Capturing Output With %%capture

IPython has a cell magic, %%capture, which captures the stdout/stderr of a cell. With this magic you can discard these streams or store them in a variable.


In [1]:
from __future__ import print_function
import sys

By default, %%capture discards these streams. This is a simple way to suppress unwanted output.


In [2]:
%%capture
print('hi, stdout')
print('hi, stderr', file=sys.stderr)

If you specify a name, then stdout/stderr will be stored in an object in your namespace.


In [3]:
%%capture captured
print('hi, stdout')
print('hi, stderr', file=sys.stderr)

In [4]:
captured


Out[4]:
<IPython.utils.capture.CapturedIO at 0x1076c9310>

Calling the object writes the output to stdout/stderr as appropriate.


In [5]:
captured()


hi, stdout
hi, stderr

In [6]:
captured.stdout


Out[6]:
'hi, stdout\n'

In [7]:
captured.stderr


Out[7]:
'hi, stderr\n'

%%capture grabs all output types, not just stdout/stderr, so you can do plots and use IPython's display system inside %%capture


In [8]:
%matplotlib inline
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import numpy as np

In [9]:
%%capture wontshutup

print("setting up X")
x = np.linspace(0,5,1000)
print("step 2: constructing y-data")
y = np.sin(x)
print("step 3: display info about y")
plt.plot(x,y)
print("okay, I'm done now")

In [10]:
wontshutup()


setting up X
step 2: constructing y-data
step 3: display info about y
okay, I'm done now

And you can selectively disable capturing stdout, stderr or rich display, by passing --no-stdout, --no-stderr and --no-display


In [11]:
%%capture cap --no-stderr
print('hi, stdout')
print("hello, stderr", file=sys.stderr)


hello, stderr

In [12]:
cap.stdout


Out[12]:
'hi, stdout\n'

In [13]:
cap.stderr


Out[13]:
''

In [14]:
cap.outputs


Out[14]:
[]