TheInteractiveUtils
module provides utilities for interactive use of Julia, such as code introspection and clipboard access. It is intended for interactive work and is loaded automatically ininteractive mode.
Base.Docs.apropos
—Functionapropos([io::IO=stdout], pattern::Union{AbstractString,Regex})
Search available docstrings for entries containingpattern
.
Whenpattern
is a string, case is ignored. Results are printed toio
.
apropos
can be called from the help mode in the REPL by wrapping the query in double quotes:
help?> "pattern"
InteractiveUtils.varinfo
—Functionvarinfo(m::Module=Main, pattern::Regex=r""; all=false, imported=false, recursive=false, sortby::Symbol=:name, minsize::Int=0)
Return a markdown table giving information about public global variables in a module, optionally restricted to those matchingpattern
.
The memory consumption estimate is an approximate lower bound on the size of the internal structure of the object.
all
: also list non-public objects defined in the module, deprecated objects, and compiler-generated objects.imported
: also list objects explicitly imported from other modules.recursive
: recursively include objects in sub-modules, observing the same settings in each.sortby
: the column to sort results by. Options are:name
(default),:size
, and:summary
.minsize
: only includes objects with size at leastminsize
bytes. Defaults to0
.The output ofvarinfo
is intended for display purposes only. See alsonames
to get an array of symbols defined in a module, which is suitable for more general manipulations.
InteractiveUtils.versioninfo
—Functionversioninfo(io::IO=stdout; verbose::Bool=false)
Print information about the version of Julia in use. The output is controlled with boolean keyword arguments:
verbose
: print all additional informationThe output of this function may contain sensitive information. Before sharing the output, please review the output and remove any data that should not be shared publicly.
See also:VERSION
.
InteractiveUtils.methodswith
—Functionmethodswith(typ[, module or function]; supertypes::Bool=false])
Return an array of methods with an argument of typetyp
.
The optional second argument restricts the search to a particular module or function (the default is all top-level modules).
If keywordsupertypes
istrue
, also return arguments with a parent type oftyp
, excluding typeAny
.
See also:methods
.
InteractiveUtils.subtypes
—Functionsubtypes(T::DataType)
Return a list of immediate subtypes of DataTypeT
. Note that all currently loaded subtypes are included, including those not visible in the current module.
See alsosupertype
,supertypes
,methodswith
.
Examples
julia> subtypes(Integer)3-element Vector{Any}: Bool Signed Unsigned
InteractiveUtils.supertypes
—FunctionInteractiveUtils.edit
—Methodedit(path::AbstractString, line::Integer=0, column::Integer=0)
Edit a file or directory optionally providing a line number to edit the file at. Return to thejulia
prompt when you quit the editor. The editor can be changed by settingJULIA_EDITOR
,VISUAL
orEDITOR
as an environment variable.
Thecolumn
argument requires at least Julia 1.9.
See alsoInteractiveUtils.define_editor
.
InteractiveUtils.edit
—Methodedit(function, [types])edit(module)
Edit the definition of a function, optionally specifying a tuple of types to indicate which method to edit. For modules, open the main source file. The module needs to be loaded withusing
orimport
first.
edit
on modules requires at least Julia 1.1.
To ensure that the file can be opened at the given line, you may need to callInteractiveUtils.define_editor
first.
InteractiveUtils.@edit
—MacroInteractiveUtils.define_editor
—Functiondefine_editor(fn, pattern; wait=false)
Define a new editor matchingpattern
that can be used to open a file (possibly at a given line number) usingfn
.
Thefn
argument is a function that determines how to open a file with the given editor. It should take four arguments, as follows:
cmd
- a base command object for the editorpath
- the path to the source file to openline
- the line number to open the editor atcolumn
- the column number to open the editor atEditors which cannot open to a specific line with a command or a specific column may ignore theline
and/orcolumn
argument. Thefn
callback must return either an appropriateCmd
object to open a file ornothing
to indicate that they cannot edit this file. Usenothing
to indicate that this editor is not appropriate for the current environment and another editor should be attempted. It is possible to add more general editing hooks that need not spawn external commands by pushing a callback directly to the vectorEDITOR_CALLBACKS
.
