Viewing all defined variables [duplicate]

Question

I'm currently working on a computation in python shell. What I want to have is Matlab style listout where you can see all the variables that have been defined up to a point (so I know which names I've used, their values and such).

Is there a way, and how can I do that?

Answer 1

A few things you could use:

• dir() will give you the list of in scope variables:
• globals() will give you a dictionary of global variables
• locals() will give you a dictionary of local variables

Answer 2

If possible, you may want to use IPython.

To get a list of all current user-defined variables, IPython provides a magic command named who (magics must be prefixed with the % character unless the automagic feature is enabled):

In [1]: foo = 'bar' In [2]: %who foo 

You can use the whos magic to get more detail:

In [3]: %whos Variable   Type    Data/Info ---------------------------- foo        str     bar 

There are a wealth of other magics available. IPython is basically the Python interpreter on steroids. One convenient magic is store, which lets you save variables between sessions (using pickle).

Note: I am not associated with IPython Dev - just a satisfied user.

Edit:

You can find all the magic commands in the IPython Documentation.

This article also has a helpful section on the use of magic commands in Jupyter Notebook