Question

I am using ipython on Mac OS 10.5 with python 2.5.1 (I would actually like to use ipython for 2.6.1, but it doesn’t seem to be available?)

I installed ipython via easy_install. It works but is missing gnu readline (needed for nice searching of command line history with ctrl-R, etc.)

I found a blog post and other sources saying this could be fixed by

sudo easy_install -f http://ipython.scipy.org/dist/ readline

However, this leads to build errors in readline.c , particularly undeclared functions like rl_compentry_func_t and rl_catch_signals.

Has anyone seen these errors? Is there another way to get ipython installed with readline?

Answer 1

You can install everything you need with essentially one command using MacPorts. First download and install MacPorts from http://www.macports.org/.

Then just do the following in the terminal: 1) sudo port -v selfupdate
2) sudo port -v install py26-ipython

That will install python2.6, ipython for python 2.6 and readline for you. The command to start ipython will be located at /opt/local/bin/ipython2.6