Avoid restarting Jupyter kernel in package develop mode?

Question

I am working on a python package as a developer. The package is stored in a git repo and I use a local branch to debug/fix this package.

I use Jupyter notebooks using pip in edit mode to load my local branch as a package, where I test changes I make.

I run the following steps:

1. Load the local package in a develop mode
2. Import the module I want to test
3. Do the test

For instance:

! pip install -e Path/To/Local/Package/ # step 1

import local_foo as foo # step 2
foo.print() # step 3

After step 3 if the code doesn't behave as expected, I correct my package, restart the jupyter kernel , and re-run the 3 previous steps until I get the behavior I want.

My question is:
Is there a way to avoid restarting the kernel?

I tried the following but it doesn't work in this case:
IPython autoreload :

%load_ext autoreload
%autoreload 2

and importlib.reload :

import importlib
importlib.reload(foo)

I tried the solution suggested in this article:
https://support.enthought.com/hc/en-us/articles/204469240-Jupyter-IPython-After-editing-a-module-changes-are-not-effective-without-kernel-restart

Many thanks!

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PS: In addition, can some of you can share tips, workflows or experiences using Jupyter notebooks to manage python package development (test,...)

Answer 1

I hate restarting kernels and sometimes it seems like it is the only option but I have tried this and it worked:

import local_foo as foo
from importlib import reload

reload(foo)

Answer 2

You may have to deal with reference issues as packages which are not pure Python may not be easily reloaded using importlib.reload .

This may be resolved by removing it from the modules and namespace before reloading it.

import foo  # The first import of the package

import sys
import importlib

# Do things with foo

del sys.modules['foo']  # Remove it from the currently loaded modules
del foo  # Remove it's name

importlib.reload(foo)

Joseph Garvin writes a very nice function in this answer which operates similarly and also supports imports of the form from foo import bar .

Answer 3

You can use autoreload , adding these two lines at the beginning of your Jupyter notebook:

%reload_ext autoreload
%autoreload 2

Answer 4

I faced a similar issue , while importing a custom script in jupyter notebook

Try importing the module as an alias then reloading it

import local_foo as foo
from importlib import reload
reload(foo)