On page: http://docs.python.org/tutorial/interpreter.html there is this paragraph: The interpreter’s line-editing features usually aren’t very sophisticated. On Unix, whoever installed the interpreter may have enabled support for the GNU readline library, which adds more elaborate interactive editing and history features. Perhaps the quickest check to see whether command line editing is supported is typing Control-P to the first Python prompt you get. If it beeps, you have command line editing; see Appendix Interactive Input Editing and History Substitution for an introduction to the keys. If nothing appears to happen, or if ^P is echoed, command line editing isn’t available; you’ll only be able to use backspace to remove characters from the current line. The beeping is not very adequate way to judge whether one has command line editing supported, because most people disable the beep whatsoever on their Lunux installations (or turn the beep voume to zero). Since I am a beginner, I can't propose a replacement text for the documentation. HTH -- Pavel Tankov