You can make use of your Python skills by interacting with system commands directly for things like file renaming, directory restructuring, or calling any arbitrary system command from within IPython. Here are some ways to do that. (more…)
For the pathologically lazy, there are some shortcuts in IPython to save you from typing often-used commands.
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This post shows the different ways of keeping track of your work in IPython: the command history, saving the history (or parts of the history to file) for later use, and storing variables so you don’t have to create them next time you use IPython. (more…)
After working in IPython for a while, sometimes you’d like to use a variable you created way back at the beginning, but you don’t remember exactly what it was called. Here are some useful commands for working with variables in IPython. (more…)
Running programs or scripts in IPython is easy, and here are the commands to use. (more…)
A reference table of commands to use when navigating directories in IPython. (more…)
IPython has an in-depth integrated help system. You can get help on IPython’s magic functions, view documentation from a single function, check out syntax-highlighted source code, or enter the Python interactive help system. Here’s a list of the commands to use. (more…)
Today I was trying to figure out how to plot two time series with differently scaled values. I found two_scales.py example in the matplotlib examples which describes how to do it.
Here’s a slightly simplified version of the code, and afterward a detailed explanation of what’s going on. (more…)
There are a lot of tutorials out there to get started in Python. Here I’ve highlighted what I consider to be the best ones: complete, well written, well paced, and assume no prior knowledge of programming. Some walk you through the installation of Python, while others take you through the finer points of the language.
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I’ve tried many IDE’s (interactive development environments) — ones with fancy user interfaces and whizbang features — but I kept coming back to IPython.
It doesn’t look like much. No fancy icons or anything, it just runs in a terminal window. After using it though, I can’t imagine going back to anything else. The way it handles the history of everything you’ve typed, the interactive debugging, magic commands, tab-completion, and easy editing using your default text editor . . . it has all the features that lets you code quickly and easily.
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