Entering a REPL from a PDB Python debugger

Something I have grown accustomed to when debugging Ruby code is the ability to jump into an irb session right from a breakpoint. With byebug this pretty much happens immediately. With pry, running irb will have the desired effect.

When I started getting to the point where I needed to debug Python code I was writing, I almost immediately had to find out how to do the same thing with pdb - I wasn’t getting anywhere with print() and the p, pp commands built into pdb.

It turns out that the Python debugging module (pdb) does have a built in command to drop to a repl with the context of the breakpoint - it’s just a slightly differerent terminology to Ruby.

To drop to a REPL from a PDB breakpoint, the interact command is what you’re after.

def hello_world():
  name = "you"
  pdb.set_trace()
  print(f'Hey {name}')