How to Make Python Debugging Clearer with Icecream: A Step‑by‑Step Guide

Why plain print() can be confusing

When debugging Python code in a large project, using multiple print() statements produces many interleaved outputs, making it hard to identify which line of code produced each result.

num1 = 30
num2 = 40

print(num1)
print(num2)

The output shows 30 and 40, but you must manually match each value to its variable.

Adding descriptive text to each print helps, but requires extra typing.

print("num1", num1)
print("num2", num2)

The result is clearer, yet still verbose.

01. What is Icecream?

Icecream is a third‑party Python library that makes debugging output clearer with minimal code.

pip install icecream

Basic usage

from icecream import ic

def plus_five(num):
    return num + 5

ic(plus_five(4))
ic(plus_five(5))

Output:

ic| plus_five(4): 9
ic| plus_five(5): 10

Icecream shows both the function call and its result.

02. Checking execution flow

from icecream import ic

def hello(user: bool):
    if user:
        print("I'm user")
    else:
        print("I'm not user")

hello(user=True)

Using Icecream eliminates the need for extra print text:

from icecream import ic

def hello(user: bool):
    if user:
        ic()
    else:
        ic()

hello(user=True)

Output:

ic| ice_1.py:5 in hello() at 02:34:41.391

This indicates that line 5 in hello() was executed while line 7 was not.

03. Custom prefixes

from datetime import datetime
from icecream import ic
import time

def time_format():
    return f"{datetime.now()}|> "

ic.configureOutput(prefix=time_format)

for _ in range(3):
    time.sleep(1)
    ic('Hello')

Output shows the timestamp before each message:

2021-01-24 10:38:23.509304|> 'Hello'
2021-01-24 10:38:24.545628|> 'Hello'
2021-01-24 10:38:25.550777|> 'Hello'

04. Getting more information

To include file name, line number, and function information, enable includeContext:

from icecream import ic

def plus_five(num):
    return num + 5

ic.configureOutput(includeContext=True)
ic(plus_five(4))
ic(plus_five(5))

Output:

ic| ice_test.py:7 in <module>- plus_five(4): 9
ic| ice_test.py:8 in <module>- plus_five(5): 10

05. Removing Icecream code

After debugging, you can replace ic() calls with regular print() or remove them entirely, keeping the production code clean.

from icecream import ic

def plus_five(num):
    return num + 5

ic.configureOutput(includeContext=True)
ic(plus_five(4))
ic(plus_five(5))

for i in range(10):
    print(f'****** Training model {i} ******')

Output demonstrates that debugging statements are easy to locate and delete.

Summary

Icecream provides a simple way to produce informative debugging output in Python, showing variable values, execution context, and allowing custom prefixes, while keeping the codebase tidy after debugging.