How to pass a variable to magic ´run´ function in IPython

Question

I want to do something like the following:

In[1]: name = 'long_name_to_type_every_now_and_then.py'  In[2]: %run name 

but this actually tries to run 'name.py', which is not what I want to do.

Is there a general way to turn variables into strings?

Something like the following:

In[3]: %run %name% 

Answer 1

IPython expands variables with $name, bash-style. This is true for all magics, not just %run.

So you would do:

In [1]: filename = "myscript.py"  In [2]: %run $filename ['myscript.py'] 

myscript.py contains:

import sys print(sys.argv) 

Via Python's fancy string formatting, you can even put expressions inside {}:

In [3]: args = ["arg1", "arg2"]  In [4]: %run $filename {args[0]} {args[1][-2:]} ['myscript.py', 'arg1', 'g2'] 

Answer 2

Use get_ipython() to get a reference to the current InteractiveShell, then call the magic() method:

In [1]: ipy = get_ipython()  In [2]: ipy.magic("run foo.py") ERROR: File `u'foo.py'` not found. 

Edit See minrk's answer — that's a much better way to do it.