Pasting multiple lines into IDLE

Question

Is there a way to paste a block of code into IDLE? Pasting line by line works, but sometimes I'd like to paste many lines at once. When I try, IDLE reads the first line and ignores the rest.

>>> a = 1
b = 2
c = 3

>>> 
>>> a
1
>>> b

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#3>", line 1, in <module>
    b
NameError: name 'b' is not defined

Answer 1

Probably not the most beautiful procedure, but this works:

cmds = '''

paste your commands, followed by ''':

a = 1
b = 2
c = 3
'''

Then exec(cmds) will execute them.

Or more directly,

exec('''

then paste your commands, followed by '''):

a = 1
b = 2
c = 3
''')

It's just a trick, maybe there's a more official, elegant way.