IPython pdb

Use

ipdb exports functions to access the IPython debugger, which features tab completion, syntax highlighting, better tracebacks, better introspection with the same interface as the pdb module.

Example usage:

import ipdb
ipdb.set_trace()
ipdb.set_trace(context=5)  # will show five lines of code
                           # instead of the default three lines
ipdb.pm()
ipdb.run('x[0] = 3')
result = ipdb.runcall(function, arg0, arg1, kwarg='foo')
result = ipdb.runeval('f(1,2) - 3')

The post-mortem function, ipdb.pm(), is equivalent to the magic function %debug.

If you install ipdb with a tool which supports setuptools entry points, an ipdb script is made for you. You can use it to debug your python 2 scripts like

$ bin/ipdb mymodule.py

And for python 3

$ bin/ipdb3 mymodule.py

Alternatively with Python 2.7 only, you can also use

$ python -m ipdb mymodule.py

You can also enclose code with the with statement to launch ipdb if an exception is raised:

from ipdb import launch_ipdb_on_exception

with launch_ipdb_on_exception():
    [...]

Issues with stdout

Some tools, like nose fiddle with stdout.

Until ipdb==0.9.4, we tried to guess when we should also fiddle with stdout to support those tools. However, all strategies tried until 0.9.4 have proven brittle.

If you use nose or another tool that fiddles with stdout, you should explicitely ask for stdout fiddling by using ipdb like this

import ipdb
ipdb.sset_trace()
ipdb.spm()

from ipdb import slaunch_ipdb_on_exception
with slaunch_ipdb_on_exception():
    [...]

Development

ipdb source code and tracker are at https://github.com/gotcha/ipdb.

Pull requests should take care of updating the changelog HISTORY.txt.

Third-party support

Products.PDBDebugMode

Zope2 Products.PDBDebugMode uses ipdb, if available, in place of pdb.

iw.debug

iw.debug allows you to trigger an ipdb debugger on any published object of a Zope2 application.

ipdbplugin

ipdbplugin is a nose test runner plugin that also uses the IPython debugger instead of pdb. (It does not depend on ipdb anymore).