Making simple Python wrapper kernels
You can now re-use the kernel machinery in IPython to easily make new kernels. This is useful for languages that have Python bindings, such as Octave (via Oct2Py), or languages where the REPL can be controlled in a tty using pexpect, such as bash.
Required steps
Subclass :class:`IPython.kernel.zmq.kernelbase.Kernel`, and implement the following methods and attributes:
To launch your kernel, add this at the end of your module:
if __name__ == '__main__': from IPython.kernel.zmq.kernelapp import IPKernelApp IPKernelApp.launch_instance(kernel_class=MyKernel)
Example
echokernel.py will simply echo any input it's given to stdout:
from IPython.kernel.zmq.kernelbase import Kernel class EchoKernel(Kernel): implementation = 'Echo' implementation_version = '1.0' language = 'no-op' language_version = '0.1' banner = "Echo kernel - as useful as a parrot" def do_execute(self, code, silent, store_history=True, user_expressions=None, allow_stdin=False): if not silent: stream_content = {'name': 'stdout', 'text': code} self.send_response(self.iopub_socket, 'stream', stream_content) return {'status': 'ok', # The base class increments the execution count 'execution_count': self.execution_count, 'payload': [], 'user_expressions': {}, } if __name__ == '__main__': from IPython.kernel.zmq.kernelapp import IPKernelApp IPKernelApp.launch_instance(kernel_class=EchoKernel)
Here's the Kernel spec kernel.json file for this:
{"argv":["python","-m","echokernel", "-f", "{connection_file}"], "display_name":"Echo", "language":"no-op" }
Optional steps
You can override a number of other methods to improve the functionality of your kernel. All of these methods should return a dictionary as described in the relevant section of the :doc:`messaging spec <messaging>`.