tty, the interpreter is said to be in
interactive mode. In this mode it prompts for the next command
with the primary prompt, usually three greater-than signs
(>>>
); for continuation lines it prompts with the
secondary prompt,
by default three dots (...
).
The interpreter prints a welcome message stating its version number and a copyright notice before printing the first prompt, e.g.:
python Python 1.5b1 (#1, Dec 3 1997, 00:02:06) [GCC 2.7.2.2] on sunos5 Copyright 1991-1995 Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam >>>