`ipython` tab autocomplete does not work on imported module

Question

Tab completion on IPython seems not to be working. For example,

import numpy
numpy.<tab>

simply adds a tab.

import numpy
num<tab>

just adds a tab, too. Could you please suggest some possible causes for this problem? I am running Windows 7 and Python 2.6.5.

Answer 1

Be sure you have installed the pyreadline library. It is needed for tab completion and other IPython functions - in Windows it doesn't come with the IPython package and you have to install it separately -

> pip install pyreadline

Answer 2

Your ipythonrc file may be out of date. Try running

ipython -upgrade

Answer 3

pip told me I had pyreadline version 1.7.1 installed

C:\Users\me>pip freeze | grep readline
pyreadline==1.7.1

Upgrading pyreadline fixed it for me:

C:\Users\me>pip install --upgrade pyreadline

C:\Users\me>pip freeze | grep readline
pyreadline==2.0

Answer 4

The classic 'have you tried turning it off and on again' worked for me.

pip uninstall ipython
pip install ipython

Answer 5

As of right now, on a OSX, pip installed ipython doesn't give tab completion, pyreadline release.py is busted .. what WFM:

easy_install ipython readline

YMMV.

Answer 6

Someone else in StackOverflow posted this link: http://www.vankouteren.eu/blog/2009/06/getting-ipython-readline-and-auto-completion-to-work-on-mac-os-x/

Its basicly easy_install readline than discover where the readline egg got installed and edit the ipython bin script to use this readline:

1. Install the "official" readline: easy_install readline
2. Discover where it is. Look at /Library/Python/site-packages/readline-*.egg or in your Virtualenv counterpart
3. Discover where ipython bin is: which ipython
4. Add ONE LINE to this file, adding the readline egg path right after import sys line.

My virtualenved ipython bin script got working as follow:

#!/Users/alanjds/src/git/cervejeiras/venv/cervejeiras-lfs/bin/python
# EASY-INSTALL-ENTRY-SCRIPT: 'ipython==0.13.1','console_scripts','ipython'
__requires__ = 'ipython==0.13.1'
import sys

### ONLY LINE ADDED:
sys.path.insert(0, '/Users/alanjds/src/git/cervejeiras/venv/cervejeiras-lfs/lib/python2.6/site-packages/readline-6.2.4.1-py2.6-macosx-10.6-fat.egg')
####

from pkg_resources import load_entry_point

if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.exit(
        load_entry_point('ipython==0.13.1', 'console_scripts', 'ipython')()
    )

Answer 7

I realize this is a really old question, but none of the answers above worked for me (And this is the first hit you get when you google a question of this nature).

I should mention that this is NOT exclusive to windows, I had the problem running CentOS 6.5 and Python 2.7

Here is what I did:

apt-get/yum install ncurses-devel
#If you want history in iPython:
apt-get/yum install sqlite-devel
easy_install ipython readline
ipython

In [1]: from 
Display all 391 possibilities? (y or n)

If you don't have the -devel packages, your install will fail when it comes time to link them and build the eggs.. Hope this helps others!

Answer 8

Pyreadline is needed by ipython. Install pyreadline. This was done in Windows 7. Get pyreadline zip, pyreadline-master.zip, unzip. In powershell change directory into uzipped pyreadline, make sure python is set in Path, and enter commandpython setup.py install This will intall pyreadline in C:\Python27\Lib\site-packages

Answer 9

I had this problem and knew that I had the pip installed for the module I was looking for. Performing $ ipython --init solved the problem for me.

Answer 10

I had to mv ~/.ipython{,.bak} in my case.

Answer 11

If you use Jupyter notebook and you still did get Tab auto-complete working after you tried all the steps suggested in the post here, you might want to check if you are trying to use the Tab auto-completion within a function definition. Ifyour import statements are part of the function such as below, you will not get the Tab auto-completion. You need to put the import statements outside the function and also execute them once before asking for auto-completion on the packages.

def myfunction():
    import pandas as pd
    import numpy as np

    a = pd.DataFrame(np.random.normal(1,3, (4,4))
    return a

Answer 12

Downgrading iPython did the trick.

pip install --upgrade ipython==5.8.0