Installing ipython with readline on the mac

7 thoughts on “Installing ipython with readline on the mac”

1. user November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

   If you want to use vi keys in your ipython, check out stackoverflow.com/questions/10394302/…

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2. user November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

   You can install everything you need with essentially one command using MacPorts. First download and install MacPorts from http://www.macports.org/.

   Then just do the following in the terminal:
   1) sudo port -v selfupdate
   2) sudo port -v install py26-ipython

   That will install python2.6, ipython for python 2.6 and readline for you. The command to start ipython will be located at /opt/local/bin/ipython2.6

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3. user November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

   “I would actually like to use ipython for 2.6.1”

   It is available. I’m using it with 2.6.1 on os x. You just need to install the official python 2.6.1 distribution, then install ipython with easy_install.

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4. user November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

   To install ipython on Snow Leopard or Lion without using MacPorts, you can simply do:

   sudo easy_install readline ipython
   

   (Note that if you use the “pip” to install readline, then ipython won’t see the readline library, not sure why).

   Edit:

   If you had ipython installed remove it with

   sudo pip uninstall ipython
   

   or

   pip uninstall ipython #for virtualenvs
   

   Then make sure you have installed readline first and reinstall iptyhon

   pip install readline ipython
   

   For some reasons, if readline wasn’t present during the installation, it will install itself without support for readline or it use the default mac readline.

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5. user November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

   An alternative if you don’t want to use ports. Caution: This is not upgrade safe.

   Install ipython and readline as normal:

   sudo easy_install -f http://ipython.scipy.org/dist/ readline ipython
   

   Find the full path to your readline egg. For python 2.6 this will probably be:

   /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/lib/python2.6/site-packages/readline-2.5.1-py2.6-macosx-10.3-fat.egg
   

   Edit ipython with your favourite text editor:

   vim `which ipython`
   

   Before the final line in the file sys.exit, insert:

   sys.path.insert(0,'PATH_TO_READLINE_EGG')
   

   Save and exit (:wq).

   Check readline is working correct:

   ipython
   

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6. user November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

   this worked for me (I’m using python 2.7, for other versions you’ll need to edit):

   cd /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload
   sudo mv readline.so readline.so.bak
   

   install readline however you want (pip, homebrew, macports, etc)

   pip install -U readline
   

   Success! and it works with virtualenv, and virtualenvwrapper, and no need to modify ipython 🙂

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7. user November 30, -0001 at 12:00 am

   The only working way on MacOS Mavericks is to:

   1. switch to your virtualenv workon myproject_name
   2. delete readline and ipython (if you installed it before) pip uninstall readline ipython
   3. install readline only via easy_install (pip – no work!) easy_install readline
   4. finally install ipython with pip pip install ipython

   It’s work well on my MacOS and tested a long time.

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