Converting to (not from) ipython Notebook format

Question

IPython Notebook comes with nbconvert, which can export notebooks to other formats. But how do I convert text in the opposite direction? I ask because I already ha

Answer 1

Some improvement to @p-toccaceli answer. Now, it also restores markdown cells. Additionally, it trims empty hanging lines for each cell.

    import nbformat
    from nbformat.v4 import new_code_cell,new_markdown_cell,new_notebook

    import codecs

    sourceFile = "changeMe.py"     # <<<< change
    destFile = "changeMe.ipynb"    # <<<< change


    def parsePy(fn):
        """ Generator that parses a .py file exported from a IPython notebook and
    extracts code cells (whatever is between occurrences of "In[*]:").
    Returns a string containing one or more lines
    """
        with open(fn,"r") as f:
            lines = []
            for l in f:
                l1 = l.strip()
                if l1.startswith('# In[') and l1.endswith(']:') and lines:
                    yield ("".join(lines).strip(), 0)
                    lines = []
                    continue
                elif l1.startswith('# ') and l1[2:].startswith('#') and lines:
                    yield ("".join(lines).strip(), 0)

                    yield (l1[2:].strip(), 1)
                    lines = []
                    continue
                lines.append(l)
            if lines:
                yield ("".join(lines).strip(), 0)

    # Create the code cells by parsing the file in input
    cells = []
    for c, code in parsePy(sourceFile):
        if len(c) == 0:
            continue
        if code == 0:
            cells.append(new_code_cell(source=c))
        elif code == 1:
            cells.append(new_markdown_cell(source=c))

    # This creates a V4 Notebook with the code cells extracted above
    nb0 = new_notebook(cells=cells,
                       metadata={'language': 'python',})

    with codecs.open(destFile, encoding='utf-8', mode='w') as f:
        nbformat.write(nb0, f, 4)