IPython Pygments Lexers

1.1.1 · active · verified Sat Mar 28

The ipython-pygments-lexers library provides specialized Pygments lexers for syntax highlighting IPython code and interactive sessions. These lexers were originally part of the main IPython project but were later extracted into a dedicated package to reduce IPython's core dependencies. The package is actively maintained, with its current version being 1.1.1, and releases occur infrequently as needed for bug fixes or minor enhancements.

Warnings

breaking The Pygments lexers for IPython were extracted from the main `IPython` package (specifically `IPython.lib.lexers`) into this separate `ipython-pygments-lexers` package. Direct imports from `IPython.lib.lexers` will fail if IPython 9.0 or newer is used without this package being installed.
Fix: Install `ipython-pygments-lexers` and update import statements from `from IPython.lib.lexers import ...` to `from ipython_pygments_lexers import ...`.
gotcha When using Pygments' `get_lexer_by_name()` or similar lookup functions, the aliases 'ipython' and 'ipython3' may be confusing. Historically, these referred to the `IPyLexer` or `IPythonConsoleLexer`, which handle full console sessions. However, the alias 'ipython' can be misleading as an IPython console session (with prompts/outputs) is distinct from pure IPython code.
Fix: Prefer directly importing `IPyLexer` and instantiating it, or understand that the 'ipython' alias refers to the combined console lexer functionality rather than just pure code. For pure input code, `IPythonLexer` can be used.

Install

pip install ipython-pygments-lexers Install stable version

Imports

IPythonLexer
```
from ipython_pygments_lexers import IPythonLexer
```
Lexer for pure IPython code (Python + magic/shell commands).
IPythonConsoleLexer
```
from ipython_pygments_lexers import IPythonConsoleLexer
```
Lexer for full IPython console sessions, including prompts, output, and tracebacks.
IPyLexer
```
from ipython_pygments_lexers import IPyLexer
```
This intelligent lexer (recommended for most general uses) determines whether to use IPythonLexer or IPythonConsoleLexer based on the input text. The old import path is from the monolithic IPython package before lexers were split out.

Quickstart

This quickstart demonstrates how to use the recommended `IPyLexer` from `ipython-pygments-lexers` with Pygments' `highlight` function and an `HtmlFormatter` to highlight a typical IPython console session. The `IPyLexer` intelligently adapts to the content, correctly rendering input prompts, outputs, and magic commands.

from pygments import highlight
from pygments.formatters import HtmlFormatter
from ipython_pygments_lexers import IPyLexer

code_to_highlight = (
    """In [1]: import numpy as np
   ...: a = np.array([1, 2, 3])
   ...: print(a * 2)
Out[1]: [2 4 6]

In [2]: %timeit [i**2 for i in range(1000)]
40.7 µs ± 1.15 µs per loop (mean ± Std. dev. of 7 runs, 10000 loops each)
"""
)

lexer = IPyLexer()
formatter = HtmlFormatter()

highlighted_code = highlight(code_to_highlight, lexer, formatter)
print(highlighted_code)

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