Using python together with knitr

Question

I would like to use python together with knitr. However, python chunks seem to get evaluated separately, and variable definitions are lost between chunks.

How to solve this?

Minimal example:

test.pymd

---
title: "Minimal example"
---

With a print statement.

```{r hello}
x = 'Hello, Python World!'
print(x)
```

Without a print statement.

```{r world}
print(x)
```

test.md

---
title: "Minimal example"
---

With a print statement.


```python
x = 'Hello, Python World!'
print(x)
```

```
Hello, Python World!
```

Without a print statement.


```python
print(x)
```

```
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
NameError: name 'x' is not defined
```

knit2py.r

#! /usr/bin/Rscript --vanilla

args <- commandArgs(TRUE)

if(length(args) < 1) {
    message("Need arguments in the format: %.pymd [%.md]")
    q(status=1)
}

name <- substr(args[1],1,nchar(args[1])-4)

if(length(args) < 2) {
    args[2] <- paste0(name,".md")
}

library(knitr)
opts_chunk$set(engine = 'python')

res <- try(knit(args[1], args[2]))

if(inherits(res, "try-error")) {
    message("Could not successfully knit RMD (or PYMD) to MD")
    q(status=1)
} else q()

And now run:

./knit2py.r test.pymd test.md 

Answer 1

Yes, indeed, knitr is currently not able to evaluate code stretching over multiple chunks for languages other than R. The solution is not to use knitr but to use pweave instead. The modifications to the source file are minimal:

test.mdw

---
title: "Minimal example"
---

With a print statement.

<<>>=
x = 'Hello, Python World!'
print(x)
@

Without a print statement.

<<>>=
print(x)
@

The end.

And now run:

pweave -f pandoc test.mdw

There is a note on the pweave's website that installation would fail with pip using python3. I had, though, no problems at all, when simply running:

pip install pweave
pip install markdown

Maybe, it is just an old note.