I wanted to give VSC a try for developing some Python programs, where I only used PyCharm before. One of the most helpful features for me in Pycharm was the PyDev Console, where I can quickly try small snippets of code (think 3-10 lines), and adjust it to work the way I want it to.
I see VSC has a console, but it's much more like the regular IDLE console, where it's kind of hard to write these snippets of code (fixing something 2 lines prior for example is pretty much impossible).
I've been searching for an extension that'll give me a PyCharm-like console experience in VSC, but have been unable to find one. Is is out there? Or is there another way to get to the same result (like setting up a custom console based on the same PyDev console)?
Have you tried Jupyter Notebook and Interactive? There are provided by the Jupyter Extension which is bound with Python Extension.
Open the Command Palette (Ctrl+Shift+P), with the command of:
Jupyter: Create New Blank Notebook
Jupyter: Create Interactive Window
You can refer to the official docs for more details.
I want to call an api on a running jupyter notebook to create or edit an existing cell, and to run it. When this is done, the browser page should also update, to show both the contents of the cell, and the output.
The intended use case for this api is a plugin for the vim editor that will take highlighted lines and execute them. The motivation for using jupyter notebook is that will allow visualization of plots and images using matplotlib, even though both vim and the notebook will be running on a remote server. The user would have a browser page open to the notebook, and separately a terminal open potentially that is ssh'ed to the machine and editing python code.
VSCode does exactly this in its python interactive mode, but I prefer to use the vim editor natively than switch to vscode simply to be able to do this.
There are several plugins being actively developed for this, and without having used them, it seems only vimpyter interacts with jupyter on the browser. Others like jupyter-vim and vim-ipython open the notebook inside a vim buffer.
If you can live without inline plots I find confortable having a neoterm terminal buffer where I can send lines to and from IPython.
You could use vscode's built in jupyter notebook support to convert the notebook into a python file
this is not an exact answer, but I've written a couple Jupyter plugins that may be helpful to you in this endeavor, JupyterGraffiti and JupyterTerminals. Graffiti has an API you can call to execute some of its functions, and it supports inline terminals you can control. JupyterTerminals provides only those inline terminals, but also has buttons you can add to control them. You could start and run vim inside these terminals. (If it's useful an API could be added to the JupyterTerminals plugin like Graffiti has.)
I would like that iPython run automatically when I launch VSC instead of typing ipython and press enter in the terminal. The answer here How to set ipython/jupyter as the default python terminal for vscode? doesn't work as it is for windows but it shouldn't be really different. Also, is there something similar to the 'Execute' button in Spyder instead of typing %run filename ? Thanks !
I presume you mean you want to run the "Python Interactive Window" and not just an iPython console on startup
There is currently no way to run it on startup. At least no way without writing another extension that would run a command when opening a workspace. It would be simple for us to add one though. Probably a workspace setting. Can you log an issue here:
https://github.com/Microsoft/vscode-python/issues/new
For you second question, 'Execute' in spyder, we have 'Run Current File in Python Interactive Window'. This works on any python file. You can get to it through the context menu on a file or through the command palette.
Sadly the nice workflow of spyder is not provided by any official extension at the moment (as far as I know).
But you can implement the basics easily on your own by writing an extension. Even with no experience in TypeScript you can quickly build an extension which starts an IPython console as soon as you open a python file. I also managed to execute a startup script which implements the runfile method. VS Code also allows keybindings for your functions, so that you can almost work like you can with spyder.
Spyder modified the IPython terminal quite a bit though, so it won't feel exactly the same. But after all, everything there is open source so you could implement it yourself, which is what I'm trying to do in my free time.
I am teaching a class that uses VScode.
I am used to teaching using IDLE, and it is very nice for the students to be able to call their defined functions and run snippets of code in a python terminal, for debugging purposes.
In VScode, they I have been unable to do the same in a satisfactory way.
