How to Install IPython for Python 2.7 on Mac 'install ipython for python 2.7'

If you're a data scientist or analyst working with Python, chances are you've heard of IPython - an interactive shell that provides features like cell magics, notebook cells, and much more. However, if you're using older versions of either your operating system (OS) or Python itself, you might encounter some issues when trying to install it.

In this article, we'll walk through the steps necessary for installing IPython on a Mac running OS X Yosemite with Python 2.7 installed. Please note that these instructions assume you have basic knowledge of using Terminal and managing packages via pip (the package manager included with Python).

Step-by-Step Instructions:

1. First things first - make sure your system is up-to-date.

```

sudo apt-get update

```

This command will fetch the latest list of available packages from the repositories specified in /etc/apt/sources.list and its related files, then upgrade all installed packages to their current versions.

2. Now that we have our package index updated, let's proceed with installing pip3 (the version compatible with Python 3.x).

```

sudo apt-get install python3-pip

```

This will download and install the necessary dependencies for building Python headers and libraries required by pip itself along with setting up an alias so you can just run `pip` instead of always typing out its full path.

3. Next, we need to upgrade our existing version of pip using pip itself since we've installed a newer one earlier:

```

sudo pip3 install -upgrade pip

```

This command will check for updates on the PyPI (Python Package Index) index and then update all packages listed in your local `~/.pip` directory.

4. Now that everything is up-to-date, let's finally get around to installing IPython itself:

```

sudo pip3 install ipython5.0

```

This command will download and install the latest version of IPython available on PyPI using Python 2.x compatibility mode (as indicated by `ipython` instead of just `python`).

That should do it! If everything went smoothly without any errors or warnings, you now have IPython installed alongside ipdb - a powerful debugger tool that comes bundled with IPython. You can launch the IPython shell from Terminal using simply:

```

$ python

```

Enjoy exploring all sorts of cool features like cell magics and more within your newly minted Python environment!

If you encounter any issues during this process or have further questions about installing IPython on Mac OS X Yosemite with Python 2.7, feel free to ask in the comments below!

Install ipython for python 2.7