Thepattern
argument is a string, regular expression, or an array of strings and regular expressions. For thefn
to be called, one of the patterns must match the value ofEDITOR
,VISUAL
orJULIA_EDITOR
. For strings, the string must equal thebasename
of the first word of the editor command, with its extension, if any, removed. E.g. "vi" doesn't match "vim -g" but matches "/usr/bin/vi -m"; it also matchesvi.exe
. Ifpattern
is a regex it is matched against all of the editor command as a shell-escaped string. An array pattern matches if any of its items match. If multiple editors match, the one added most recently is used.
By default julia does not wait for the editor to close, running it in the background. However, if the editor is terminal based, you will probably want to setwait=true
and julia will wait for the editor to close before resuming.
If one of the editor environment variables is set, but no editor entry matches it, the default editor entry is invoked:
(cmd, path, line, column) -> `$cmd $path`
Note that many editors are already defined. All of the following commands should already work:
Examples
The following defines the usage of terminal-basedemacs
:
define_editor( r"\bemacs\b.*\s(-nw|--no-window-system)\b", wait=true) do cmd, path, line `$cmd +$line $path`end
define_editor
was introduced in Julia 1.4.
InteractiveUtils.less
—Methodless(file::AbstractString, [line::Integer])
Show a file using the default pager, optionally providing a starting line number. Returns to thejulia
prompt when you quit the pager.
InteractiveUtils.less
—Methodless(function, [types])
Show the definition of a function using the default pager, optionally specifying a tuple of types to indicate which method to see.
InteractiveUtils.@less
—Macro@less
Evaluates the arguments to the function or macro call, determines their types, and calls theless
function on the resulting expression.
See also:@edit
,@which
,@code_lowered
.
InteractiveUtils.@which
—Macro@which
Applied to a function or macro call, it evaluates the arguments to the specified call, and returns theMethod
object for the method that would be called for those arguments. Applied to a variable, it returns the module in which the variable was bound. It calls out to thewhich
function.
InteractiveUtils.@functionloc
—Macro@functionloc
Applied to a function or macro call, it evaluates the arguments to the specified call, and returns a tuple(filename,line)
giving the location for the method that would be called for those arguments. It calls out to thefunctionloc
function.
InteractiveUtils.@code_lowered
—Macro@code_lowered
Evaluates the arguments to the function or macro call, determines their types, and callscode_lowered
on the resulting expression.
See also:code_lowered
,@code_warntype
,@code_typed
,@code_llvm
,@code_native
.
InteractiveUtils.@code_typed
—Macro@code_typed
Evaluates the arguments to the function or macro call, determines their types, and callscode_typed
on the resulting expression. Use the optional argumentoptimize
with
@code_typed optimize=true foo(x)
to control whether additional optimizations, such as inlining, are also applied.
See also:code_typed
,@code_warntype
,@code_lowered
,@code_llvm
,@code_native
.
InteractiveUtils.code_warntype
—Functioncode_warntype([io::IO], f, types; debuginfo=:default)
Prints lowered and type-inferred ASTs for the methods matching the given generic function and type signature toio
which defaults tostdout
. The ASTs are annotated in such a way as to cause "non-leaf" types which may be problematic for performance to be emphasized (if color is available, displayed in red). This serves as a warning of potential type instability.
Not all non-leaf types are particularly problematic for performance, and the performance characteristics of a particular type is an implementation detail of the compiler.code_warntype
will err on the side of coloring types red if they might be a performance concern, so some types may be colored red even if they do not impact performance. Small unions of concrete types are usually not a concern, so these are highlighted in yellow.
Keyword argumentdebuginfo
may be one of:source
or:none
(default), to specify the verbosity of code comments.
See the@code_warntype
section in the Performance Tips page of the manual for more information.
See also:@code_warntype
,code_typed
,code_lowered
,code_llvm
,code_native
.
InteractiveUtils.@code_warntype
—Macro@code_warntype
Evaluates the arguments to the function or macro call, determines their types, and callscode_warntype
on the resulting expression.
See also:code_warntype
,@code_typed
,@code_lowered
,@code_llvm
,@code_native
.
InteractiveUtils.code_llvm
—Functioncode_llvm([io=stdout,], f, types; raw=false, dump_module=false, optimize=true, debuginfo=:default)
Prints the LLVM bitcodes generated for running the method matching the given generic function and type signature toio
.
