Spyder is an

open-source Open source is source code that is made freely available for possible modification and redistribution. Products include permission to use the source code, design documents, or content of the product. The open-source model is a decentralized so ...

cross-platform

integrated development environment An integrated development environment (IDE) is a software application that provides comprehensive facilities to computer programmers for software development. An IDE normally consists of at least a source code editor, build automation tools ...

(IDE) for scientific programming in the

Python language Python is a high-level, general-purpose programming language. Its design philosophy emphasizes code readability with the use of significant indentation. Python is dynamically-typed and garbage-collected. It supports multiple programming par ...

. Spyder integrates with a number of prominent packages in the scientific Python stack, including NumPy,

SciPy SciPy (pronounced "sigh pie") is a free and open-source Python library used for scientific computing and technical computing. SciPy contains modules for optimization, linear algebra, integration, interpolation, special functions, FFT, ...

Matplotlib Matplotlib is a plotting library for the Python programming language and its numerical mathematics extension NumPy. It provides an object-oriented API for embedding plots into applications using general-purpose GUI toolkits like Tkinter, wxPy ...

, pandas,

IPython IPython (Interactive Python) is a command shell for interactive computing in multiple programming languages, originally developed for the Python programming language, that offers introspection, rich media, shell syntax, tab completion, and h ...

, SymPy and

Cython Cython () is a programming language that aims to be a superset of the Python programming language, designed to give C-like performance with code that is written mostly in Python with optional additional C-inspired syntax. Cython is a compiled ...

, as well as other open-source software. It is released under the

MIT license The MIT License is a permissive free software license originating at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the late 1980s. As a permissive license, it puts only very limited restriction on reuse and has, therefore, high license comp ...

. Initially created and developed by Pierre Raybaut in 2009, since 2012 Spyder has been maintained and continuously improved by a team of scientific Python developers and the community. Spyder is extensible with first-party and third-party plugins, includes support for interactive tools for data inspection and embeds Python-specific code quality assurance and introspection instruments, such as Pyflakes,

Pylint Pylint is a static code analysis tool for the Python programming language. It is named following a common convention in Python of a "py" prefix, and a nod to the C programming lint program. It follows the style recommended by PEP 8, the Python s ...

and Rope. It is available cross-platform through

Anaconda Anacondas or water boas are a group of large snakes of the genus '' Eunectes''. They are found in tropical South America. Four species are currently recognized. Description Although the name applies to a group of snakes, it is often used t ...

, on Windows, on macOS through

MacPorts MacPorts, formerly DarwinPorts, is a package manager for macOS and Darwin. It is an open-source software project that aims to simplify the installation of other open source software. It's similar in function to Fink and the BSD ports collection ...

, and on major Linux distributions such as

Arch Linux Arch Linux () is an independently developed, x86-64 general-purpose Linux distribution that strives to provide the latest stable versions of most software by following a rolling-release model. The default installation is a minimal base system, ...

Debian Debian (), also known as Debian GNU/Linux, is a Linux distribution composed of free and open-source software, developed by the community-supported Debian Project, which was established by Ian Murdock on August 16, 1993. The first version of De ...

Fedora A fedora () is a hat with a soft brim and indented crown.Kilgour, Ruth Edwards (1958). ''A Pageant of Hats Ancient and Modern''. R. M. McBride Company. It is typically creased lengthwise down the crown and "pinched" near the front on both side ...

Gentoo Linux Gentoo Linux (pronounced ) is a Linux distribution built using the Portage package management system. Unlike a binary software distribution, the source code is compiled locally according to the user's preferences and is often optimized for th ...

openSUSE openSUSE () is a free and open source RPM-based Linux distribution developed by the openSUSE project. The initial release of the community project was a beta version of SUSE Linux 10.0. Additionally the project creates a variety of tools, s ...

and

Ubuntu Ubuntu ( ) is a Linux distribution based on Debian and composed mostly of free and open-source software. Ubuntu is officially released in three editions: '' Desktop'', ''Server'', and ''Core'' for Internet of things devices and robots. All ...

