How do I reset the underscore in an interactive session?

Question

I have overriden the underscore variable _ in the Python interactive interpreter. How can I make the underscore work again without restarting the interpreter?

Answer 1

del _

A global _ shadows the builtin _, so deleting the global reveals the builtin again.

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It's also worth noting that it doesn't actually stop working, it's just not accessible. You can import builtins to access it:

>>> _ = 'foobar'
>>> 22
22
>>> _
'foobar'
>>> import builtins
>>> 23
23
>>> builtins._
23