Delete key in System Python

What happens if you use Control-H ?

There is an Terminal -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Delete sends Ctrl-H

I'm not sure if this will work well with every thing you use with your Terminal, so use with caution.

I am NOT a Python person, so I'm guessing here. Maybe the terminfo profile for your TERM environment setting does not properly tell Python what the Delete character is.

Next idea is the 'stty' settings

stty -a

My Terminal says

erase = ^?

is the erase character, where ^? is what I always see for the delete key on just about every Unix system I've used in the last 15 years.

NOTE: I did enter Python

python

and was able to delete stuff I had typed. It worked as I would expect.

My TERM environment variable is xterm-16color. I also tried xterm-color, xterm, vt100, and then I stopped.

When you switched the Terminal preference from Delete is Control-H to unchecked, did you try creating a new Terminal session? Or even quitting and restarting Terminal? Sometimes preferences such as this affect the Next Terminal session. Just want to turn over every possible "Rock".

My python is the Mac OS X 10.5.8 version

/usr/bin/python

My locale is I assume the default for American English. The locale command says says

locale
LANG=
LC_COLLATE="C"
LC_CTYPE="C"
LC_MESSAGES="C"
LC_MONETARY="C"
LC_NUMERIC="C"
LC_TIME="C"
LC_ALL=

I DO NOT have a .inputrc (no readline customization).

My keyboard is the MacBook keyboard.

Just checking if you are getting 0x7F as the delete key. This is a situation where to only way out is to close the Terminal Window or Tab.

stty raw; hexdump

now just keep hitting the Delete key until you get a line of output (16 Deletes should do it):

0000000 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f 7f

But because you put your session into Raw mode, you can not kill the hexdump command. So the only way out is to just close the Terminal session (Command-W), or Quit Terminal.

If you can think of any other variables we could check, I'll be glad to provide what I can.

Or maybe someone else will just provide a solution 🙂

Message was edited by: BobHarris

The /Systrem Python (/usr/bin/python) does not use GNU readline. Its command line editing is quite primitive, and I guess it does not have the "delete to the right" function.

If you really need "delete to the right", then you can emulate it by
"cursor right" + "backspace".

Go to Terminal > Preferences > Settings > Keyboad,
select "forward delete" from the list,
push the Edit button (or double click the Action field),
select "send string to shell:" , and type
"ESC" "[" "C" "ctrl-H" (four key strokes), or
"right-arrow" "ctrl-H" (two key storkes). The tex box should look like

 [C 

Then push the OK button.

Now hitting the "forward delete" key in the Python interpreter will "delete to the right" unless the cursor is already at the end of the line, in which case it acts as "backspace".
But this setting may break the behavior of the "forward delete" key in other software, such as vi editor.

I have removed a MacPython installation

Are there anything wrong with MacPython?

Unless you expricitly specify PYTHONPATH, Apple's python (/usr/bin/python) uses only
/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/ and
/Library/Python/2.x/site-packages/,
while MacPython (/usr/local/bin/python) uses only
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/,
and they should not interfare, in theory.

If you are using Apple's python, and if you have installed newer versions of pre-installed packages (such as numpy) into /Library/Python/2.x/site-packages/, then you should
export PYTHONPATH=/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH
so that the newer version is used instead of the version pre-installed by Apple.
Of course if you are using MacPython then never include /Library/Python/2.5/site-packages in PYTHONPATH.

I have never used PyROOT, so I don't know whether it works with Apple's python orr not. Did you ask in PyROOT comunity?

By the way, if you want to use IDLE with Apple's python, then just type
/usr/bin/python -m idlelib.idle
to your shell prompt. It has much better command line editing support.

but now I cannot write the letter 'b'

I can't understand what your problem is.
Which version of MacPython are you using? Where did you get it from?

Anyway, if your objective is to use PyROOT, then you must first make it clear whether PyROOT can be
installed for Apple's Python or not. Install MacPython only if you really need it.

If your objective is to have better command line editing in python interpreter, then try IDLE as
suggested in my previous post. You don't need MacPython to use IDLE.

You never said "Forward Delete" until now!

I'm not a Forward Delete kind of guy, so I'll pass control over to Jun T.
who seems to have some ideas.