In site.py, line 477, I find this code:

        # Reading the initialization (config) file may not be enough to set a
        # completion key, so we set one first and then read the file
        if 'libedit' in getattr(readline, '__doc__', ''):
            readline.parse_and_bind('bind ^I rl_complete')

I am using pyreadline on Windows, where readline.__doc__ is None.

So the above code crashes with this exception:

Python 3.4.0a1 (v3.4.0a1:46535f65e7f3, Aug  3 2013, 22:57:30) [MSC v.1600 64 bit (AMD64)] on win32
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
Failed calling sys.__interactivehook__
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python34-64\lib\site.py", line 477, in register_readline
    if 'libedit' in getattr(readline, '__doc__', ''):
TypeError: argument of type 'NoneType' is not iterable

I don't think __doc__ can ever not exist, so that code is just wrong :)

Here's a patch with a comment about using pyreadline on Windows.

Should the note in the readline documentation[1] be updated?

[1] http://docs.python.org/3.4/library/readline.html

(See also issue 5845 and msg123703)

The use of libedit is not restricted to OS X; in particular, some other BSD-derived distributions use it.  There are some other open issues regarding generalization of support for libedit.  So I don't think the proposed comments should be added to site.py.  The docs for the readline module do not give a detailed code example (yet) so there's nothing to update there (yet).

I suggest to remove the comment part from the patch and then apply it.

New changeset 3070fdd58645 by R David Murray in branch 'default':
#18852: Handle readline.__doc__ being None in site.py readline activation.
http://hg.python.org/cpython/rev/3070fdd58645

Done.  Thanks, Berker.

Thanks David! I had forgotten about the issue.