5.x Series
Released July, 2016
New terminal interface
IPython 5 features a major upgrade to the terminal interface, bringing live syntax highlighting as you type, proper multiline editing and multiline paste, and tab completions that don't clutter up your history.
These features are provided by the Python library prompt_toolkit, which replaces readline throughout our terminal interface.
Relying on this pure-Python, cross platform module also makes it simpler to install IPython. We have removed dependencies on pyreadline for Windows and gnureadline for Mac.
Backwards incompatible changes
- The %install_ext magic function, deprecated since 4.0, has now been deleted. You can distribute and install extensions as packages on PyPI.
- Callbacks registered while an event is being handled will now only be called for subsequent events; previously they could be called for the current event. Similarly, callbacks removed while handling an event will always get that event. See :ghissue:`9447` and :ghpull:`9453`.
- Integration with pydb has been removed since pydb development has been stopped since 2012, and pydb is not installable from PyPI.
- The autoedit_syntax option has apparently been broken for many years. It has been removed.
New terminal interface
The overhaul of the terminal interface will probably cause a range of minor issues for existing users. This is inevitable for such a significant change, and we've done our best to minimise these issues. Some changes that we're aware of, with suggestions on how to handle them:
IPython no longer uses readline configuration (~/.inputrc). We hope that the functionality you want (e.g. vi input mode) will be available by configuring IPython directly (see :doc:`/config/options/terminal`). If something's missing, please file an issue.
The PromptManager class has been removed, and the prompt machinery simplified. See :ref:`custom_prompts` to customise prompts with the new machinery.
:mod:`IPython.core.debugger` now provides a plainer interface. :mod:`IPython.terminal.debugger` contains the terminal debugger using prompt_toolkit.
There are new options to configure the colours used in syntax highlighting. We have tried to integrate them with our classic --colors option and %colors magic, but there's a mismatch in possibilities, so some configurations may produce unexpected results. See :ref:`termcolour` for more information.
The new interface is not compatible with Emacs 'inferior-shell' feature. To continue using this, add the --simple-prompt flag to the command Emacs runs. This flag disables most IPython features, relying on Emacs to provide things like tab completion.
Provisional Changes
Provisional changes are experimental functionality that may, or may not, make it into a future version of IPython, and which API may change without warnings. Activating these features and using these API are at your own risk, and may have security implication for your system, especially if used with the Jupyter notebook,
When running via the Jupyter notebook interfaces, or other compatible client, you can enable rich documentation experimental functionality:
When the docrepr package is installed setting the boolean flag InteractiveShell.sphinxify_docstring to True, will process the various object through sphinx before displaying them (see the docrepr package documentation for more information.
You need to also enable the IPython pager display rich HTML representation using the InteractiveShell.enable_html_pager boolean configuration option. As usual you can set these configuration options globally in your configuration files, alternatively you can turn them on dynamically using the following snippet:
ip = get_ipython() ip.sphinxify_docstring = True ip.enable_html_pager = True
You can test the effect of various combinations of the above configuration in the Jupyter notebook, with things example like :
import numpy as np np.histogram?
This is part of an effort to make Documentation in Python richer and provide in the long term if possible dynamic examples that can contain math, images, widgets... As stated above this is nightly experimental feature with a lot of (fun) problem to solve. We would be happy to get your feedback and expertise on it.
Deprecated Features
Some deprecated features are listed in this section. Don't forget to enable DeprecationWarning as an error if you are using IPython in a Continuous Integration setup or in your testing in general:
import warnings warnings.filterwarnings('error', '.*', DeprecationWarning, module='yourmodule.*')
- hooks.fix_error_editor seems unused and is pending deprecation.
- IPython/core/excolors.py:ExceptionColors is deprecated.
- IPython.core.InteractiveShell:write() is deprecated; use sys.stdout instead.
- IPython.core.InteractiveShell:write_err() is deprecated; use sys.stderr instead.
- The formatter keyword argument to Inspector.info in IPython.core.oinspec has no effect.
- The global_ns keyword argument of IPython Embed was deprecated, and has no effect. Use module keyword argument instead.
Known Issues:
- <Esc> Key does not dismiss the completer and does not clear the current buffer. This is an on purpose modification due to current technical limitation. Cf :ghpull:`9572`. Escape the control character which is used for other shortcut, and there is no practical way to distinguish. Use Ctr-G or Ctrl-C as an alternative.
- Cannot use Shift-Enter and Ctrl-Enter to submit code in terminal. cf :ghissue:`9587` and :ghissue:`9401`. In terminal there is no practical way to distinguish these key sequences from a normal new line return.
- PageUp and pageDown do not move through completion menu.
- Color styles might not adapt to terminal emulator themes. This will need new version of Pygments to be released, and can be mitigated with custom themes.