On Python 2.7.8, on Windows 7, if I start up the Python interactive console using the flags -i -u -c, nothing else will be considered valid syntax from that point forward.

My understanding is:

-i tells Python to enter interactive mode after it's done running whatever else it's told to do
-u tells Python to not buffer output
-c tells Python to treat any further arguments as Python code and to run it
None of these flags should be causing the issues that I'm seeing, I don't think.

Example:

$ python -i -u -c "print('Test')"
Test
>>> print('verify')
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    print('verify')
                ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

This doesn't occur on my computer running OS X Mavericks (10.9.4) and Python 2.7.6 which leads me to think this may be a platform or version specific issue...

I checked a few other combinations of flags:

-i -c works fine.
-u has the same issue as described in my opening message.

This occurs in both cmd and PowerShell, running as admin.

Sorry for multiple consecutive posts... I don't see a way to edit prior posts. The stack trace I posted in my first message has the arrow in the wrong spot. It should actually be pointing to the first space after the closing brace.

Here's a simpler (and correct) stack trace:

$ python -u
>>> print("Test")
  File "<stdin>", line 1
    print("Test")
                 ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

I found someone else describing the same behavior in 2.4 here, I guess the conclusion is it isn't a bug:

http://bytes.com/topic/python/answers/162599-windows-python-2-4-unbuffered-flag-causes-syntaxerror-interactive-sessions