PYTHON3(1)

👑 PYTHON3 👑

okay so bestie, this page comes straight out of the scalene manual, section 1 — the one for the command-line girlies. it's the whole tea on python3 and every flag she'll take from you. grab a snack, we're going through all of it 💅

---

✨ NAME ✨

python3 — Memory Profiler for Python 🫶

---

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

the vibe check on how you actually call her:

usage: python3 [option] ... [-c cmd | -m mod | file | -] [arg] ...

literally every one of these options also has an environment-variable twin, and she will list them for you, because she's thoughtful like that 💖

---

🎀 OPTIONS 🎀

• -b — issue warnings when you convert bytes/bytearray to str, or when you compare bytes/bytearray with str, or bytes with int. (and -bb: issue errors instead, no chill at all 💀)
• -B — don't write .pyc files on import; also PYTHONDONTWRITEBYTECODE=x
• -c cmd — program passed in as string (terminates option list)
• -d — turn on parser debugging output (for experts only, and it only works on debug builds); also PYTHONDEBUG=x
• -E — ignore PYTHON* environment variables (such as PYTHONPATH)
• -h — print this help message and exit (also -? or --help)
• -i — inspect interactively after running script; forces a prompt even if stdin does not appear to be a terminal; also PYTHONINSPECT=x
• -I — isolate Python from the user's environment (implies -E, -P and -s) 🔒
• -m mod — run library module as a script (terminates option list)
• -O — remove assert and __debug__-dependent statements; add .opt-1 before the .pyc extension; also PYTHONOPTIMIZE=x
• -OO — do the -O changes and also discard docstrings; add .opt-2 before the .pyc extension
• -P — don't prepend a potentially unsafe path to sys.path; also PYTHONSAFEPATH
• -q — don't print version and copyright messages on interactive startup
• -s — don't add user site directory to sys.path; also PYTHONNOUSERSITE=x
• -S — don't imply 'import site' on initialization
• -u — force the stdout and stderr streams to be unbuffered; this option has no effect on stdin; also PYTHONUNBUFFERED=x
• -v — verbose (trace import statements); also PYTHONVERBOSE=x. can be supplied multiple times to increase verbosity 🗣️
• -V — print the Python version number and exit (also --version). when given twice, print more information about the build 👀
• -W arg — warning control; arg is action:message:category:module:lineno; also PYTHONWARNINGS=arg
• -x — skip first line of source, allowing use of non-Unix forms of #!cmd
• -X opt — set implementation-specific option
• --check-hash-based-pycs always|default|never — control how Python invalidates hash-based .pyc files
• --help-env — print help about Python environment variables and exit
• --help-xoptions — print help about implementation-specific -X options and exit
• --help-all — print complete help information and exit 🎉

---

🫶 ARGUMENTS 🫶

• file — program read from script file
• - — program read from stdin (default; interactive mode if a tty)
• arg ... — arguments passed to program in sys.argv[1:]

---

and that's the whole thing, bestie, you ate that 🍓 no notes, main character energy from start to finish ✨ this was python3 1.5.54, dated March 2026, living her best life in section 1 of the scalene manual — mwah, take care of her, she's iconic 💜🌈💅