IPython (Interactive Python) is a command shell for interactive computing in multiple programming languages, originally developed for the Python programming language, that offers introspection,

rich media Interactive media normally refers to products and services on digital computer-based systems which respond to the user's actions by presenting content such as text, moving image, animation, video and audio. Since its early conception, various ...

, shell syntax, tab completion, and history. IPython provides the following features: * Interactive shells (terminal and Qt-based). * A browser-based notebook interface with support for code, text, mathematical expressions, inline plots and other media. * Support for interactive data visualization and use of GUI toolkits. * Flexible, embeddable interpreters to load into one's own projects. * Tools for

parallel computing Parallel computing is a type of computation in which many calculations or processes are carried out simultaneously. Large problems can often be divided into smaller ones, which can then be solved at the same time. There are several different f ...

. IPython is a NumFOCUS fiscally sponsored project.

Parallel computing

IPython is based on an architecture that provides parallel and distributed computing. IPython enables parallel applications to be developed, executed, debugged and monitored interactively, hence the I (Interactive) in IPython. This architecture abstracts out parallelism, enabling IPython to support many different styles of parallelism including: * Single program, multiple data (

SPMD In computing, single program, multiple data (SPMD) is a technique employed to achieve parallelism; it is a subcategory of MIMD. Tasks are split up and run simultaneously on multiple processors with different input in order to obtain results fast ...

) parallelism * Multiple program, multiple data ( MPMD) parallelism * Message passing using

MPI MPI or Mpi may refer to: Science and technology Biology and medicine * Magnetic particle imaging, an emerging non-invasive tomographic technique * Myocardial perfusion imaging, a nuclear medicine procedure that illustrates the function of the hear ...

* Task parallelism * Data parallelism * Combinations of these approaches * Custom user defined approaches With the release of IPython 4.0, the parallel computing capabilities were made optional and released under th
ipyparallel
python package. And most of the capabilities of ipyparallel are now covered by more mature libraries like Dask. IPython frequently draws from SciPy stack libraries like NumPy and

SciPy SciPy (pronounced "sigh pie") is a free and open-source Python library used for scientific computing and technical computing. SciPy contains modules for optimization, linear algebra, integration, interpolation, special functions, FFT, ...

, often installed alongside one of many Scientific Python distributions. IPython provides integration with some libraries of the

stack, notably

matplotlib Matplotlib is a plotting library for the Python programming language and its numerical mathematics extension NumPy. It provides an object-oriented API for embedding plots into applications using general-purpose GUI toolkits like Tkinter, wxPy ...

, producing inline graphs when used with the Jupyter notebook. Python libraries can implement IPython specific hooks to customize rich object display. SymPy for example implements rendering of mathematical expressions as rendered

LaTeX Latex is an emulsion (stable dispersion) of polymer microparticles in water. Latexes are found in nature, but synthetic latexes are common as well. In nature, latex is found as a milky fluid found in 10% of all flowering plants (angiosperms ...

when used within IPython context, and Pandas dataframe use an HTML representation.

Other features

IPython allows non-blocking interaction with Tkinter, PyGTK, PyQt/ PySide and

wxPython wxPython is a wrapper for the cross-platform GUI API (often referred to as a "toolkit") wxWidgets (which is written in C++) for the Python programming language. It is one of the alternatives to Tkinter. It is implemented as a Python extensio ...

(the standard Python shell only allows interaction with Tkinter). IPython can interactively manage parallel computing clusters using asynchronous status callbacks and/or

. IPython can also be used as a system shell replacement. Its default behavior is largely similar to Unix shells, but it allows customization and the flexibility of executing code in a live Python environment.

End of Python 2 support

IPython 5.x (Long Time Support) series is the last version of IPython to support Python 2. The IPython project pledged to not support Python 2 beyond 2020 by being one of the first projects to join th
Python 3 Statement
the 6.x series is only compatible with Python 3 and above. It is still possible though to run an IPython kernel and a Jupyter Notebook server on different Python versions allowing users to still access Python 2 on newer version of Jupyter.

Project Jupyter

In 2014, Fernando Pérez announced a spin-off project from IPython called

Project Jupyter Project Jupyter () is a project with goals to develop open-source software, open standards, and services for interactive computing across multiple programming languages. It was spun off from IPython in 2014 by Fernando Pérez and Brian Gran ...

. IPython continued to exist as a Python shell and kernel for Jupyter, but the

notebook A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking. History ...

interface and other language-agnostic parts of IPython were moved under the Jupyter name. Jupyter is language agnostic and its name is a reference to core programming languages supported by Jupyter, which are Julia, Python, and R. Jupyter

Notebook A notebook (also known as a notepad, writing pad, drawing pad, or legal pad) is a book or stack of paper pages that are often ruled and used for purposes such as note-taking, journaling or other writing, drawing, or scrapbooking. History ...

(formerly IPython Notebook) is a web-based interactive computational environment for creating, executing, and visualizing Jupyter notebooks. It is similar to the notebook interface of other programs such as

Maple ''Acer'' () is a genus of trees and shrubs commonly known as maples. The genus is placed in the family Sapindaceae.Stevens, P. F. (2001 onwards). Angiosperm Phylogeny Website. Version 9, June 2008 nd more or less continuously updated since h ...

Mathematica Wolfram Mathematica is a software system with built-in libraries for several areas of technical computing that allow machine learning, statistics, symbolic computation, data manipulation, network analysis, time series analysis, NLP, optimiza ...

, and SageMath, a computational interface style that originated with Mathematica in the 1980s. It supports execution environments (aka kernels) in dozens of languages. By default Jupyter Notebook ships with the IPython kernel, but there are over 100 Jupyter kernels as of May 2018.

In the media

IPython has been mentioned in the popular computing press and other popular media, and it has a presence at scientific conferences. For scientific and engineering work, it is often presented as a companion tool to

Grants and awards

Beginning 1 January 2013, the

Alfred P. Sloan Foundation The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is an American philanthropic nonprofit organization. It was established in 1934 by Alfred P. Sloan Jr., then-president and chief executive officer of General Motors. The Sloan Foundation makes grants to suppor ...

announced that it would support IPython development for two years. On 23 March 2013, Fernando Perez was awarded the Free Software Foundation Advancement of Free Software award for IPython. In August 2013,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

made a donation of $100,000 to sponsor IPython's continued development. In January 2014, it won the Jolt Productivity Award from Dr. Dobb's in the category of coding tools. In July 2015, the project won a funding of $6 million from Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust. In May 2018, it was awarded the 2017 ACM Software System Award. It is the largest team to have won the award.

References

External links

* {{Official website
Inline graphs

Project Jupyter
Command shells Free mathematics software Free software programmed in Python Notebook interface Python (programming language) development tools Software using the BSD license