Python's many command-line utilities

Python’s many command-line utilities

These are Python’s most helpful general-purpose command-line tools.

Command	Purpose	More
`python -m http.server`	Start a simple web server	Video
`python -m webbrowser`	Launch your web browser	Docs
`python -m json.tool`	Nicely format JSON data	Docs
`python -m calendar`	Show a command-line calendar	Docs

`http.server`

Running the http.server module as a script will start a web server on port 8000 that hosts files from the current directory. I use this all the time to preview Sphinx documentation sites (especially when using Sphinx’s dirhtml option which is all about subdirectories of index.html files).

$ python -m http.server
Serving HTTP on 0.0.0.0 port 8000 (http://0.0.0.0:8000/) ...

`webbrowser`

Running the webbrowser module as a script will open a given URL in your default web browser. For example, this would open the page https://pseudorandom.name:

$ python -m webbrowser pseudorandom.name

`json.tool`

Python’s json.tool module can be run as a script to parse a JSON document and print out a version that’s formatted nicely for human readability.

$ python -m json.tool /home/trey/Downloads/download.json
[
    {
        "title": "Python's walrus operator",
        "is_premium": false,
        "url": "/using-walrus-operator/"
    },
    {
        "title": "Refactoring long boolean expressions",
        "is_premium": true,
        "url": "/refactoring-boolean-expressions/"
    }
]

`calendar`

Running the calendar module as a script will print a calendar of the current year by default. It also accepts various arguments to customize its output. Here’s a calendar of just one month:

$ python -m calendar 2024 04
     April 2024
Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa Su
 1  2  3  4  5  6  7
 8  9 10 11 12 13 14
15 16 17 18 19 20 21
22 23 24 25 26 27 28
29 30

Those 4 scripts are general-purpose tools that I find helpful on any machine. Python also includes a number of tools that are commonly available (or easily installable) on Linux and Mac machines.

Especially handy on Windows machines

Running Python on Windows? Or running Python on a Linux/Mac machine without the ability to easily install common command-line utilities like uuid, sqlite3 and gzip?

These tools are all equivalent to command-line tools that are common on many Linux machines, though the equivalent Linux commands are usually more powerful and more user-friendly.

Command	Purpose	More
`python3.12 -m uuid`	Like `uuidgen` CLI utility	Docs
`python3.12 -m sqlite3`	Like `sqlite3` CLI utility	Docs
`python -m zipfile`	Like `zip` & `unzip` CLI utilities	Docs
`python -m gzip`	Like `gzip` & `gunzip` CLI utilities	Docs
`python -m tarfile`	Like the `tar` CLI utility	Docs
`python -m base64`	Like the `base64` CLI utility
`python -m ftplib`	Like the `ftp` utility
`python -m smtplib`	Like the `sendmail` utility
`python -m poplib`	Like using `curl` to read email
`python -m imaplib`	Like using `curl` to read email
`python -m telnetlib`	Like the `telnet`utility

Analyzing Python code

Python also includes a handful of other Python-related tools that are specifically for analyzing Python code.

If you wanted to analyze some Python code to see how it ticks, these tools can be useful.

Command	Purpose	More
`python -m tokenize`	Break Python module into “tokens”	Docs
`python -m ast`	Show abstract syntax tree for code	Docs
`python -m dis`	Disassemble Python code to bytecode	Docs
`python -m inspect`	inspect source code of a Python object	Docs
`python -m pyclbr`	See overview of a module’s objects

Just for fun

These are Python Easter Eggs that work as Python scripts.

Command	Purpose
`python -m __hello__`	Print `Hello world!`
`python -m this`	Display the Zen of Python (PEP 20)
`python -m antigravity`	Open XKCD 353 in a web browser
`python -m turtledemo`	See `turtle` module demos

Ricky Lin