There are two ways I can think off of the top of my head to do this. The first method is using exec to execute user input code.
while True:
user_input = input("Python command to execute: ")
try:
exec(user_input)
except Exception as e:
print("Error thrown.")
This however, comes with its limitations. You have to write some custom code to catch errors, throw errors appropriately, and etc. The second method is a bit more involved, but also more generalized. You use the everything is a file method, and you treat the user input (whether it's through a shell, a website, or anything) as a file. With that file, then, you execute it. You can leave a shell open at all times checking if a file has updated before executing:
import hashlib
import runpy
import time
FILE = "./file.py"
def get_file_md5(file_name):
with open(file_name, "rb") as f:
return hashlib.md5(f.read()).hexdigest()
md5 = get_file_md5(FILE)
first_run = True
while True:
current_md5 = get_file_md5(FILE)
if md5 != current_md5 or first_run:
first_run = False
md5 = current_md5
try:
runpy.run_path(FILE)
except Exception as e:
print("Error", e)
else:
time.sleep(1)
You might find this answer that I gave to another (vaguely related) question interesting and of use.
Regarding below. Notice exec(object[, globals[, locals]]) documentation:
In all cases, if the optional parts are omitted, the code is executed in the current scope. If only globals is provided, it must be a dictionary (and not a subclass of dictionary), which will be used for both the global and the local variables.
So you can do:
exec_globals = {}
exec('a = 10; print(a)', exec_globals)
print("\na in exec_globals: ", 'a' in exec_globals)
print("exec_globals['a'] =", exec_globals['a'])
print("\na in globals(): ", 'a' in globals())
print(a)
And the above will output:
10
a in exec_globals: True
exec_globals['a'] = 10
a in globals(): False
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "test.py", line 7, in <module>
print(a)
NameError: name 'a' is not defined
