Ubuntu 5.10 "Breezy Badger"
Linux 2.6.10
Python 2.4.2

Running pydoc on some scripts (for example regextest.py
as supplied with python) just seems to hang:

pydoc
/usr/share/doc/python2.4/examples/Demo/comparisons/regextest.py

Feeding it EOF (Ctrl-D) makes it actually generate
documentation and exit.

But as well as showing the documentation, I get output
which appears to be the script actually having run with
itself as an argument!

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Some scripts are broken, this one is missing a check to see if it's a script 
or a module:
if __name__ == "__main__": main()

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So I guess this is a bug report for that missing check in
regextest.py in the python distribution.

Is running a script which is missing this check an inherent
feature of how pydoc works then?

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pydoc imports modules, it doesn't run scripts.  It just so happens that 
regextest isn't written correctly and does things it shouldn't do when 
imported.

You should file a new bug on regextest.py, or at least change the summary 
accordingly... but a new bug would end up in the summary again, and 
would be more likely to be fixed.

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I'm feeling generous tonight. :-)

Thanks for the report.  I updated regextest program.

Committed revision 41414.
Committed revision 41415. (2.4)