Why does pressing Ctrl-backslash result in core dump?

python coredump backslash ctrl
Chiel ten Brinke picture Chiel ten Brinke · Oct 8, 2013 · Viewed 10.9k times · Source

When I'm in a python application (the python shell, for instance), pressing Ctrl\ results in

>>> Quit (core dumped)

Why is this, and how can I avoid this? It is very inconvenient if application bails out whenever I press Ctrl\ by accident.

Answer

Robᵩ picture Robᵩ · Oct 8, 2013

CTRL-\ is the Linux key that generates the QUIT signal. Generally, that signal causes a program to terminate and dump core. This is a feature of UNIX and Linux, wholly unrelated to Python. (For example, try sleep 30 followed by CTRL-\.)

If you want to disable that feature, use the stty command.

From the Linux command line, before Python starts:

stty quit undef

Related questions

How do I find what is using memory in a Python process in a production system?

My production system occasionally exhibits a memory leak I have not been able to reproduce in a development environment. I've used a Python memory profiler (specifically, Heapy) with some success in the development environment, but it can't help me with …

Read More
How do I list all files of a directory?

How can I list all files of a directory in Python and add them to a list?

Read More
Iterating over dictionaries using 'for' loops

I am a bit puzzled by the following code: d = {'x': 1, 'y': 2, 'z': 3} for key in d: print key, 'corresponds to', d[key] What I don't understand is the key portion. How does Python recognize that it needs only to …

Read More