old.txt

.. _initial config:

=============================================================
Outdated configuration information that might still be useful
=============================================================

.. warning::

    All of the information in this file is outdated. Until the new
    configuration system is better documented, this material is being kept.

This section will help you set various things in your environment for
your IPython sessions to be as efficient as possible. All of IPython's
configuration information, along with several example files, is stored
in a directory named by default $HOME/.config/ipython if $HOME/.config 
exists (Linux), or $HOME/.ipython as a secondary default. You can change this by
defining the environment variable IPYTHONDIR, or at runtime with the
command line option -ipythondir.

If all goes well, the first time you run IPython it should automatically create
a user copy of the config directory for you, based on its builtin defaults. You
can look at the files it creates to learn more about configuring the
system. The main file you will modify to configure IPython's behavior is called
ipythonrc (with a .ini extension under Windows), included for reference
:ref:`here <ipythonrc>`. This file is very commented and has many variables you
can change to suit your taste, you can find more details :ref:`here
<customization>`. Here we discuss the basic things you will want to make sure
things are working properly from the beginning.

Color
=====

The default IPython configuration has most bells and whistles turned on
(they're pretty safe). But there's one that may cause problems on some
systems: the use of color on screen for displaying information. This is
very useful, since IPython can show prompts and exception tracebacks
with various colors, display syntax-highlighted source code, and in
general make it easier to visually parse information.

The following terminals seem to handle the color sequences fine:

    * Linux main text console, KDE Konsole, Gnome Terminal, E-term,
      rxvt, xterm.
    * CDE terminal (tested under Solaris). This one boldfaces light colors.
    * (X)Emacs buffers. See the emacs_ section for more details on
      using IPython with (X)Emacs.
    * A Windows (XP/2k) command prompt with pyreadline_.
    * A Windows (XP/2k) CygWin shell. Although some users have reported
      problems; it is not clear whether there is an issue for everyone
      or only under specific configurations. If you have full color
      support under cygwin, please post to the IPython mailing list so
      this issue can be resolved for all users.

.. _pyreadline: https://code.launchpad.net/pyreadline
      
These have shown problems:

    * Windows command prompt in WinXP/2k logged into a Linux machine via
      telnet or ssh.
    * Windows native command prompt in WinXP/2k, without Gary Bishop's
      extensions. Once Gary's readline library is installed, the normal
      WinXP/2k command prompt works perfectly.

Currently the following color schemes are available:

    * NoColor: uses no color escapes at all (all escapes are empty '' ''
      strings). This 'scheme' is thus fully safe to use in any terminal.
    * Linux: works well in Linux console type environments: dark
      background with light fonts. It uses bright colors for
      information, so it is difficult to read if you have a light
      colored background.
    * LightBG: the basic colors are similar to those in the Linux scheme
      but darker. It is easy to read in terminals with light backgrounds.

IPython uses colors for two main groups of things: prompts and
tracebacks which are directly printed to the terminal, and the object
introspection system which passes large sets of data through a pager.

Input/Output prompts and exception tracebacks
=============================================

You can test whether the colored prompts and tracebacks work on your
system interactively by typing '%colors Linux' at the prompt (use
'%colors LightBG' if your terminal has a light background). If the input
prompt shows garbage like::

    [0;32mIn [[1;32m1[0;32m]: [0;00m

instead of (in color) something like::

    In [1]:

this means that your terminal doesn't properly handle color escape
sequences. You can go to a 'no color' mode by typing '%colors NoColor'.

You can try using a different terminal emulator program (Emacs users,
see below). To permanently set your color preferences, edit the file
$IPYTHONDIR/ipythonrc and set the colors option to the desired value.


Object details (types, docstrings, source code, etc.)
=====================================================

IPython has a set of special functions for studying the objects you are working
with, discussed in detail :ref:`here <dynamic_object_info>`. But this system
relies on passing information which is longer than your screen through a data
pager, such as the common Unix less and more programs. In order to be able to
see this information in color, your pager needs to be properly configured. I
strongly recommend using less instead of more, as it seems that more simply can
not understand colored text correctly.

In order to configure less as your default pager, do the following:

   1. Set the environment PAGER variable to less.
   2. Set the environment LESS variable to -r (plus any other options
      you always want to pass to less by default). This tells less to
      properly interpret control sequences, which is how color
      information is given to your terminal.

For the bash shell, add to your ~/.bashrc file the lines::

    export PAGER=less
    export LESS=-r

For the csh or tcsh shells, add to your ~/.cshrc file the lines::

    setenv PAGER less
    setenv LESS -r
    
There is similar syntax for other Unix shells, look at your system
documentation for details.

If you are on a system which lacks proper data pagers (such as Windows),
IPython will use a very limited builtin pager.

.. _Prompts:

Fine-tuning your prompt
=======================

IPython's prompts can be customized using a syntax similar to that of
the bash shell. Many of bash's escapes are supported, as well as a few
additional ones. We list them below::

    \#
        the prompt/history count number. This escape is automatically
        wrapped in the coloring codes for the currently active color scheme. 
    \N
        the 'naked' prompt/history count number: this is just the number
        itself, without any coloring applied to it. This lets you produce
        numbered prompts with your own colors. 
    \D
        the prompt/history count, with the actual digits replaced by dots.
        Used mainly in continuation prompts (prompt_in2) 
    \w
        the current working directory 
    \W
        the basename of current working directory 
    \Xn
        where $n=0\ldots5.$ The current working directory, with $HOME
        replaced by ~, and filtered out to contain only $n$ path elements 
    \Yn
        Similar to \Xn, but with the $n+1$ element included if it is ~ (this
        is similar to the behavior of the %cn escapes in tcsh) 
    \u
        the username of the current user 
    \$
        if the effective UID is 0, a #, otherwise a $ 
    \h
        the hostname up to the first '.' 
    \H
        the hostname 
    \n
        a newline 
    \r
        a carriage return 
    \v
        IPython version string 

In addition to these, ANSI color escapes can be insterted into the
prompts, as \C_ColorName. The list of valid color names is: Black, Blue,
Brown, Cyan, DarkGray, Green, LightBlue, LightCyan, LightGray,
LightGreen, LightPurple, LightRed, NoColor, Normal, Purple, Red, White,
Yellow.

Finally, IPython supports the evaluation of arbitrary expressions in
your prompt string. The prompt strings are evaluated through the syntax
of PEP 215, but basically you can use $x.y to expand the value of x.y,
and for more complicated expressions you can use braces: ${foo()+x} will
call function foo and add to it the value of x, before putting the
result into your prompt. For example, using
prompt_in1 '${commands.getoutput("uptime")}\nIn [\#]: ' 
will print the result of the uptime command on each prompt (assuming the
commands module has been imported in your ipythonrc file).


      Prompt examples

The following options in an ipythonrc file will give you IPython's
default prompts::

    prompt_in1 'In [\#]:' 
    prompt_in2 '   .\D.:' 
    prompt_out 'Out[\#]:'

which look like this::

    In [1]: 1+2 
    Out[1]: 3

    In [2]: for i in (1,2,3): 
       ...:    print i, 
       ...: 
    1 2 3

These will give you a very colorful prompt with path information::

    #prompt_in1 '\C_Red\u\C_Blue[\C_Cyan\Y1\C_Blue]\C_LightGreen\#>' 
    prompt_in2 ' ..\D>' 
    prompt_out '<\#>'

which look like this::

    fperez[~/ipython]1> 1+2 
                    <1> 3 
    fperez[~/ipython]2> for i in (1,2,3): 
                   ...>     print i, 
                   ...> 
    1 2 3