debug magic function in ipython console

Question

I have a file called foo.py. In that file I have a bunch of functions and I would like to debug one of them, called foo.bar by setting a breakpoint but not hardcoding it using set_trace. I am working in an IPython console and I know there is a %debug magic function that can be used for this purpose with the syntax:

%debug [--breakpoint FILE:LINE]

So I try

%debug --breakpoint foo.py:10

to set the breakpoint at line 10. However, how do I actually execute the code then so that IPython recognizes the breakpoint? Doing

import foo
foo.bar()

does not work as the breakpoint is simply skipped.

Answer 1

The way to do this:

from foo import bar
%debug --breakpoint /path/to/foo.py:10 bar()

This will import bar into the namespace and run it with the breakpoint on line 10 of the module.