Save an IPython notebook programmatically from within itself?

Question

I would like to leave an IPython notebook running to do some computation + show some visuals.

Once the IPython notebook has finished, I want the last cell in the IPython notebook to programmatically save the IPython notebook. Then I want to copy the notebook (with all output) to another directory to keep a record of results.

The copying bit I can code up easily, but I am not sure how to get an IPython notebook to programatically save itself? Is this possible? Thanks in advance!

Admissible

Saving is done from the notebook web interface, which the kernel doesn't really know about. But you could make a cell that displays Javascript to call the frontend save function. – Fogel

With IPython < 4, you could do something like: from IPython.display import display,Javascript display(Javascript('IPython.notebook.save_checkpoint();')) – Vice

@Taar, thanks! That was the answer I was looking for; would accept as answer if it were answer! – Admissible

Answer 1

I am taking @Taar's comment and making it an actual answer since it worked for the original person who asked the question and for myself.

from IPython.display import display, Javascript
display(Javascript('IPython.notebook.save_checkpoint();'))

This will create checkpoints - same thing as CTRL-s.

Note: in Jupyter, CTRL-s triggers an async process and the file save is actually completed only a few seconds later. If you want a blocking save operation in a notebook, use this little function (file_path is the path to the notebook file):

import time
from IPython.display import display, Javascript
import hashlib

def save_notebook(file_path):
    start_md5 = hashlib.md5(open(file_path,'rb').read()).hexdigest()
    display(Javascript('IPython.notebook.save_checkpoint();'))
    current_md5 = start_md5
    
    while start_md5 == current_md5:
        time.sleep(1)
        current_md5 = hashlib.md5(open(file_path,'rb').read()).hexdigest()

Shanel

If I am running this from the command line (on a remote server where I am not the user currently using the notebook) how do I specify which notebook I want saved? – Lactone

@zozo, I have no ideas. Note: yours is an entirely different question since you are trying to save a notebook from outside, I suggest you open another new question. – Shanel

This won't work when using the JupyterLab interface, see here. (Also I think the code should read import time, and not from time import sleep.) – Vivien

This unfortunately doesn't work with Jupyter Lab (3.2.5): I get Javascript Error: IPython is not defined. – Scevor

this great ! only issue ? : if you save it a second time without changes the hash never changes so it is blocked forever and just hangs. this fixes that: https://mcmap.net/q/465101/-save-an-ipython-notebook-programmatically-from-within-itself – Hermetic

Where can I find similar commands to the save_checkpoint command? E.g. save and pin revision (Ctrl+M S) – Weiser

Answer 2

The ipython magic command %notebook will help you here. It is shown on this page (search for %notebook).

To save your current notebook history to the file "foo.ipynb" just enter:

%notebook -e foo.ipynb

At the point you want it to happen

Reproachless

Be aware that this saves your history as a new notebook. If you've run the notebook from start to finish without re-running any cells and run this at the end, that will be what you expect. If you re-run or re-order any cells, it may not do what you want. – Fogel

or1426, thanks but for some reason I am not getting the output in foo.ipynb, is there any way to do that? – Admissible

Is there a way to dynamically add the path to save as well? Eg %notebook path_variable_from_runtime\name.ipynb – Drank

if some_python_var is a python variable with the path you want, you can %notebook $some_python_var – Asterism

Answer 3

In [1]:

import os
import time
import pathlib
from IPython.display import display, HTML, Javascript

html = '''
<script>
    IPython.notebook.kernel.execute(
        'filename = "' + IPython.notebook.notebook_name + '"'
    )
</script>
'''

def save_notebook():
    file_path = str(
        pathlib.Path(
            os.getcwd(),
            filename
        )
    )
    start_mtime = os.path.getmtime(file_path)
    display(
        Javascript(
            'IPython.notebook.save_checkpoint();'
        )
    )
    current_mtime = start_mtime
    while start_mtime == current_mtime:
        time.sleep(1)
        current_mtime = os.path.getmtime(file_path)

display(HTML(html))

In [2]:

save_notebook()

This works when you have not made any new changes to the notebook.

Hermetic