Testing for presence of IPython

Question

I have the same code, which I occasionally run from the command line as python source.py and occasionally copy/paste it into interactive IPython. I would like to execute slightly different code in either way, and tried to embed differences into the following code block:

try:
    __IPYTHON__
    # do IPython-mode code
except NameError:
    # do script-mode code

I know that in Python this is a common technique, but it screws up automated flagging in PyCharm and I was hoping to find some more attractive way to test for the presence of IPython, perhaps by testing '__IPYTHON__' in ... or something similar. However, I saw that this symbol is neither in locals() nor in globals(). Is there any other place I can test for its presence, or any other more conventional test, not using exceptions directly?

I am using Python 2.7.11 and IPython 5.1.0. Thank you very much.

UPDATE Related but unhelpful: How do I check if a variable exists?

try the global function `get_ipython()`, it exists only on ipython, not the normal shell — Guillaume, Nov 16 '16 at 17:35

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Nov 16 '16 at 17:55

5

I think you are looking for

if hasattr(__builtins__, '__IPYTHON__'):
    print('IPython')
else:
    print('Nope')

answered Nov 16 '16 at 17:55

hvwaldow

1,296
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score 3 · Answer 2 · answered May 17 '21 at 04:32

3

While the current accepted answer works in the __main__ namespace, it won't work in a package due to __builtins__ being a dict in other namespaces. This should work in any namespace in python3:

import builtins
getattr(builtins, "__IPYTHON__", False)

answered May 17 '21 at 04:32

ivirshup

582
4
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thanks for your help, i really appreciate it, +1 – gt6989b May 19 '21 at 11:44

Testing for presence of IPython

2 Answers2