56

I try to run the following codes on Spyder (Python 2.7.11):

# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-

import numpy as np
import pandas as pd

%matplotlib inline

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
import matplotlib.cm as cm

import tensorflow as tf

# settings
LEARNING_RATE = 1e-4
# set to 20000 on local environment to get 0.99 accuracy
TRAINING_ITERATIONS = 2000        

DROPOUT = 0.5
BATCH_SIZE = 50

# set to 0 to train on all available data
VALIDATION_SIZE = 2000

# image number to output
IMAGE_TO_DISPLAY = 10

But I got this error:

line 10
    %matplotlib inline
    ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax.

I appreciate if anybody gives me an explanation.

P.S. the code is from Kaggle competition project: Digit Recognizer

MB-F
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John
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7 Answers7

78

Line magics are only supported by the IPython command line. They cannot simply be used inside a script, because %something is not correct Python syntax.

If you want to do this from a script you have to get access to the IPython API and then call the run_line_magic function.

Instead of %matplotlib inline, you will have to do something like this in your script:

from IPython import get_ipython
get_ipython().run_line_magic('matplotlib', 'inline')

A similar approach is described in this answer, but it uses the deprecated magic function.

Note that the script still needs to run in IPython. Under vanilla Python the get_ipython function returns None and get_ipython().run_line_magic will raise an AttributeError.

MB-F
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  • Thank you for your suggestion. I tried your approach, and got another err: ImportError: No module named moves (because iPython is running the code "from six.moves import zip, reduce") , I am trying to find out why this happens. – John Feb 24 '16 at 23:03
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    Thank you for your suggestion , but I got this error `AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'run_line_magic'` , Can you help Thanks – Always_Beginner Dec 12 '16 at 06:59
  • @Always_Beginner this sounds like you are using a normal Python shell, in which case `get_ipython()` returns `None`. Line magics are only supported in IPython. – MB-F Dec 12 '16 at 08:14
  • @kazemakase Okay but I thought this works for pure python too , as per this answer kazemakase [link](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/28724610/what-is-the-pure-python-equivalent-to-the-ipython-magic-function-call-matplotli) I thought it works for pure python too. – Always_Beginner Dec 12 '16 at 08:45
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    @Always_Beginner in the linked answer 'pure python' refers to the fact that line magics starting with `%` are not correct Python syntax, but using the functions `run_line_magic` or `magic` are syntactically correct "pure" Python. However, the line magic feature is only supported by the IPython interpreter and not by the normal Python interpreter. – MB-F Dec 12 '16 at 11:19
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    This answer together with [this](https://stackoverflow.com/a/39662359/10652754) check to see if the script is running on a interactive terminal works like a charm. – Carlos Galdino May 09 '22 at 13:37
16

Because line magics are only supported by the IPython command line not by Python cl, use: 'exec(%matplotlib inline)' instead of %matplotlib inline

Abraham Sanchez
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5

The syntax '%' in %matplotlib inline is recognized by iPython (where it is set up to handle the magic methods), but not Python itself, which gives a SyntaxError. Here is given one solution.

Community
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PineapplePizza
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  • I thought this was the problem until I realized spyder is related to ipython, Then again this might be the problem. – GLaDOS Feb 24 '16 at 08:15
  • Oops. Surprisingly, there are a lot of problems with matplotlib in Spyder. – PineapplePizza Feb 24 '16 at 08:39
  • Thank you for your response. However even I run the script on iPython console, it still gives me the same error. – John Feb 24 '16 at 22:26
  • @John, Make sure the script filename ends with .ipy as in: ipython file.ipy . If you use a .py file ending, ipython runs it as a regular python script and it doesn't work. Also, "auto" can be used instead of "inline" for %matplotlib. – egbit Jul 07 '19 at 16:14
4

If you include the following code at the top of your script, matplotlib will run inline when in an IPython environment (like jupyter, hydrogen atom plugin...), and it will still work if you launch the script directly via command line (matplotlib won't run inline, and the charts will open in a pop-ups as usual).

from IPython import get_ipython
ipy = get_ipython()
if ipy is not None:
    ipy.run_line_magic('matplotlib', 'inline')
Erwan Swak
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2

There are several reasons as to why this wouldn't work.

It is possible that matplotlib is not properly installed. have you tried running: 

conda install matplotlib

If that doesn't work, look at your %PATH% environment variable, does it contain your libraries and python paths?

Similar problem on github anaconda

GLaDOS
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0

This is the case you are using Julia:

The analogue of IPython's %matplotlib in Julia is to use the PyPlot package, which gives a Julia interface to Matplotlib including inline plots in IJulia notebooks. (The equivalent of numpy is already loaded by default in Julia.) Given PyPlot, the analogue of %matplotlib inline is using PyPlot, since PyPlot defaults to inline plots in IJulia.

Lorenzo Castagno
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-1

Instead of %matplotlib inline,it is not a python script so we can write like this it will work from IPython import get_ipython get_ipython().run_line_magic('matplotlib', 'inline')

achuz jithin
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