Why is semicolon allowed in this python snippet?

Python does not warrant the use of semicolons to end statements. So why is this (below) allowed?

import pdb; pdb.set_trace()

Python does not require semi-colons to terminate statements. Semi colons can be used to delimit statements if you wish to put multiple statements on the same line.

Now, why is this allowed? It's a simple design decision. I don't think Python needs this semi-colon thing, but somebody thought it would be nice to have and added it to the language.

http://docs.python.org/reference/compound_stmts.html

Compound statements consist of one or more ‘clauses.’ A clause consists of a header and a ‘suite.’ The clause headers of a particular compound statement are all at the same indentation level. Each clause header begins with a uniquely identifying keyword and ends with a colon. A suite is a group of statements controlled by a clause. A suite can be one or more semicolon-separated simple statements on the same line as the header, following the header’s colon, or it can be one or more indented statements on subsequent lines. Only the latter form of suite can contain nested compound statements; the following is illegal, mostly because it wouldn’t be clear to which if clause a following else clause would belong:

if test1: if test2: print x

Also note that the semicolon binds tighter than the colon in this context, so that in the following example, either all or none of the print statements are executed:

if x < y < z: print x; print y; print z 

Summarizing:

compound_stmt ::=  if_stmt
                   | while_stmt
                   | for_stmt
                   | try_stmt
                   | with_stmt
                   | funcdef
                   | classdef
                   | decorated
suite         ::=  stmt_list NEWLINE | NEWLINE INDENT statement+ DEDENT
statement     ::=  stmt_list NEWLINE | compound_stmt
stmt_list     ::=  simple_stmt (";" simple_stmt)* [";"]