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Data entered through input() in REPL is written to ~/.python_history #159225
Description
Bug report
[adrian@eluvian:~]> python
Python 3.15.0 (main, Oct 9 2026, 23:29:57) [GCC 16.2.1 20260926] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> input()
hello world, this may be secret!
'hello world, this may be secret!'
>>>
[adrian@eluvian:~]> tail -n2 ~/.python_history
input()
hello world, this may be secret!I know there's getpass.getpass() for secrets, but I'm sure it's not uncommon that people just run quick&dirty snippeds in the python repl where they use input() to enter a password without expecting it to be written to their history.
The security aspect aside, it also feels very dirty because unlike the rest of content in the history file, a line entered through input() is very unlikely to make sense when executed as python code (e.g. from the REPL history).
CPython versions tested on:
3.12, 3.15
Operating systems tested on:
Linux
Activity
hugovk commentedon Oct 12, 2026
Duplicate of #71057?
BHUVANSH855 commentedon Oct 12, 2026
This appears related to #71057, but could we verify whether
readline.set_auto_history(False)also preventsinput()responses from being recorded when using the default PyREPL? PyREPL has a separate history implementation, so the behavior may differ.lazerg commentedon Oct 12, 2026
I tried it on 3.14.8 with the default REPL and
PYTHON_HISTORYpointed at a temp file.readline.set_auto_history(False)doesn't help there, theinput()reply still ends up in the history file. PyREPL replacesbuiltins.inputwith its own reader (readline.py#L640-L641), and that reader appends every line to the shared history (historical_reader.py#L411-L412), so the C module's flag is never consulted.The private
_pyrepl.readline.set_auto_history(False)does stop it, but it turns off history for everything typed afterwards, not justinput(). Same with the C module underPYTHON_BASIC_REPL=1. So right now there's no way to skip only theinput()lines.edvilme commentedon Oct 12, 2026
Hi if people are not planning to already, would love to work on this :)
edvilme commentedon Oct 12, 2026
I wonder if the behavior we want is to disable history while on
input()mode, or if we should still allow using up/down arrows while oninput()mode but just not adding anything to itpythongh-159225: Cover input history isolation and interrupted reads
gh-159225: PyREPL input should not write to history (#159263)
[3.14] gh-159225: PyREPL input should not write to history (GH-159263) (
[3.15] gh-159225: PyREPL input should not write to history (GH-159263) (