VSCode Shortcut Tips

These are shortcuts that you can use with VSCode. Most of these notes are taken from “Python Data Science Handbook” and converted to VSCode.

Explore Objects, Modules, and Namespaces with Ctrl+Space

You can use Ctrl+Space for autocompletion and exploration of the contents of objects, modules, and namespaces.

Every Python object has various attributes and methods associated with it. For example, to see a list of all available attributes of an object, you can type the name of the object followed by a period (.) character and press Ctrl+Space.

Example:

new_list = [1, 2, 3]

new_list.<press Ctrl+Space>

You can also narrow down the list by typing the first character or several characters of the name, and VSCode will filter the matching attributes and methods.

new_list = [1, 2, 3]

new_list.c  # VSCode will display a filtered list of matching attributes and methods in a dropdown.

Using Ctrl+Space with imports

Ctrl+Space is also useful when importing objects from packages.

from itertools import <press Ctrl+Space>

If that does not work, then type the first letter of an object that you want to import and then when you press Ctrl+Space it should show all the matching objects. You can then delete the first letter and you should see all the available objects that can be imported.

You can type c, for example, to find all possible imports in the itertools package that start with c:

from itertools import c<press Ctrl+Space>

Similarly, you can use Ctrl+Space to see which imports are available on your system (this will change depending on which third-party scripts and modules are visible to your Python session):

import <press Ctrl+Space>

Or filter by the first letter:

import h<press Ctrl+Space>

Access documentation with ?

Example: Enter len? and run the cell.

Access source code with ??

Enter the name of the code whose source code you want to access and run the cell.

Example: my_function??

Issue command line commands with !

This is how you would run the ls command, for example, in VSCode: Enter !ls and run the cell.

You may not need to use the ls command too often since VSCode has a built-in File Explorer, but that is a simple command line example.