autoreload is an IPython extension that reloads modules automatically before executing the line of code typed.
This makes for example the following workflow possible:
In [1]: %load_ext autoreload
In [2]: %autoreload 2
In [3]: from foo import some_function
In [4]: some_function()
Out[4]: 42
In [5]: # open foo.py in an editor and change some_function to return 43
In [6]: some_function()
Out[6]: 43
The module was reloaded without reloading it explicitly, and the object imported with from foo import ... was also updated.
The following magic commands are provided:
%autoreload
Reload all modules (except those excluded by %aimport) automatically now.
%autoreload 0
Disable automatic reloading.
%autoreload 1
Reload all modules imported with %aimport every time before executing the Python code typed.
%autoreload 2
Reload all modules (except those excluded by %aimport) every time before executing the Python code typed.
%aimport
List modules which are to be automatically imported or not to be imported.
%aimport foo
Import module ‘foo’ and mark it to be autoreloaded for %autoreload 1
%aimport -foo
Mark module ‘foo’ to not be autoreloaded.
Reloading Python modules in a reliable way is in general difficult, and unexpected things may occur. %autoreload tries to work around common pitfalls by replacing function code objects and parts of classes previously in the module with new versions. This makes the following things to work:
Some of the known remaining caveats are: