What does pyinstaller do with “builtins.help”

[Blair]

I am trying to build a simple Python interactive console application using PyInstaller.

I would like the Python `help()` to be available, but it seems that PyInstaller somehow changes the contents of builtins and removes help.

Here is a simple script that opens a Python window. When I run this script directly in a Windows Command Prompt, I can access help() from the interactive session.

import code code.InteractiveConsole().interact()

However, if I build an executable by

PyInstaller test.py

and run it, help is not available. And when I look at the contents of builtins I see that it is not included.

I am on Windows 10, using the latest Python 3.8 release.

(This question has also been posted here: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/63402450/what-does-pyinstaller-do-with-builtins-help)

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[Nico Zanferrari]

Hi Blair,

this is due to the fake site.py that PyInstaller uses - it also breaks the quit() and license function in the interactive shell. You need to change it a bit, like what I've done here.

Nico

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[Blair]

Excellent. Problem solved. Thank you Nico :-)