Completely disable IPython output caching

Question

I'm dealing with some GB-sized numpy arrays in IPython. When I delete them, I definitely want them gone, in order to recover the memory. IPythons output cache is quite annoying there, as it keeps the objects alive even after deleting the last actively intended reference to them. I already set

c.TerminalInteractiveShell.cache_size = 0

in the IPython configuration, but this only disables caching of entries to _oh, the other variables like _, __ and so on are still created. I'm also aware of %xdel, but anyways, I'd prefer to disable it completely, as I rarely use the output history anyways, so that a plain del would work again right away.

Answer 1

Looking at IPython/core/displayhook.py Line 209-214 I would say that it is not configurable. You could try making a PR to add an option to disable it totally.

Answer 2

Enter

echo "__builtin__._ = True" > ~/.config/ipython/profile_default/startup/00-disable-history.py

and your history should be gone.

Edit:

Seems like the path to the config directory is sometimes a bit different, either ~/.config/ipython or just ~/.ipython/. So just check which one you got and adjust the path accordingly. The solution still works with jupyter console.