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microsoft / vscode-jupyter

VS Code Jupyter extension
https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ms-toolsai.jupyter
MIT License
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Add command to run file using %run magic #5519

Open ortk95 opened 3 years ago

ortk95 commented 3 years ago

It would be really useful if there was a command to run the current file in the interactive window using the %run IPython magic. The new command (e.g. jupyter.runFileMagic) would just have to execute %run path/to/current/script.py in the interactive window. This would then make it possible to edit a file and run it immediately in the interactive window with the use of a keyboard shortcut like you can already with running the current file in the terminal.

https://ipython.readthedocs.io/en/stable/interactive/magics.html#magic-run

I currently use jupyter.runFileInteractive from a keyboard shortcut to approximate this behaviour (which effectively copies the current file contents to the interactive window), however the %run magic provides a number of advantages:

Expected behaviour of sys.argv

If a script is run with jupyter.runFileInteractive, sys.argv returns a series of values (presumably) from the Jupyter server which at best are unwanted and at worst can break code which uses sys.argv to take command line arguments. The %run magic, on the other hand, behaves as if the file was executed in a normal terminal, returning the correct filename and no additional values from the Jupyter server. (Additionally, the %run magic can be used to pass custom arguments to sys.argv, though this wouldn't be affected by creating some new jupyter.runFileMagic command.)

Files can be re-run using command history

Once a file has been run once, it is sometimes useful to re-run it by scrolling through command history using the up/down keys in the interactive window input box. The use of the %run magic allows this to work properly, unlike jupyter.runFileInteractive which doesn't appear in the command history and wouldn't reflect any changes in the file.

Clearer command history in interactive window

Multi-line commands in the interactive window are collapsed so that only the first line is visible, meaning that most files run using jupyter.runFileInteractive all appear the same (as they all have the first line #!/usr/bin/env python3). Therefore, if I want to see which file was run for each cell, I have to expand the command and look at the code directly which is a bit awkward. If you could easily use the %run magic instead, the command would be a single line and therefore it would be possible to see which file was run for each cell with no user interaction.

Thanks very much!

rchiodo commented 3 years ago

Thanks for the suggestion.

Seems like we should just change jupyter.runFileInteractive to use %run instead of just running all the cells in a file.