Simple way to choose which cells to run in ipython notebook during run all

Question

I have an ipython notebook that runs several steps in a data processing routine and saves information in files along the way. This way, while developing my code (mostly in a

Answer 1

If you are using nbconvert to execute your notebook, you can write a custom preprocessor that looks at cell metadata to know which cells to execute.

class MyExecutePreprocessor(nbconvert.preprocessors.ExecutePreprocessor):

    def preprocess_cell(self, cell, resources, cell_index):
        """
        Executes a single code cell. See base.py for details.
        To execute all cells see :meth:`preprocess`.

        Checks cell.metadata for 'execute' key. If set, and maps to False, 
          the cell is not executed.
        """

        if not cell.metadata.get('execute', True):
            # Don't execute this cell in output
            return cell, resources

        return super().preprocess_cell(cell, resources, cell_index)

By editing cell metadata, you can specify whether that cell should be executed.

You can get fancier by adding a master dictionary to your notebook metadata. This would look like the dictionary in your example, mapping sections to a boolean specifying whether that section would be called.

Then, in your cell metadata, you can use a "section" keyword mapping to the section ID in your notebook metadata.

When executing nbconvert, you can tell it to use your preprocessor.

See the docs on Notebook preprocessors for more information.