python "help" command failed in iPython console

Issue Report Checklist

• Searched the issues page for similar reports
• Read the relevant sections of the Spyder Troubleshooting Guide and followed its advice
• Reproduced the issue after updating with conda update spyder (or pip, if not using Anaconda)
• Could not reproduce inside jupyter qtconsole (if console-related)
• Tried basic troubleshooting (if a bug/error)
  • Restarted Spyder
  • Reset preferences with spyder --reset
  • Reinstalled the latest version of Anaconda
  • Tried the other applicable steps from the Troubleshooting Guide
• Completed the Problem Description, Steps to Reproduce and Version sections below

Problem Description

What steps reproduce the problem?

1. type “?” in ipython console, it shows “help -> Access Python’s own help system”
2. type “help()”, it failed with “NameError: name ‘help’ is not defined”

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?

Paste Traceback/Error Below (if applicable)

PASTE TRACEBACK HERE

Versions

• Spyder version: 4.2.1
• Python version: 3.9.1
• Qt version:
• PyQt version:
• Operating System name/version: macOS 10.15.7 (Catalina)

Dependencies

PASTE DEPENDENCIES HERE

[mrclary]

It looks like help is a class object from lib/python3.9/_sitebuiltins.py and is made available in the site.py module by the definition builtins.help = _sitebuiltins._Helper(). py2app uses a stripped-down version of site.py for application builds that does not include this definition. I’ve created a new issue at ronaldoussoren/py2app#337.

In the mean time, I’ll create a workaround to resolve this issue.

[ccordoba12]

Thanks a lot for your help @mrclary!