How can I permanently store commands in the Python REPL/prompt?

Question

Is there a way to store commands in Python?

For example, to store a bash command I can put:

# in .bash_profile
alias myproject="cd /path/to/my/project"

$ project

Is there a way to store a command, for example something like this:

'store' profile="from userprofile.models import Profile"

>>> profile

which will work in the Python command prompt whenever/wherever it is opened? Thank you.

Answer 1

In Bash, I'm assuming you are defining this aliases in .profile, .bash_rc or a similar file. In that file, add the line

export PYTHONSTARTUP=~/.python_rc.py

This will allow you to create a .python_rc.py file that is included whenever you start a session in the Python prompt/REPL. (It will not be included when running Python scripts, becasue it could be disruptive to do so.)

Inside that file, you could define a function for the command you want to save. In your case what you're doing is actually a touch more complicated than it seems, so you'd need to use a few more lines:

def profile():
    global Profile
    import sys
    if "path/to/your/project" not in sys.path:
        sys.path.append("path/to/your/project")
    from userprofile.models import Profile

After doing this, you'll be able to call profile() to import Profile in the Python prompt.