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I read that pressing shift+tab after a function displays the function's docstring in an IPython notebook, but this does not seem to work in my IPython (no notebook). I run IPython 4.0.0 on Ubuntu.

Any suggestion?

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    Type a question mark behind the command Commented Dec 21, 2015 at 10:13

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The standard (console) IPython does not support the call tips via <shift> + <tab>. But a question mark before or after the function shows you the docstring:

In [1]: list.index?
Docstring:
L.index(value, [start, [stop]]) -> integer -- return first index of value.
Raises ValueError if the value is not present.
Type:      method_descriptor

As an alternative you can use the qtconsole version:

ipython qtconsole

Then:

In [1]: list.index(

Should show you a box with a call tip without pressing <shift> + <tab>:

enter image description here

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2 Comments

In order to get this working I had to run pip install qtconsole PyQt5. Also it seems this will be renamed to: jupyter qtconsole in the future.
How to show just the signature not the full doc?
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Press Tab+Shift, it works for jupyter notebook 5.6.0 version.

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The question-asker specifically says this is not for a notebook.

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