Install and setup ipython for zope

I was demonstrated by Stefan (seletz) Eletzhofer how to run ipython as an interactive shell for Zope.

I was impressed enough by what he showed me to want to write some how-to about it and spread the info.

ipython can be used as a replacement to the zopectl debug command.

Install

If you install it from an egg (assuming you have easy_install installed), you would simply key:

$ easy_install ipython

Which is easy enough, right?

Setup

Now we want to set it up for Zope.
Stefan wrote a custom setup profile for ipython.
it is hosted in the collective, under the dotipython project.

first go to the .ipython folder in your home directory:

$ cd ~/.ipython

If there is no .ipython in your home dir, launch ipython once and quit to have it created.

Then grab the file (here I use svn but you can use wget or download it with any web browser as it is a single file):

$ svn co http://svn.plone.org/svn/collective/dotipython/trunk/ipy_profile_zope.py .

It's all it needs really, now we can start our ipython session.

Usage

Zope needs some system environment to be set (INSTANCE_HOME and SOFTWARE_HOME).

We can do that by using the zopectl shell command:

$ cd ~/my/zope/instance
$ ./bin/zopectl shell

make sure the setup is right:

$ echo $INSTANCE_HOME

Now all you need is to run the ipython shell with the profile we installed previously:

$ ipython -p zope

And you can start playing with it.

Links

Don't forget to have a look at iPython excellent documentation:

http://ipython.scipy.org/moin/Documentation

There are alternate ways to use iPython and the zope debugger. See those very good related links:
http://wiki.zope.org/zope2/DebuggingWithIPythonAndOtherTips

http://tomster.org/blog/archive/2006/10/09/ipython-as-zope-shell

And in french:

http://www.afpy.org/Members/gawel/zope/ipython_for_zope