How I installed IPython on macOS 10.13.1 High Sierra

So I installed IPython today. It was a bit of an adventure, so thought I’d document it here, in case it helps anyone else (including my future self, heh):

  1. Installed Python 3.6 (the default, 2.7, included with macOS, isn’t new enough).  This puts the “python3” executable on your machine, which you can invoke similarly to “python” (which will invoke the default OS-supplied Python, probably 2.7).
  2. Got ‘pip‘. Note this was a convoluted process that involved copying some text from the pip website, pasting it into a text file, then executing that text file from python3 like so: ‘python3 get-pip.py’ (without the quotes).  This yielded the ‘pip3.6’ executable, located here: /usr/local/bin/pip3.6
  3. Used the ‘pip3.6’ executable to download ‘ipython’: /usr/local/bin/pip3.6 install ipython
  4. Noticed that IPython looked like it installed correctly, but ‘ipython’ didn’t run from the command line immediately after that, and the installation path wasn’t noted anywhere in the installation output.  Turns out, IPython added its installation location to my PATH via my .bash_profile file, but didn’t tell me. I reloaded my .bash_profile like this, and all was good: source ~/.bash_profile
  5. Now I’ve got IPython! Invoke like this from the command line like this: ‘ipython’. Output looks like this:
    • Macintodffeb798:local me$ ipython
      Python 3.6.3 (v3.6.3:2c5fed86e0, Oct 3 2017, 00:32:08)
      Type ‘copyright’, ‘credits’ or ‘license’ for more information
      IPython 6.2.1 — An enhanced Interactive Python. Type ‘?’ for help.In [1]:

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