A Jupyter kernel for Scilab

Prerequisites

Jupyter Notebook, and Scilab.

Installation

pip install scilab_kernel

To use it, run one of:

ipython notebook
# In the notebook interface, select Scilab from the 'New' menu
ipython qtconsole --kernel scilab
ipython console --kernel scilab

This kernel is based on MetaKernel, which means it features a standard set of magics. For a full list of magics, run %lsmagic in a cell.

A sample notebook is available online.

You can specify the path to your Scilab executable by creating a SCILAB_EXECUTABLE environmental variable. Use the scilab-adv-cli executable if using a Posix-like OS, and WScilex-cli.exe if using Windows.

Configuration

The kernel can be configured by adding an scilab_kernel_config.py file to the jupyter config path. The ScilabKernel class offers plot_settings as a configurable traits. The available plot settings are: 'format', 'backend', 'width', 'height', and 'resolution'.

cat ~/.jupyter/scilab_kernel_config.py
c.ScilabKernel.plot_settings = dict(format='svg')

Troubleshooting

If the kernel is not starting, try running the following from a terminal.

python -m scilab_kernel.check

Please include that output if opening an issue.

Advanced Installation Notes

We automatically install a Jupyter kernelspec when installing the python package. This location can be found using jupyter kernelspec list. If the default location is not desired, you can remove the directory for the scilab kernel, and install using python -m scilab_kernel install. See python -m scilab_kernel install --help for available options.