If theoptimize
keyword is unset, the code will be shown before LLVM optimizations. All metadata and dbg.* calls are removed from the printed bitcode. For the full IR, set theraw
keyword to true. To dump the entire module that encapsulates the function (with declarations), set thedump_module
keyword to true. Keyword argumentdebuginfo
may be one of source (default) or none, to specify the verbosity of code comments.
See also:@code_llvm
,code_warntype
,code_typed
,code_lowered
,code_native
.
InteractiveUtils.@code_llvm
—Macro@code_llvm
Evaluates the arguments to the function or macro call, determines their types, and callscode_llvm
on the resulting expression. Set the optional keyword argumentsraw
,dump_module
,debuginfo
,optimize
by putting them and their value before the function call, like this:
@code_llvm raw=true dump_module=true debuginfo=:default f(x)@code_llvm optimize=false f(x)
optimize
controls whether additional optimizations, such as inlining, are also applied.raw
makes all metadata and dbg.* calls visible.debuginfo
may be one of:source
(default) or:none
, to specify the verbosity of code comments.dump_module
prints the entire module that encapsulates the function.
See also:code_llvm
,@code_warntype
,@code_typed
,@code_lowered
,@code_native
.
InteractiveUtils.code_native
—Functioncode_native([io=stdout,], f, types; syntax=:intel, debuginfo=:default, binary=false, dump_module=true)
Prints the native assembly instructions generated for running the method matching the given generic function and type signature toio
.
syntax
to:intel
(default) for intel syntax or:att
for AT&T syntax.debuginfo
to:source
(default) or:none
.binary
istrue
, also print the binary machine code for each instruction precedented by an abbreviated address.dump_module
isfalse
, do not print metadata such as rodata or directives.raw
isfalse
, uninteresting instructions (like the safepoint function prologue) are elided.See also:@code_native
,code_warntype
,code_typed
,code_lowered
,code_llvm
.
InteractiveUtils.@code_native
—Macro@code_native
Evaluates the arguments to the function or macro call, determines their types, and callscode_native
on the resulting expression.
Set any of the optional keyword argumentssyntax
,debuginfo
,binary
ordump_module
by putting it before the function call, like this:
@code_native syntax=:intel debuginfo=:default binary=true dump_module=false f(x)
syntax
to:intel
(default) for Intel syntax or:att
for AT&T syntax.debuginfo
to:source
(default) or:none
.binary
istrue
, also print the binary machine code for each instruction precedented by an abbreviated address.dump_module
isfalse
, do not print metadata such as rodata or directives.See also:code_native
,@code_warntype
,@code_typed
,@code_lowered
,@code_llvm
.
Base.@time_imports
—Macro@time_imports
A macro to execute an expression and produce a report of any time spent importing packages and their dependencies. Any compilation time will be reported as a percentage, and how much of which was recompilation, if any.
One line is printed per package or package extension. The duration shown is the time to import that package itself, not including the time to load any of its dependencies.
On Julia 1.9+package extensions will show as Parent → Extension.
During the load process a package sequentially imports all of its dependencies, not just its direct dependencies.
julia> @time_imports using CSV 50.7 ms Parsers 17.52% compilation time 0.2 ms DataValueInterfaces 1.6 ms DataAPI 0.1 ms IteratorInterfaceExtensions 0.1 ms TableTraits 17.5 ms Tables 26.8 ms PooledArrays 193.7 ms SentinelArrays 75.12% compilation time 8.6 ms InlineStrings 20.3 ms WeakRefStrings 2.0 ms TranscodingStreams 1.4 ms Zlib_jll 1.8 ms CodecZlib 0.8 ms Compat 13.1 ms FilePathsBase 28.39% compilation time 1681.2 ms CSV 92.40% compilation time
This macro requires at least Julia 1.8
InteractiveUtils.clipboard
—Functionclipboard(x)
Send a printed form ofx
to the operating system clipboard ("copy").
clipboard() -> String
Return a string with the contents of the operating system clipboard ("paste").
Settings
This document was generated withDocumenter.jl version 1.8.0 onWednesday 9 July 2025. Using Julia version 1.11.6.