Is there a REPL like iPython for Nodejs?

9.3k views Asked by At

Is there any kid of "repl + extra features" (like showing docs, module autoreload etc.), like iPython, but for Nodejs?

And I mean something that runs locally & offline. This is a must. And preferably to work both in terminal mode and have an optional nicer GUI on top (like iPython + iPythonQT/Jupyter-qtconsole).

The standard Nodejs repl is usable, but it has horrible usability (clicking the up-arrow cycles through the repl hisoty by line instead of by multi-line command, as you would expect any sane repl to work for interactively experimenting with things like class statements), and is very bare-bones. Every time I switch from iPython to it it's painful. A browser's repl like Chrome's that you can run for node too by starting a node-inspector debug session is more usable... but also too cumbersome.

4

There are 4 answers

2
JamesH On

Give Data-Forge Notebook a try. (I'm not affiliated in any way.) https://www.data-forge-notebook.com/

3
Blaszard On

Use ijavascript.

This is compatible with Jupyter notebook and you can use it just like on Python environment.

The below is a screenshot taken from the official repository.

enter image description here

1
foundling On

I wrote node-help for exactly this reason, maybe it would work for you? It pulls from the Node.js JSON API and works offline. Major versions 8,9 and 10 are supported.

There is no gui functionality for it, though, but I did take some care to make it easy on the eyes.

1
Rob Truxal On

I've been looking for "ipython for node" for years and here's how I would answer your question:

No.