Python Data Science Handbook, 2nd Edition

Chapter 2. Enhanced Interactive Features

Much of the power of IPython and Jupyter comes from the additional interactive tools they make available. This chapter will cover a number of those tools, including so-called magic commands, tools for exploring input and output history, and tools to interact with the shell.

IPython Magic Commands

The previous chapter showed how IPython lets you use and explore Python efficiently and interactively. Here we’ll begin discussing some of the enhancements that IPython adds on top of the normal Python syntax. These are known in IPython as magic commands, and are prefixed by the % character. These magic commands are designed to succinctly solve various common problems in standard data analysis. Magic commands come in two flavors: line magics, which are denoted by a single % prefix and operate on a single line of input, and cell magics, which are denoted by a double %% prefix and operate on multiple lines of input. I’ll demonstrate and discuss a few brief examples here, and come back to a more focused discussion of several useful magic commands later.

Running External Code: %run

As you begin developing more extensive code, you will likely find yourself working in IPython for interactive exploration, as well as a text editor to store code that you want to reuse. Rather than running this code in a new window, it can be convenient to run it within your IPython session. This can be done with the %run magic command.

For example, imagine you’ve created ...