Installing IPython on OS X

Andrew Watts — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 18:38:50 +0000

With my recent python education, I have reached a point where the python interpreter in interactive mode isn’t meeting my needs anymore.

After looking around for alternatives, it looks like IPython will be a good upgrade. But one problem, the installation documentation was way too verbose and complex, so I’ve tried to simplify it here:

1. Install readline — you need readline to use all the fancy command line edit features, like advanced history and auto completion. You need to install a new version because apparently the version shipped with OS X will not work properly with IPython. Luckily for you there is already a pre-built version for download and you just need to put in /Library/Python/2.5/site-packages.

$ cd /Library/Python/2.5/site-packages
$ curl -O http://ipython.scipy.org/dist/readline-2.5.1-py2.5-macosx-10.5-i386.egg

2. Install IPython — Obviously, you’ll need to build and install this, luckily it is not hard.

$ curl -O http://ipython.scipy.org/dist/ipython-0.8.4.tar.gz
$ tar -xvzf ipython-0.8.4.tar.gz
$ cd ipython-0.8.4
$ python setup.py build
$ sudo python setup.py install
password:

Now if you are like me, you may wonder what just happened, run the following commands to check out the installation:

$ ls -l /Library/Python2.5/site-packages | grep -i ipython
$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/ipython
$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/irunner
$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/pycolor
$ ls -l /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/share/doc/ipython
$ ls -lrt /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5/share/man/man1

Finally go test it out and have fun:

$ ipython

For more information view the Official IPython Documentation.

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Installing IPython on OS X