Compile (but do not run) a Python script [duplicat

Question

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How can I check the syntax of Python script without executing it?

How do I compile a Python script without running it? I just want to check the script for syntax errors. I was hoping for a simple command line switch, but I didn't see anything in python --help. I'd like an answer for both Python 2 and Python 3.

Answer 1

py_compile — Compile Python source files

import py_compile
py_compile.compile('my_script.py')

Answer 2

python -m py_compile script.py

Answer 3

One way is to do something like this (for test.py):

python -c "__import__('compiler').parse(open('test.py').read())"

This works for Python 2.x.

Answer 4

You can use pylint to find syntax errors as well as more subtle errors, such as accessing undefined variables in some rarely-used conditional branch.