Load python script from harddisk in Slicers´s Python Interactor?

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I was looking for that for ages about a month ago, so I just want to share the solution here (it may be obvious to you experts):

You can load and run a python script from the hard drive in the Python interactor (one-line command) with

    >> exec(open("filename.py").read())

This works in Slicer 4.11+ and seems to require Python3.

In Windows I used:

    >> exec(open(r"C:\Users\Yourname\Python\test.py").read())

Use slashes and do not forget the initial “r” …

Regards
Rudolf

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Yes, that’s a very handy pattern. I use it a lot for quick testing. It has the advantage that any global variables define in the .py file are still around in the python terminal for further testing. I typically put that command with the path as a comment at the top of my script file so I can easily copy-paste it into the terminal when I start a new slicer.

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Haha that is exactly what I did, but forgot about my comment and searched the whole internet again today :slight_smile:

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Dear Rudolf Bumm,
Amazing! I’ve try to find this solution more than year I think :0)
PS Also thanks for your MONAI label video presentation in summer '22!

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FYI, I’ve made some improvements in the past few days (will be available in the Slicer Preview Release from Wednesday):

  • Instead of exec(open(path).read()) you can hit Ctrl-r. Last path is remembered, so you can rerun a script using Ctrl-r, Enter.
  • If you copy-paste code into an empty line then instead of line-by-line execution, the entire code on the clipboard is executed at once (fixing the annoying indentation errors due to presence of empty lines).
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I wish we could try to follow ipython hotkey behavior wherever possible. Ctrl-r is incremental backward search in ipython and other readline based prompt systems and it’s a commonly used shortcut. Many of the common keyboard shortcuts](Keyboard Shortcuts in the IPython Shell | Python Data Science Handbook) like Ctrl-e , Ctrl-y etc work already in our python interactor and if we are adding features it’s nice to follow existing patterns.

But I should also add that I like the new features - they will save a lot of time!

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It should not be a problem to switch the Ctrl-R shortcut to a more standard one now, especially because previously this feature have been practically unusable. I can push an update today. What should be the keyboard shortcut?

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Thanks!

I’m not sure what would be best. Let’s discuss at the developer meeting. There are some existing cross platform issues we could address at the same time and come up with a good scheme so that slicer hotkeys are as compatible as possible with other hotkey conventions.

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I’ll also add Ctrl-l for clearing the terminal.

Ctrl-r for reverse search could be useful and it would not be hard to add, especially if we do it in a popup window instead of struggling with using the terminal window for it (IPython shell uses a special mode with the (reverse-i-search) prompt, while we could simply open a small search box).

We could also easily add Ctrl-k/u to cut content before/after the cursor, but it seems marginally useful (you can do Shift+Home/End, Ctrl-x instead).

However, most other shortcuts don’t seem to make sense for me, such as using

  • Ctrl-a/e instead of Home/End keys
  • Ctrl-b/f instead of left/right arrow keys
  • Ctrl-p/n instead of up/down arrow keys
  • Ctrl-d instead of Delete key
  • Ctrl-t for switching the previous two characters (really, a shortcut for this??)
  • Ctrl-y instead of Ctrl-v for pasting
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Ctrl-r is the one I really care about. The rest are very common for people used to emacs-based features.
For me, even the chrome text window I’m using on mac allows Ctrl-[bfnpeatkyt] and that’s handy for people like me who are used to them from bash or ipython. Yes, even Ctrl-t to transpose two characters works, although I don’t use that one.

After discussion on the slicer dev call, we think Ctrl-g is not otherwise used and can be associated with the concept of ‘go’.