Teaching Python's NetworkX and Bash

Lecture materials for teaching Python's NetworkX package and Bash scripting.

Contents

• Requirements
• Environment Setup
  • Binder and Jupyter Notebook
  • Anaconda and Conda
  • Downloading Packages

Requirements

To run the Jupyter notebooks, you'll need Python 3.x and to install the appropriate packages.

• Python 3.x
• NetworkX 2.x
• bash shell

Environment Setup

Binder and Jupyter Notebook

If you cannot setup Jupyter Notebooks locally, you can launch the lectures through your browser directly with the link below.

Anaconda and Conda

To make things as streamlined as possible, I suggest downloading Anaconda or, at the very least, just the package manager Conda.

Miniconda and just the conda package manager and Python is much smaller, and you can find the download instructions for your operating system of choice here.

Anaconda includes many more useful packages commonly used in scientific computing and data science. It also comes with Jupyter Notebook packages so this might be easier route if you don't have experience with Python and see yourself using it in the future.

Downloading Packages

Running this in your bash terminal should setup your environment with everything you'll need.

# Create separate environment if you want to separate environment for this
conda create -n py3 python=3 networkx ipython notebook

# Install bash kernel for running bash commands from within the bash notebook
source activate py3  # Activate new environment first
pip install bash_kernel
python -m bash_kernel.install

# Deactivate environment
source deactivate py3

Using Environment

If you use the environment created above, you'll first need to "activate" it first before using the environment and all the packages you've installed.

Following the use of the environment and you wish to exit, you'll need to "deactivate" your environment.

Depending on your operating system, the source part of the following commands may be unnecessary e.g. Windows OS.

# Activate environment
source activate py3

# Deactivate environment
source deactivate py3

For more on environment management, see here for more.