Option1: I can select all code, right click and run selection/line on terminal. This works for small snippets, but I cannot do it for the whole file (even after selecting the whole file with ctrl-A). On linux, this works, but on windows, it does not, unfortunately (and my students use windows)
Option2: I can use the debug console. This requires adding a breakpoint in one of the last lines of the file, and does not offer tab completion. It works, but is less convenient than IDLE.
Option 3: I can also add the commands to run to the bottom of the file (which is a least preferred alternative, given that is forgoes the interativity of the read-print-eval loop).
Is there any better solution? Installing a VScode extension would not be a problem.
Visual Code is just a text editor like your traditional notepad. to run and debug any kind program you need to install the particular extension for the programming language.
In your case you are using python so you need to install the extension of it. the best one is the "Python" which is developed by microsoft itself. go to your extensions manager and install this extension. right click and click "run python file in terminal" and you are all set.
this will run exactly as they run from the idle(which is default IDE provided by python itself) you can enter the arguments from the console itself. according to me this is the best way to run and debug python programs in VScode.
another way is that VScode shows which python version is installed on your computer on the left bottom side, click on it and the programs will use this interpreter.
out of all the ways listed here and many others, the best method is to run the program in the terminal which is the recommend by python itself and many other programmers.
this method is very simple. what you have to do is open up your command prompt and type the path where python.exe is installed and the type the path of the your program as the argument and press enter. you are done !
ex : C:\Python27\python.exe C:\Users\Username\Desktop\my_python_script.py
You can also pass your arguments of your program in the command prompt itself.
if you do not want to type all this and then just use the solution mentioned above.
hope that your query is solved.
regards
Is there a GUI for IPython that allows me to open/run/edit Python files? My way of working in IDLE is to have two windows open: the shell and a .py file. I edit the .py file, run it, and interact with the results in the shell.
Is it possible to use IPython like this? Or is there an alternative way of working?
When I'm working with python, I usually have two terminal windows open - one with IPython, and the other with a fairly customized Vim.
Two good resources:
http://blog.dispatched.ch/2009/05/24/vim-as-python-ide/
http://dancingpenguinsoflight.com/2009/02/python-and-vim-make-your-own-ide/
Though it sounds like what you want is IPython's magic function %ed/%edit:
An example of what you can do:
In [72]: %ed
IPython will make a temporary file named: c:\docume~1\wjwe312\locals~1\temp\ipython_edit_ar8veu.py
In the file I put:
x = "Hello World"
print 3
After saving and quitting the file:
Editing... done. Executing edited code...
3
Out[72]: "x = 'Hello world'\nprint 3\n"
In [73]: x
Out[73]: 'Hello world'
You can define functions or anything else - just remember that the contents of the file will be executed when you close it.
Another similar workflow is to cd to the directory containing your Python script that you're editing with your favorite editor. Then you can %run the script from within IPython and you'll have access to everything defined in the file. For instance, if you have the following in the file test.py in your /home/myself directory:
class Tester(object):
def __init__(self):
print "hi"
def knightme(name):
print "Hello, Sir ", name
Then you can do the following:
In [42]: cd /home/myself
/home/myself
In [43]: %run test.py # <Tab> autocomplete also works
In [44]: knightme('John')
Hello, Sir John
In [45]: t = Tester()
Hi
Either a mix or one of those workflows should give you something very similar to the way you're used to working in IDLE.
Spyder, previously known as SPyderlib / Spyder2
Pretty lightweight, fast and support almost all features you will ever need to work with a python project. It can edit and run .py files in an embedded IPython instance and then interact with them, set breakpoints, etc.
full-size
Try Spyder, I have spent all day trying to find an IDE which has the functionality of ipython and Spyder just kicks it out of the park..
Autocomplete is top notch right from install, no config files and all that crap, and it has an Ipython terminal in the corner for you to instantly run your code.
big thumbs up
Take a look at DreamPie. Might be what you are looking for.
Personally, I like PyScripter. Unfortunately, it only works on Windows, but also runs perfectly in Wine.
