compile('1\n2\n', '','single') == compile('1\n', '','single'). That is, it ignores the second statement ('2\n'), without offering a way for the caller to detect this. Considering that 'single' is primarily used to emulate the behaviour of the Python interpreter, most of the time, giving it multiple statements is an impossibility, and so that case doesn't matter and could raise an exception without affecting existing code. For example, the code module meets this description, as do debuggers and such. However, in cases where it _is_ possible to give the compiler multiple statements, the user should be warned that his input isn't valid, somehow. For example, the following doctest will mysteriously fail, because it was written incorrectly (doctest uses 'single'): >>> import sys ... sys.stdout.write('foo\n') foo This is because the second statement in the doctest was silently discarded by compile(). It might not always be clear to users how to fix this, and I think this kind of non-obvious error would exist in any use of 'single' that can in theory involve multiple statements, through user error or program bug. So I'd appreciate it if compile() raised an exception in this case. Perhaps SyntaxError or ValueError. Devin