Looking for a reliable way to establish whether running in an IDE/interactive or simple script mode. If running as a script I want to turn off logging to screen.

What is “simple script mode”? I usually want to be able to turn on or off logging to stdout depending on operating system and/or if I am debugging. For this I use a command line option quite often.

[image] Detect if interactive or script mode Python Help See sys.ps1 . Unfortunately: print(sys.ps1, sys.ps2) ^^^^^^^ AttributeError: module 'sys' has no attribute 'ps1'

[image] Detect if interactive or script mode Python Help What is “simple script mode”? I usually want to be able to turn on or off logging to stdout depending on operating system and/or if I am debugging. For this I use a command line option quite often. …

[image] Nick: Unfortunately: print(sys.ps1, sys.ps2) ^^^^^^^ AttributeError: module 'sys' has no attribute 'ps1' I have used hasattr(sys, "ps1") many times in the past for this purpose

The documentation says “These are only defined if the interpreter is in interactive mode.” The test should be import sys if hasattr(sys, 'ps1'): print('We are in interactive mode.") You can also combine this with looking at __name__ import sys if __name__ == '__main__': print('Running …

[image] Nick: Unfortunately redirecting stdout doesn’t stop logging going to the screen. Then I guess you are logging to stderr not stdout. That is not uncommon. Try redirecting stderr python script.py 2>script.log on unix systems.

[image] Detect if interactive or script mode Python Help The documentation says “These are only defined if the interpreter is in interactive mode.” The test should be import sys if hasattr(sys, 'ps1'): print('We are in interactive mode.") You can also c…

[image] Detect if interactive or script mode Python Help Then I guess you are logging to stderr not stdout. That is not uncommon. Try redirecting stderr python script.py 2>script.log on unix systems. You are correct, I hadn’t noticed that. Setting sys.s…

Detect if interactive or script mode

Python Help

inventshah (Sachin S) June 10, 2026, 4:44pm 6

I have used hasattr(sys, "ps1") many times in the past for this purpose