How do I make ipython aware of changes made to a selfwritten module?

Question

When trying a selfwritten module, it is likely to end with errors at the first few times.

But when fixing these errors, ipython does not seem to notice that.

Answer 1

There is an Ipython specific way, you can use set up autoreload:

In [1]: %load_ext autoreload

In [2]: %autoreload 2

In [3]: from foo import some_function

In [4]: some_function()
Out[4]: 42

In [5]: # open foo.py in an editor and change some_function to return 43

In [6]: some_function()
Out[6]: 43

The module was reloaded without reloading it explicitly, and the object imported with from foo import ... was also updated.

Usage The following magic commands are provided:

%autoreload

Reload all modules (except those excluded by %aimport) automatically now.

%autoreload 0

Disable automatic reloading.

%autoreload 1

Reload all modules imported with %aimport every time before executing the >Python code typed.

%autoreload 2

Reload all modules (except those excluded by %aimport) every time before executing the Python code typed.

%aimport

List modules which are to be automatically imported or not to be imported.

%aimport foo

Import module ‘foo’ and mark it to be autoreloaded for %autoreload 1

%aimport -foo

Mark module ‘foo’ to not be autoreloaded.

There is also dreload which will work for python2 and 3.

 dreload(module)