Sweet and Creamy Print Debugging

IceCream is a little library for sweet and creamy print debugging.

Do you ever use print() statements to debug your code? Of course you do. IceCream, or ic for short, makes print() debugging a little sweeter.

IceCream is well tested, permissively licensed, and supports Python 2, Python 3, PyPy2, and PyPy3.

Ice Cream with Toppings (Arguments)

Have you ever printed variables or expressions to debug your program? If you've ever typed something like

print(foo('123'))

or the more thorough

print("foo('123')", foo('123'))

then ic() is here to help. With arguments, ic() inspects itself and prints both its arguments and its argument's values.

from icecream import ic

def foo(s):
    return s[::-1]

ic(foo('123'))

Prints

ic| foo('123'): 321

Similarly,

d = {'d': {1: 'one'}}
ic(d['d'][1])

class klass():
    attr = 'yep'
ic(klass.attr)

prints

ic| d['d'][1]: 'one'
ic| klass.attr: 'yep'

Just give ic() a variable or expression and you're done. Easy.

Plain Ice Cream (without Arguments)

Do you ever add print statments to determine which parts of your program are executed, and in which order they're executed? For example, if you've ever added prints statements to debug something like

def foo():
    print(0)
    first()

    if expression:
        print(1)
        second()
    else:
        print(2)
        third()

then ic() helps here, too. Without arguments, ic() inspects itself and prints the calling filename and line number.

from icecream import ic

def foo():
    ic()
    first()
    
    if expression:
        ic()
        second()
    else:
        ic()
        third()

Prints

ic| example.py:4
ic| example.py:11

Just call ic() and you're done. Simple.

Installation

Installing IceCream with pip is easy.

$ pip install icecream

Other Flavors (Languages)

IceCream is currently just for Python, but IceCream should be enjoyed with every language.

If you'd like a similar ic() method in your favorite language, please open a pull request! IceCream's goal is to sweeten print debugging with a handy-dandy ic() function in every language.