Since I won't be able to participate tomorrow, here's a small contribution. I just added this to ipython: http://projects.scipy.org/ipython/ipython/browser/ipython/trunk/IPython/dtut... You can load it in your startup file or interactively via from IPython.dtutils import idoctest Type idoctest? for calling details. This will enable you to do things like: In [96]: idoctest -------> idoctest() # at this point, you start typing/pasting your doctest. Hit Ctrl-D or two blanks to end: >>> for i in range(10): ... print i, ... 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 items passed all tests: 1 tests in interactive doctest 1 tests in 1 items. 1 passed and 0 failed. Test passed. If you have a failing doctest that you'd like to debug, you can use 'eraise=True' and errors will be immediately raised, so you can then call %debug to debug them. This should come in handy for all those doctests that you're all going to write tomorrow. If you aren't running off SVN ipython, you can simply copy the above file somewhere and load it interactively once ipython is running, it doesn't depend on any other changes to ipython. It probably still needs a bit of work to make it more convenient, so I'm open to feedback. But it should make life easier when writing frequent doctests. Cheers, f