Exit status is always 0 when started as a Python module

[szepeviktor]

When started as python -m codespell_lib codespell always exits with 0.

Is it intentional?

[szepeviktor]

I install it in my user's home pip install --user and don't want to "$(python -m site --user-base)/bin/codespell"

[DimitriPapadopoulos]

Indeed:

$ codespell -I non_existent_file
ERROR: cannot find ignore-words file: non_existent_file
[...]
$ echo $?
0
$ 
$ python -m codespell_lib -I non_existent_file
ERROR: cannot find ignore-words file: non_existent_file
[...]
$ echo $?
64
$ 

But the way, isn't $(python -m site --user-base)/bin in the PATH by default on most Linux distributions?

[szepeviktor]

But the way, isn't $(python -m site --user-base)/bin in the PATH by default on most Linux distributions?

Could be ...
But I like my computer to be extra simple.

[DimitriPapadopoulos]

The codespell executable $(python -m site --user-base)/bin/codespell looks like this:

from codespell_lib import _script_main
if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.argv[0] = re.sub(r'(-script\.pyw|\.exe)?$', '', sys.argv[0])
    sys.exit(_script_main())

File codespell_lib/__main__.py looks like this:

from ._codespell import _script_main

if __name__ == "__main__":
    _script_main()

Does changing the last line help?

if __name__ == "__main__":
    sys.exit(_script_main())

[szepeviktor]

Yes.

[DimitriPapadopoulos]

Also, do you know if that's right thing to do? I cannot find definitive information in the relevant documentation, although some examples do call sys.exit():

• https://docs.python.org/3/library/__main__.html#main-py-in-python-packages

[szepeviktor]

🤔

[szepeviktor]

The only thing I can think of is: when codespell is used as a library it should not exit (terminate)

[DimitriPapadopoulos]

My wrong, it is (partially at least) documented:

main functions are often used to create command-line tools by specifying them as entry points for console scripts. When this is done, pip inserts the function call into a template script, where the return value of main is passed into sys.exit(). For example:

 sys.exit(main())

Since the call to main is wrapped in sys.exit(), the expectation is that your function will return some value acceptable as an input to sys.exit(); typically, an integer or None (which is implicitly returned if your function does not have a return statement).

It's just that the above refers to the template script $(python -m site --user-base)/bin/codespell as far as I can tell, not to python -m. Also, I would have expected different wording such as "you MUST".

Can you please create a pull request that adds sys.exit()? I should be able to merge it rapidly - unlike my own pull requests.

[szepeviktor]

Done 🍏