Tab completion, which helps you find a command

History mechanism

Inline editing

Ability to call external Python scripts with %run

Access to system commands

Access to the Python debugger and profiler

Starting a session: To start a session with IPython,enter the following instruction on the command line:

$ ipython3
Python 3.5.2 (default, Sep 28 2016, 18:08:09) 
Type "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
        IPython 5.1.0 -- An enhanced Interactive Python.
?         -> Introduction and overview of IPython's features.
%quickref -> Quick reference.
help      -> Python's own help system.
object?   -> Details about 'object', use 'object??' for extra 
                     details.
In [1]: quit()

Saving a session: We might want to be able to go back to our experiments. In IPython, it is easy to save a session for later use with the following command:

In [1]: %logstart
Activating auto-logging. Current session state plus future 
         input saved:
         Filename : ipython_log.py
         Mode : rotate
         Output logging : False
         Raw input log : False
         Timestamping : False
State : active

Logging can be switched off as follows:

In [9]: %logoff
Switching logging OFF

Executing a system shell command: Execute a system shell command in the default IPython profile by prefixing the command with the ! symbol. For instance, the following input will get the current date:

In [1]: !date

In fact, any line prefixed with ! is sent to the system shell. We can also store the command output, as shown here:

In [2]: thedate = !date
In [3]: thedate

Displaying history: We can show the history of our commands with the %hist command. For example:

In [1]: a = 2 + 2
In [2]: a
Out[2]: 4
In [3]: %hist
a = 2 + 2
a
%hist

This is a common feature in command line interface (CLI) environments. We can also search through the history with the -g switch as follows:

In [5]: %hist -g a = 2
      1: a = 2 + 2