Video 174: Writing the outline for our first Python Script to setup the data

[sankar82]

Sec 2.1 I am facing issue with %%writefile (Timestamp 4:30)

I am having trouble using the %%writefile command in Colab. When I write this is a code cell, the docstring and everything else I type is white in color. Colab does not recognize any key words. If I comment out %%writefile, then the cell works correct as normal. I have attached a screenshot. Please help as I am not able to move forward without fixing this. Thanks and appreciate your help.

[otrturn]

Syntax highlighting in colab is not supported when using magic code. I ran into the same issue. At least it does not work for the free version of colab. In a video I sawe it working, but the teacher used a PRO account for colab.

[sankar82]

Ah okay, thanks. That's a bummer. Thanks for replying.

[mrdbourke]

Thank you for the update @otrturn , I didn't know that Google Colab Pro helped with syntax highlighting.

One option for @sankar82 would be to copy the Python code into a local editor (e.g. VS Code) from Google Colab which will help with code highlighting, however, this is not ideal because of the extra step.

As a side note, my Google Colab (Pro) is now doing a similar thing, all the code in the cell with %%writefile test_code.py is white with no highlighting:

[sankar82]

@mrdbourke Thanks for your reply. It is just another Colab thing I guess. Just like how keyboard shortcut to convert code cell to markdown or the shortcut to view docstring don't work anymore. Nevertheless this is not a dealbreaker and I am able to continue with my lessons. Thanks both.

[DarekW90]

Same problem here :)
Easyway to fight with this w/o copy code into a local editor is just to comment with # first line, but then remember to uncomment it before run.
Cheers!