Important

This documentation covers IPython versions 6.0 and higher. Beginning with version 6.0, IPython stopped supporting compatibility with Python versions lower than 3.3 including all versions of Python 2.7.

If you are looking for an IPython version compatible with Python 2.7, please use the IPython 5.x LTS release and refer to its documentation (LTS is the long term support release).

Custom input transformation

IPython extends Python syntax to allow things like magic commands, and help with the ? syntax. There are several ways to customise how the user’s input is processed into Python code to be executed.

These hooks are mainly for other projects using IPython as the core of their interactive interface. Using them carelessly can easily break IPython!

String based transformations

When the user enters code, it is first processed as a string. By the end of this stage, it must be valid Python syntax.

Changed in version 7.0: The API for string and token-based transformations has been completely redesigned. Any third party code extending input transformation will need to be rewritten. The new API is, hopefully, simpler.

String based transformations are functions which accept a list of strings: each string is a single line of the input cell, including its line ending. The transformation function should return output in the same structure.

These transformations are in two groups, accessible as attributes of the InteractiveShell instance. Each group is a list of transformation functions.

  • input_transformers_cleanup run first on input, to do things like stripping prompts and leading indents from copied code. It may not be possible at this stage to parse the input as valid Python code.

  • Then IPython runs its own transformations to handle its special syntax, like %magics and !system commands. This part does not expose extension points.

  • input_transformers_post run as the last step, to do things like converting float literals into decimal objects. These may attempt to parse the input as Python code.

These transformers may raise SyntaxError if the input code is invalid, but in most cases it is clearer to pass unrecognised code through unmodified and let Python’s own parser decide whether it is valid.

For example, imagine we want to obfuscate our code by reversing each line, so we’d write )5(f =+ a instead of a += f(5). Here’s how we could swap it back the right way before IPython tries to run it:

def reverse_line_chars(lines):
    new_lines = []
    for line in lines:
        chars = line[:-1]  # the newline needs to stay at the end
        new_lines.append(chars[::-1] + '\n')
    return new_lines

To start using this:

ip = get_ipython()
ip.input_transformers_cleanup.append(reverse_line_chars)

Added in version 7.17: input_transformers can now have an attribute has_side_effects set to True, which will prevent the transformers from being ran when IPython is trying to guess whether the user input is complete.

AST transformations

After the code has been parsed as Python syntax, you can use Python’s powerful Abstract Syntax Tree tools to modify it. Subclass ast.NodeTransformer, and add an instance to shell.ast_transformers.

This example wraps integer literals in an Integer class, which is useful for mathematical frameworks that want to handle e.g. 1/3 as a precise fraction:

class IntegerWrapper(ast.NodeTransformer):
    """Wraps all integers in a call to Integer()"""
    def visit_Num(self, node):
        if isinstance(node.n, int):
            return ast.Call(func=ast.Name(id='Integer', ctx=ast.Load()),
                            args=[node], keywords=[])
        return node