. Spyder uses Qt for its GUI and is designed to use either of the

PyQt PyQt is a Python binding of the cross-platform GUI toolkit Qt, implemented as a Python plug-in. PyQt is free software developed by the British firm Riverbank Computing. It is available under similar terms to Qt versions older than 4.5; this m ...

or PySide Python bindings. QtPy, a thin abstraction layer developed by the Spyder project and later adopted by multiple other packages, provides the flexibility to use either backend.

Features

Features include: *An editor with

syntax highlighting Syntax highlighting is a feature of text editors that are used for programming, scripting, or markup languages, such as HTML. The feature displays text, especially source code, in different colours and fonts according to the category of terms ...

introspection Introspection is the examination of one's own conscious thoughts and feelings. In psychology, the process of introspection relies on the observation of one's mental state, while in a spiritual context it may refer to the examination of one's sou ...

code completion Autocomplete, or word completion, is a feature in which an application predicts the rest of a word a user is typing. In Android and iOS smartphones, this is called predictive text. In graphical user interfaces, users can typically press the t ...

*Support for multiple

consoles *The ability to explore and edit variables from a

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

*A Help pane able to retrieve and render rich text

documentation Documentation is any communicable material that is used to describe, explain or instruct regarding some attributes of an object, system or procedure, such as its parts, assembly, installation, maintenance and use. As a form of knowledge manageme ...

on functions, classes and methods automatically or on-demand *A

debugger A debugger or debugging tool is a computer program used to test and debug other programs (the "target" program). The main use of a debugger is to run the target program under controlled conditions that permit the programmer to track its executi ...

linked to IPdb, for step-by-step execution * Static code analysis, powered by

*A run-time Profiler, to benchmark code *Project support, allowing work on multiple development efforts simultaneously *A built-in

file explorer File Explorer, previously known as Windows Explorer, is a file manager application that is included with releases of the Microsoft Windows operating system from Windows 95 onwards. It provides a graphical user interface for accessing the f ...

, for interacting with the filesystem and managing projects *A "Find in Files" feature, allowing full

regular expression A regular expression (shortened as regex or regexp; sometimes referred to as rational expression) is a sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text. Usually such patterns are used by string-searching algorithms for "find" ...

search over a specified scope *An online help browser, allowing users to search and view Python and package documentation inside the IDE *A history log, recording every user command entered in each console *An internal console, allowing for introspection and control over Spyder's own operation

Plugins

Available plugins include: *Spyder-Unittest, which integrates the popular

unit testing In computer programming, unit testing is a software testing method by which individual units of source code—sets of one or more computer program modules together with associated control data, usage procedures, and operating procedures&md ...

frameworks Pytest, Unittest and Nose with Spyder *Spyder-Notebook, allowing the viewing and editing of Jupyter Notebooks within the IDE **Download Spyder Notebook **Using conda: ''conda install spyder-notebook -c spyder-ide'' **Using pip: ''pip install spyder-notebook'' *Spyder-Reports, enabling use of

literate programming Literate programming is a programming paradigm introduced in 1984 by Donald Knuth in which a computer program is given as an explanation of its logic in a natural language, such as English, interspersed (embedded) with snippets of macros an ...

techniques in Python *Spyder-Terminal, adding the ability to open, control and manage cross-platform system shells within Spyder **Download Spyder Terminal **Using conda: ''conda install spyder-terminal -c spyder-ide'' **Using pip: ''pip install spyder-terminal'' *Spyder-Vim, containing commands and shortcuts emulating the Vim text editor *Spyder-AutoPEP8, which can automatically conform code to the standard PEP 8 code style *Spyder-Line-Profiler and Spyder-Memory-Profiler, extending the built-in profiling functionality to include testing an individual line, and measuring

memory Memory is the faculty of the mind by which data or information is encoded, stored, and retrieved when needed. It is the retention of information over time for the purpose of influencing future action. If past events could not be remember ...

usage

References

External links

*
Documentation
* {{Integrated development environments Free integrated development environments Free integrated development environments for Python Free mathematics software Free science software Python (programming language) development tools Python (programming language) software Software using the MIT license

Features

Plugins

See also

References

External links