In Python, there are two similarly-named functions, exit()
and sys.exit()
. What's the difference and when should I use one over the other?
exit
is a helper for the interactive shell - sys.exit
is intended for use in programs.
The
site
module (which is imported automatically during startup, except if the-S
command-line option is given) adds several constants to the built-in namespace (e.g.exit
). They are useful for the interactive interpreter shell and should not be used in programs.
Technically, they do mostly the same: raising SystemExit
. sys.exit
does so in sysmodule.c:
static PyObject *
sys_exit(PyObject *self, PyObject *args)
{
PyObject *exit_code = 0;
if (!PyArg_UnpackTuple(args, "exit", 0, 1, &exit_code))
return NULL;
/* Raise SystemExit so callers may catch it or clean up. */
PyErr_SetObject(PyExc_SystemExit, exit_code);
return NULL;
}
While exit
is defined in site.py and _sitebuiltins.py, respectively.
class Quitter(object):
def __init__(self, name):
self.name = name
def __repr__(self):
return 'Use %s() or %s to exit' % (self.name, eof)
def __call__(self, code=None):
# Shells like IDLE catch the SystemExit, but listen when their
# stdin wrapper is closed.
try:
sys.stdin.close()
except:
pass
raise SystemExit(code)
__builtin__.quit = Quitter('quit')
__builtin__.exit = Quitter('exit')
Note that there is a third exit option, namely os._exit, which exits without calling cleanup handlers, flushing stdio buffers, etc. (and which should normally only be used in the child process after a fork()
).