whitten / JWLS

Jupyter notebooks for Wolfram Language Scripts

JWLS

A Jupyter notebook for Wolfram(Language)Script.

The goal of JWLS is to extend the wolframscript cli with a HTML-based REPL interface.

Features

• Autocompletion of WL Symbols
• WL syntax highlighting
• "!command" runs Bash commands
• Vector graphics outputs displayed by the Jupyter file viewer
• 3D and Dynamic displayed by wolframplayer

Installation

Assuming miniconda (Python 3.7) installed

1. Copy the kernel folder JWLS_kernel into your python installation folder e.g. `~/miniconda3/lib/python3.7/site-packages/

2. Run the installation script python install.py (it's in the kernel folder)

3. Modify the path of Names.wl.txt in kernel.py because it requires the full path instead of ~ . Check also if JWLS.sh points the actual wolframscript executable.

Usage

Run JWLS.sh or copy it in the executables path e.g. cp JWLS.sh /usr/local/bin/JWLS .

In order to use it on a cloud compute virtual machine, modify the nbAddrF function by adding jupyter notebook --no-browser --port=7000 . Then screen a session, run JWLS and detach it. Go back to your local machine and ssh -N -f -L localhost:6001:localhost:7000 <IP>". For AWS instances also add the pem. For Google Cloud follow their instructions.

Possible issues and Troubleshooting

On MacOs, if sed gives error substitute it with gsed; see this [discussion] If your system is generally slow and JWLS.sh opens more than one jupyter-notebook server, you might want to increase the Pause timing in the nbAddrF function which is reponsible for that.

How it works

JWLS is a slimmed down version of the Jupyter bash_kernel that pipes input cells into a wolframscript Dialog[] through a temporary fifo, and it reads the corresponding outputs from the default wolframscript log file.

The JWLS.sh script reads your jupyter notebook list to save the address of the first notebook found; that is needed by show. If Jupyter is not running, JWLS will start a new notebook.

The custom show function returns the clickable URL of the exported graphical output. In this way, graphics is rendered by the Jupyter file viewer in a new browser tab, not within the notebook. Any epression or graphics that is not an Image is exported as a pdf (quickest export time and very accurate), otherwise it exports a png. show exports 3D graphics or Dynamic stuff like Manipulate as notebooks and lanuch wolframplayer to interact with them. wolframplayer gets installed with Wolfram Engine and the executable can be found on../WolframEngine/12.0/Executables/wolframplayer. Be sure to have it in your PATH.

The Out[..] expressions are returned on both the Jupyter notebook and the terminal where JWLS is started. On Wolfram Kernels prior to V12, error messages, Information and progress indicators are printed on terminal only. With the new Wolfram Engine (for developers) errors and Information are given back to the standard ouput but still, progress indicators or incremental ouputs like Do[ Print@"hello"; Pause@1, 3 ] returns only at the end of the execution; keep an eye on the terminal for those.