How to Load/Edit/Run/Save Text Files (.Py) into an Ipython Notebook Cell

How to load/edit/run/save text files (.py) into an IPython notebook cell?

EDIT: Starting from IPython 3 (now Jupyter project), the notebook has a text editor that can be used as a more convenient alternative to
load/edit/save text files.

A text file can be loaded in a notebook cell with the magic command %load.

If you execute a cell containing:

%load filename.py

the content of filename.py will be loaded in the next cell. You can edit and execute it as usual.

To save the cell content back into a file add the cell-magic %%writefile filename.py at the beginning of the cell and run it. Beware that if a file with the same name already exists it will be silently overwritten.

To see the help for any magic command add a ?: like %load? or %%writefile?.

For general help on magic functions type "%magic"
For a list of the available magic functions, use %lsmagic. For a description
of any of them, type %magic_name?, e.g. '%cd?'.

See also: Magic functions from the official IPython docs.

Run from and save to .py file from Jupyter Notebook

This is not the exact answer. At one point, I was able to open .py files using python notebook and work on it as if it were a notebook file.

However, I have been able to replicate this behavior using VScode.

https://code.visualstudio.com/docs/python/jupyter-support-py

Using VScode, you can export all your .ipynb files into .py files, then run code blocks. Code blocks are separated by # %%.

I have not used it sufficiently long enough to decide if it is better than python notebook, but this seems to be the best solution so far. I previously tried using Atom/Hydrogen and did not enjoy the experience.

How to save python script as .py file on jupyter notebook

There are built-in Magic commands in Jupyter:

IPython has a set of predefined ‘magic functions’ that you can call
with a command line style syntax. There are two kinds of magics,
line-oriented and cell-oriented. Line magics are prefixed with the %
character and work much like OS command-line calls: they get as an
argument the rest of the line, where arguments are passed without
parentheses or quotes. Lines magics can return results and can be used
in the right hand side of an assignment. Cell magics are prefixed with
a double %%, and they are functions that get as an argument not only
the rest of the line, but also the lines below it in a separate
argument.

Magics are useful as convenient functions where Python syntax is not
the most natural one, or when one want to embed invalid python syntax
in their work flow.

%%writefile (Write the contents of the cell to a file)

%save (Save a set of lines or a macro to a given filename)

How do I save .py files in IPython notebook with the .ipynb files

You can start the notebook server with a --script flag, or set this variable to True in the file ipython_notebook_config.py:

c.FileNotebookManager.save_script = True

How to run a Jupyter notebook .ipynb in python file .py?

You can convert the .ipynb file to a plain .py file using any of the methods mentioned here -

How do I convert a IPython Notebook into a Python file via commandline?

If, like me, you don't have access to the command line tools required - you can extract the source code from the .ipynb file as it is mostly a json file

import json
with open('somefile.ipynb') as f:
    nb_content = json.load(f)

for cell in nb_content['cells']:
    print(*cell['source'])

That should print out the whole source code to your terminal

How to programatically save pdf of jupyter notebook with a custom, dynamic, file name

You have to prefix the variable name with $ for it to be interpreted as a variable in a console command. See this question.

!jupyter nbconvert --output-dir="C:\\mydir\\" --output=$jupyter_nb_filename --to pdf --TemplateExporter.exclude_input=True mynotebook.ipynb

how to upload a text file into ipython notebook

Can you be more elaborate?

Are you trying to read data out of the text file? In that case regular python open and read functions can get you the data into variables. You can even do Unix "cat" the contents of the file in a variable:

        var=!cat file

Or are you trying to get the text in the ipynb files as content in an input cell so you can edit them and run them? The ipynb files are usually created by the notebook engine and they are JSON formatted. So if you just copy paste the text from them into a cell, they won't be usable as is. Use some JSON parsing to interpret their content. They are not regular python code so "%run file" wont work to get their code executed by ipython.

Elaborating the use cases may help others to give solutions...

Edit text file in IPython terminal without switching terminal

You can use the %edit command:

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

Usage: %edit [options] [args]

%edit runs IPython’s editor hook. The
default version of this hook is set to call the editor specified by
your $EDITOR environment variable. If this isn’t found, it will
default to vi under Linux/Unix and to notepad under Windows. See the
end of this docstring for how to change the editor hook.

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