How to exit a script in Spyder?

Question

I am using WinPython's Spyder. When I am creating a new script with the command exit(), and run it there, this command kills the kernel:

It seems the kernel died unexpectedly. Use 'Restart kernel' to continue using this console.

What's the right way to stop a script in this runtime environment?

Answer 1

Update: In at least Spyder 5.0.3, the call to sys.exit() does not kill the kernel any more! (Thanks to @bhushan for the info!)

For earlier versions, the following still holds:

To exit the script, one can

• raise a silent exception with raise SystemExit(0) (without traceback)

• or a custom exception like raise Exception('my personal exit message')

• or encapsulate the code into a function (e.g. main) and use return inside.

If one wants to keep the call to exit() in the script, one can

• Switch to "Execute in a new dedicated Python interpreter" or

• register an exit handler at the IPython console:

    def exit_handler(): raise Exception("exit()"), get_ipython().ask_exit = exit_handler