IPython ?/?? output doesn't render nicely in the text editor

[maximlt]

Applies To

• Notebooks (.ipynb files)
• Interactive Window and/or Cell Scripts (.py files with #%% markers)

What happened?

IPython provides ? and ?? to get a quick access to the help and source code of an object. When the output of this magic command is too long VSCode suggests opening it in a text editor (Output exceeds the size limit. Open the full output data in a text editor). However, I believe that IPython expects the output to be displayed in a terminal and as such colorizes it. This doesn't render nicely at all in the text editor.

Execute the following in a Notebook cell:

import string
string??

Follow the suggestion and open the text editor, you'll see:

(Originally reported in holoviz/hvplot#984)

VS Code Version

Version: 1.73.1 (Universal) Commit: 6261075 Date: 2022-11-09T02:08:38.961Z Electron: 19.0.17 Chromium: 102.0.5005.167 Node.js: 16.14.2 V8: 10.2.154.15-electron.0 OS: Darwin x64 21.4.0 Sandboxed: No

Jupyter Extension Version

v2022.9.1303220346

Jupyter logs

No response

Coding Language and Runtime Version

No response

Language Extension Version (if applicable)

No response

Anaconda Version (if applicable)

No response

Running Jupyter locally or remotely?

None

[ZeroRin]

This applies to other colored outputs as well, not limited to ?

[maximlt]

I assume so but that should be confirmed.

[ZeroRin]

Similar problem with exception outputs can be found here
I also tested with printing colored texts directly, the result is same

[DanielHabenicht]

Ohh yes, I would be forever grateful if someone could fix this. Its driving me nuts.
This is especially pronounced if one does not want to output long text (or inspect something, as raised in this issue) but actually runs into an error message:

Which translates to this very readable error message:

[amunozj]

Still having this problem, any solutions. The full output is completely unreadable. Thank you!

[amunger]

being able to view outputs in a scrollable region should help with this (toggle with ctrl+K, Y by default)

It is surprisingly hard to fix the 'open in separate file link', but we should be able to strip out these extra characters in the copy output command as we do for error outputs.