Intro

Trey Hunner shared this insightful article where one can take advantage of one functionality that some python modules bring.

Please check his article if you want to deep dive on the topic.

How it works

Running Python with the -m command-line argument tells Python to run a given Python module as if it were a Python script.

One can execute the following command line to spin up a web server to that list local files

python -m http.server

Depending on the python module you may have a quick way to execute task.

python -m json.tool file.json

The previous example allow you to pretty format the file.json quickly

Module List

Here’s a quick summary of every command-line tool in Python:

Module/Script	Purpose	Category
http.server	Start a simple web server	General
webbrowser	Launch your web browser	General
json.tool	Nicely format JSON data	General
calendar	Show a command-line calendar	General
uuid	Like uuidgen CLI utility	Linux-like
sqlite3	Like sqlite3 CLI utility	Linux-like
zipfile	Like zip & unzip CLI utilities	Linux-like
gzip	Like gzip & gunzip CLI utilities	Linux-like
tarfile	Like the tar CLI utility	Linux-like
base64	Like the base64 CLI utility	Linux-like
ftplib	Like the ftp utility	Linux-like
smtplib	Like the sendmail utility	Linux-like
poplib	Like using curl to read email	Linux-like
imaplib	Like using curl to read email	Linux-like
telnetlib	Like the telnetutility	Linux-like
pip	Install third-party Python packages	Python
venv	Create a virtual environment	Python
pdb	Run the Python Debugger	Python
unittest	Run unittest tests in a directory	Python
pydoc	Show documentation for given string	Python
doctest	Run doctests for a given Python file	Python
ensurepip	Install pip if it’s not installed	Python
idlelib	Launch Python’s IDLE graphical REPL	Python
zipapp	Turn Python module into runnable ZIP	Python
python -m compileall	Pre-compile Python files to bytecode	Python
tokenize	Break Python module into “tokens”	Inspect code
ast	Show abstract syntax tree for code	Inspect code
dis	Disassemble Python code to bytecode	Inspect code
inspect	inspect source code of a Python object	Inspect code
pyclbr	See overview of a module’s objects	Inspect code
asyncio	Launch an asyncio-aware REPL	Deep Python
cProfile	Profile a Python program	Deep Python
profile	Profile Python program with Python	Deep Python
pstats	Show stats on cProfile-generated file	Deep Python
pickle	Readably display pickle file contents	Deep Python
pickletools	Disassemble a pickle file	Deep Python
tabnanny	Check file for mixed tabs & spaces	Deep Python
this	Display the Zen of Python (PEP 20)	Fun
__hello__	Print Hello world!	Fun
antigravity	Open XKCD 353 in a web browser	Fun
turtledemo	See turtle module demos	Fun
code	Run a Python REPL	Python
runpy	Run a Python module as a script	Python
timeit	Time a Python expression	Python
site	See “site” information about Python	Deep Python
sysconfig	Show Python configuration details	Deep Python
platform	Display current platform information	General
mimetypes	Show file mimetype/extension details	General
quopri	Encode/decode raw email data	General
filecmp	Compare contents of 2 directories	General
encodings.rot_13	ROT-13 encode/decode text	General

These are just the Python scripts included in the Python standard library. Any third-party module that can be run as a script can also be launched via python -m MODULE_NAME as well.

References

• https://www.pythonmorsels.com/cli-tools
• https://www.pythonmorsels.com/making-main-function-python/