jupyter_kernel_singular

Jupyter kernel for Singular

Using Singular in Jupyter

It is possible to use Jupyter as front-end for Singular.

Installation

These installation instructions are for Ubuntu Linux 16.04 (Xenial).

Python and Jupyter

If you want to run the Jupyter notebook locally on your computer, you need a recent version of Python 2 or 3 and Jupyter installed. The use of Python 3 is recommended.

To install Python3 run

apt-get install python3-pip

We recommend using Python3, but you can also use Python2.

To install Jupyter using pip, run

pip3 install jupyter

Singular

You need a recent (>= 4.1.0) version of Singular.

Installation instructions for Singular can be found here.

It is important to have a correctly installed Singular and to have a Singular executable in your PATH.

Normally, running

make install

from the Singular installation directory after compiling Singular will ensure that the Singular executable is present in a directory that is in your PATH.

If you are compiling and installing Singular with custom options, make sure both the Singular executable and libSingular are available in your system executables and include/library paths.

Jupyter Singular kernel

The Jupyter kernel for Singular consists of two packages. You can install them via pip using

pip3 install PySingular
pip3 install jupyter_kernel_singular

While not recommended, it is possible to use the Jupyter kernel for Singular without the PySingular package. If you have problems to install it, do not worry, it will be fine.

Images using surf

It is possible to display images created by surf in the Jupyter notebooks. For this, you need to download, compile, and install the latest version of surf.

Please configure and compile it via

./configure --disable-gui
make
make install

For pictures to be displayed in the Notebook, you need to load a specialized Singular library, and a specialized plot command. You can find an example of how to use it here.

Syntax highlighting

On Jupyter notebook versions older than 5.3, syntax highlighting must be explicitly enabled by running ::

jupyter nbextension enable --sys-prefix jupyter_kernel_singular/singular-mode/main

Replace --sys-prefix by --user for a user installation.

Usage and examples

After installing the kernel, you can start a Jupyter Notebook server by running

jupyter notebook

Now you can create a new notebook with Singular code.

Example notebooks can be found here and here.

Acknowledgements

The syntax highlighting for Singular was provided by Vincent Klein.