The IPython notebook provides an interactive interface to a Python interpreter.

• Literate programming: the IPython notebook is an ideal format for writing "literate" programs, in which the code is part of a larger multi-media document. runipy lets you run such programs directly, without first converting to a pure Python script.
• Report generation: runipy can run the notebook and convert it into HTML in one go, making it an easy way to automate reports when aesthetic control is not a priority.
• Data pipeline: if you use IPython notebooks to create a data pipeline, runipy lets you automate that pipeline without losing the notebook formatting.

The easiest way to install runipy is with pip:

$ pip install runipy

To run a .ipynb file as a script, run:

$ runipy MyNotebook.ipynb

To save the output of each cell back to the notebook file, run:

$ runipy -o MyNotebook.ipynb

To save the notebook output as a new notebook, run:

$ runipy MyNotebook.ipynb OutputNotebook.ipynb

To run a .ipynb file and genereate an HTML report, run:

$ runipy MyNotebook.ipynb --html report.html

You can pass arguments to the notebook through environment variables. The use of environment variables is OS- and shell- dependent, but in a typical UNIX-like environment they can be passed on the command line before the program name:

$ myvar=value runipy MyNotebook.ipynb

Then in the notebook, to access myvar:

from os import environ
myvar = environ['myvar']

environ is just a dict, so you can use .get() to fall back on a default value:

from os import environ
myvar = environ.get('myvar', 'default!')

It is also possible to run IPython notebooks from Python, using:

from runipy.notebook_runner import NotebookRunner

r = NotebookRunner("MyNotebook.ipynb")
r.run_notebook()

and you can enable pylab with:

r = NotebookRunner("MyNotebook.ipynb", pylab=True)

Portions of the code are based on code by Min RK

Thanks to Kyle Kelley, Nitin Madnani, George Titsworth, Thomas Robitaille, and Andrey Tatarinov for patches, documentation fixes, and suggestions.