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{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","headline":"Misleading documentation of `!` prefix in `pdb`","articleBody":"The documentation for `pdb` says:\r\n\r\n```\r\n.. pdbcommand:: ! statement                                                           \r\n                                                                                      \r\n   Execute the (one-line) *statement* in the context of the current stack frame.      \r\n   The exclamation point can be omitted unless the first word of the statement        \r\n   resembles a debugger command.  To set a global variable, you can prefix the        \r\n   assignment command with a :keyword:`global` statement on the same line,            \r\n   e.g.::                                                                             \r\n                                                                                      \r\n      (Pdb) global list_options; list_options = ['-l']                                \r\n      (Pdb)\r\n```\r\n\r\nWhich suggests that the prefix is used with a space between the `!` prefix and the statement to be executed. However, [the implementation](https://github.com/python/cpython/blob/9af485436b83003b5705a6e54bdeb900c70e0c69/Lib/pdb.py#L443) consumes _only the prefix_, which means that the natural reading of the docs leads to an `IndentationError`:\r\n\r\n```\r\n$ python3 test.py \r\n--Return--\r\n\u003e /home/snoopjedi/repos/cpython/test.py(3)\u003cmodule\u003e()-\u003eNone\r\n-\u003e breakpoint()\r\n(Pdb) l\r\n  1     lst = [1, 2, 3]\r\n  2     it = iter(lst)\r\n  3  -\u003e breakpoint()\r\n[EOF]\r\n(Pdb) ! next(it)\r\n*** IndentationError: unexpected indent\r\n```\r\n\r\nwhile omitting the space gives the intended result:\r\n\r\n```\r\n(Pdb) !next(it)\r\n1\r\n```\r\n\r\nIt would also be helpful to have an example in the documentation that actually uses the prefix for first-word disambiguation as described in the text.\n\n\u003c!-- gh-linked-prs --\u003e\n### Linked PRs\n* gh-104302\n* gh-104342\n\u003c!-- /gh-linked-prs --\u003e\n","author":{"url":"https://github.com/SnoopJ","@type":"Person","name":"SnoopJ"},"datePublished":"2023-05-08T19:08:36.000Z","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":"https://schema.org/CommentAction","userInteractionCount":2},"url":"https://github.com/104301/cpython/issues/104301"}