Delete all code cells except markdown text

Notebook
1

I have created a small test to help me learn certain modules using the markdown text option. However, once I finish the test I want to delete all output and all code cells (except for the markdown text) so that I can try the test another day completely fresh.

2

Normally, Chris Holdgraf’s nbclean is my go-to tool for this type of thing; however, I couldn’t see a way to easily parse just markdown. Fortunately, nbformat can handle it.
This answer by Chris Holdgraf outlined how to do something similar. Editing that code to just leave the markdown cells can be done this way:

import nbformat as nbf
ntbk = nbf.read("old_notebook.ipynb", nbf.NO_CONVERT)
cells_to_keep = []
for cell in ntbk.cells:
    if cell.cell_type == "markdown":
        cells_to_keep.append(cell)
new_ntbk = ntbk
new_ntbk.cells = cells_to_keep
nbf.write(new_ntbk, "new_md_only_notebook.ipynb", version=nbf.NO_CONVERT)

This was helpful for dissecting ntbk.

(Shorter version of the same code using list comprehension is below:)

import nbformat as nbf
ntbk = nbf.read("old_notebook.ipynb", nbf.NO_CONVERT)
new_ntbk = ntbk
new_ntbk.cells = [cell for cell in ntbk.cells if cell.cell_type == "markdown"]
nbf.write(new_ntbk, "new_md_only_notebook.ipynb", version=nbf.NO_CONVERT)
4 Likes
3

Thank you so much. This works.

1 Like
4

Whoah I didn’t know people actually used nbclean :slight_smile: let me know if there are ways that we could improve it!

1 Like