Use λ, φ, α, ... in jupyter notebook as in julia

Question

Use λ, φ, α, ... in jupyter notebook as in julia

As you probably know, you can use λ, φ, α, .., in any julia script. Is this also possible for python? I would use julia, but there are still packages from python that I would have to wrap.

Regards

+3

python ipython jupyter julia-lang

varantir June 12. 17 at 15:10

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1 answer

pylang · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-12T16:23:08+0000

Python 3 supports λ, φ, α and many other Unicode characters in identifiers (as @jwodder mentioned). In jupyter notebook, you can access these symbols by typing

\<character name><tab>

Example

\alpha<tab> = 1
# α = 1

Not all Unicode characters can be used as variable names, eg. Emojis:

>>> ♥ = "love"
  File "<ipython-input-29-97d253080b57>", line 1
    ♥ = "love"
    ^
SyntaxError: invalid character in identifier

However, alphabetic characters are allowed, especially in foreign languages:

>>> αγαπώ = "love"
>>>  = "love"
>>> 愛 = "love"

See also David Bezley talk Mastering Python 3 I / O for more practical use of Unicode.

REF 001: Unicode variables names
REF 002: PEP 3131 - Support for Non-ASCII Identifiers
REF 003: Unicode HOWTO

Use λ, φ, α, ... in jupyter notebook as in julia

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