Prerequisites: Install Jupyter Notebook, and Octave. It is recommended that you also install gnuplot support in Octave for inline plotting.

To install:

pip install octave_kernel

Add --user to install in your private environment.

To use it, run one of:

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

This is based on MetaKernel, which means it features a standard set of magics.

A sample notebook is available online.

You can specify the path to your Octave executable by creating an OCTAVE_EXECUTABLE environment variable.

You can also specify the command line options to Octave by creating an OCTAVE_CLI_OPTIONS environment variable. The will be appended to the default opions of --interactive --quiet --no-init-file. Note that the init file is explicitly called after the kernel has set more off to prevent a lockup when the pager is invoked in ~/.octaverc.

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 octave kernel, and install using python -m octave_kernel install. See python -m octave_kernel install --help for available options.