Decide the fate of undocumented script behavior of some modules

There are three dozens of standard modules that can be called via python -m and their documentation doesn't mention it. They can be grouped into five categories:

• kind of smoke tests:

  • codecs: performs stdin:latin1 → utf-8 → latin1 → stdout passthrough edit: it just wraps stdin and stdout then just exits the script (gh-94233)
  • curses.has_key: "Compare the output of this implementation and the ncurses has_key, on platforms where has_key is already available"
  • pprint: measures performance (gh-94613 → https://github.com/python/pyperformance/pull/222)
  • random: evaluates output statistics of supported generators

• full-fledged crossplatform utils for admin-like users and small automation:

  • asyncio: like python but allows to use await in top-level script code
  • cProfile, profile: runs a script under the profiler
  • encodings.rot_13: a stream converter
  • filecmp: a crossplatform file comparison utility
  • fileinput: prints specified files one by another annotating lines with their source
  • http.server: makes a directory available as a site; useful to quickly test a static site with relative links
  • mimetypes: useful for batch processing of files (maybe) (gh-93097)
  • modulefinder: the objdump but for Python source files
  • netrc: prints content of .netrc for a current user
  • pdb
  • platform: returns a single line like Windows-10-10.0.19044-SP0; can be useful in automation
  • quopri: a stream converter
  • tabnanny
  • wsgiref.simple_server - the same as http.server but for APIs; pases a single request and exits

• both:

  • base64:
    • a stream converter
    • base64 -t encodes/decodes Aladdin:open sesame and tests if the result is the same as the original (gh-94230)

• demos with no real world application:

  • curses.textpad: shows an input area; when a user closes it, prints the text back
  • ftplib: a simple one-pass FTP downloader (uses ~/.netrc for login)
  • getopt: just passes arguments to getopt() The module is no longer maintained after gh-105735
  • imaplib: sending emails to a dead end has no sence but can be used to check if a email client works or got broken
  • shlex: parses stdin using shlex() and prints the list into stdout
  • smtplib: a simple e-mail client
  • xmlrpc.server: serves a datetime service

• complex matter; better leave untouched:

  • idlelib.*
  • tkinter.*
  • turtledemo.*
  • pstats

Eggs and to-be-removed modules aren't listed.

We need to decide what to do with all these undocumented categories.

I propose the following:

• move smoke tests into test module with deduplication
• for full-fledged utils, add Command-Line Usage into the docs like in https://docs.python.org/3/library/ast.html#command-line-usage or https://docs.python.org/3/library/trace.html#command-line-usage
• move demos into the docs of the corresponding module

Linked PRs

• gh-131039
• gh-131068
• gh-131069
• gh-131080
• gh-131081
• gh-131097
• gh-131099
• gh-131130
• gh-131133
• gh-131136
• gh-131137
• gh-131144
• gh-131273
• gh-131408
• gh-132266

Commencez par examiner les catégories de modules indiquées et les sections existantes « Command-Line Usage » dans la documentation de ast et trace. Consultez les PRs associés pour comprendre quels éléments sont déjà pris en charge, puis déterminez si chaque comportement restant relève du module de test ou de la documentation du module correspondant. Le travail est considéré comme terminé lorsque le sort de chaque catégorie indiquée a été décidé et que les modifications de documentation ou de tests qui en résultent sont consignées.