The latest version of IdleX supports IPython within IDLE, as well as the %edit magic. You can run your files from the IDLE editor within the IPython shell many ways, either by F5 (run everything), F9 (run a selection), or Ctrl+Enter (run a subcode).
sudo apt-get install ipython
Once you are done with installing ipython.
Start ipython from terminal (just hit ipython in the ternminal)
To run ravi.py file all you need to do is
%run ravi.py
If you like the work-flow under Matlab, then you probably should try the following two:
1, Try the combination of Spyder and Vim.
Edit python files in Vim (Spyder can reload the file automatically)
Run the code in Spyder (in the same interpreter, which is important for me):
Use F9 to run the current file
Ctrl+F9 to run the selected block
2, Use Vim + conque-shell. (on google code)
Open your preferred Python interpreter in Vim,
e.g., just :ConqueTermSplit python.
then visual select some Python code
press F9 to paste and run it in the Python interpreter buffer.
Note: a few more:
:ConqueTermVSplit python,
:ConqueTerm python
:ConqueTermVSplit rlwrap python
If your interpretor misses readline, you can use rlwrap.
You might like PySlices...
It's kind of a shell/editor hybrid that lets you save your session as special (barely) modified python files called .pyslice files.
It's now part of wxPython, so just install that (v2.8.11 or later) and run "python -m wx.py.PySlices" on the command line to launch it.
That said, I still end up using an external editor for scripts (geany).
I want to suggest excellent plugin for vim that makes two-way integration between Vim and IPython: vim-ipython.
From project page on http://github.com/ivanov/vim-ipython:
Using this plugin, you can send lines or whole files for IPython to execute, and also get back object introspection and word completions in Vim, like what you get with: object? and object. in IPython.
This plugin has one big limitation: it doesn't support python 3 (it's planned).
Personally, I use what #Wayne suggested, a combination of vim and ipython...
However, if you'd prefer a different approach, take a look at spyder.
As of the latest version (1.1) ipython should be fully integrated. If you download an earlier version, things will work fine with ipython as an external shell, but you won't get a few of spyder's nifty features (like viewing all of the currently defined variables in the workspace window).
Spyder is definitely a bit heavyweight, but it's an interesting project.
Another (very, very, new) similar project to take a look at is iep. It will (sort-of) work with ipython as shell, and I'd be willing to be bet that nicer ipython integration will be along before too long. At any rate, iep is essentially a more lightweight alternative to spyder.
Both of these are oriented towards scientific computing, and so have nice integration with things like matplotlib (and thus can automatically run gui main loops in a seperate thread). They're not quite like "normal" IDE's but they may fill the niche you're looking for quite nicely.
You can use the autoreload module in IPython to automatically reload code.
Open jupyter qtconsole or jupyter console and type:
%load_ext autoreload
%autoreload 2
from your_work_file import *
Now every time you save your_work_file.py, it will be automatically reloaded.
Hint: if you want this to happen automatically, put the followinglines in your ipython_config.py file:
c.InteractiveShellApp.extensions = ['autoreload']
c.InteractiveShellApp.exec_lines = ['%autoreload 2']
Try Ptpython. It has much better integration with VIM. You can directly edit in VIM by just pressing V. It also allows browsing your history.. so you can pretty much code in the shell, and incrementally build up your code.
If you are already familiar with ipython, you can check the advantages of ptpython here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDgIDslyAFM
I just use the exclamation mark (!) to run vi as a shell command
In [1]: !vi myScript.py
and when done with editing I just quit vi to get back to the Ipython shell.
To run the script one can then use
In [2]: %run myScript.py
as suggested in another answer and not !python ... because the Python version in ipython might be different from the one in the underlying shell.
If you want to dump some code in a file use the magic %%writefile
In [3]:%%writefile myScript.py
...: print("hello")
...:
...:
Be careful because this will overwrite myScript.py. To append use %%writefile -a.