Simon WillisonJun 29, 2023
TIL there are dozens of neat little command-line tools hidden away in the Python standard library, available to run on any machine that has a Python installation https://til.simonwillison.net/python/stdlib-cli-tools
CLI tools hidden in the Python standard library

Seth Michael Larson pointed out that the Python gzip module can be used as a CLI tool like this:

Show threadSimon Willison
"python -m tokenize file.py" and "python -m ast file.py" are particularly fun
Jun 29, 2023 at 12:27amWeb
Show threadBrian  Jun 29, 2023

@simon http.server is my go-to when I'm toying with an idea that doesn't deserve a full workspace yet. Love that module.

I didn't know about calendar. Since it can spit out nicely formatted HTML, this is probably going to be my new method of printing full-year calendars for school. Thanks for that tip 👍

Show threadTim HansonJun 29, 2023
@simon Did not know about the tokenize and ast modules -- very useful!
Show threadOskarJun 29, 2023

@simon

GPT-4 gives a good outline of each tool's functionality, and when reminded of the -m functionality is capable of providing additional insights per module: https://chat.openai.com/share/b0923fbc-a11f-4cb7-8656-1cacf823db75

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