# Shortcut to display an entire vector in the REPL

**URL:** <https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580>\
**Category:** New to Julia\
**Tags:** repl\
**Created:** [February 11, 2026, 6:26pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580 "2026-02-11T18:26:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 12\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![devel-chm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/devel-chm/32/3572_2.png) [@devel-chm](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/devel-chm)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2026, 6:26pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/1 "2026-02-11T18:26:18Z")

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Is there a way to have the REPL **not** elide the middle elements from  
the display of an array or vector?

This has probably been asked before but I can’t find the reference or a  
solution. This is probably one of the pain points with julia for me as it  
comes up all—the—time and it seems like there should be a resolution  
for the issue by now.

The FAQ makes no mention. How have others solved the problem?

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**Author:** ![mahmah](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/mahmah/32/214326_2.png) [@mahmah](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/mahmah)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2026, 6:39pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/2 "2026-02-11T18:39:50Z")

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```julia
v = collect(1:1000)
show(v)
display(v)
println(v)

```

Or are you looking for a more permanent solution?

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**Author:** ![Benny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/49beb7/32.png) [@Benny](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/Benny)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2026, 6:40pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/3 "2026-02-11T18:40:05Z")

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Is there a reason you need `display` to handle this instead of looping through elements and printing what you need?

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**Author:** ![stevengj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stevengj/32/71_2.png) [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2026, 7:09pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/4 "2026-02-11T19:09:48Z")

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> [@devel-chm](#):
>
> Is there a way to have the REPL **not** elide the middle elements from  
> the display of an array or vector?

Yes.

For a one-time thing, do `show(stdout, "text/plain", array)` to mimic the REPL output (which happens via `display`) but not limit output. Or just do `show(array)` or `println(array)` to get compact (single-line) non-truncated output.

To change the REPL display globally, you can change its `IOContext` (see the [docs here](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/stdlib/REPL/#The-Julian-mode)):

```julia-auto
Base.active_repl.options.iocontext[:limit] = false

```

See also the summary in the manual about how the different output functions interact: [Output-function summary](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/manual/types/#Output-function-summary).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![devel-chm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/devel-chm/32/3572_2.png) [@devel-chm](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/devel-chm)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2026, 7:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/5 "2026-02-11T19:22:33Z")

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I’m looking for less work in the solution that preserves the standard REPL interface.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![devel-chm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/devel-chm/32/3572_2.png) [@devel-chm](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/devel-chm)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2026, 7:23pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/6 "2026-02-11T19:23:22Z")

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I want the REPL to “do what I want” here without extra effort.

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**Author:** ![devel-chm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/devel-chm/32/3572_2.png) [@devel-chm](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/devel-chm)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2026, 7:26pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/7 "2026-02-11T19:26:17Z")

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> [@stevengj](#):
>
> To change the REPL display globally, you can change its `IOContext` (see the [docs here](https://docs.julialang.org/en/v1/stdlib/REPL/#The-Julian-mode)):
> 
> ```julia-auto
> Base.active_repl.options.iocontext[:limit] = false
> 
> ```

This appears to do what I want. Keep the same REPL interactions but not  
skipping the middle elements of large displays. It would be nice if the REPL  
would allow you to toggle this as a feature.

Marking this as the solution and thanks for all the reference information.

This works nicely with TerminalPager.jl (also, if you have terminal pager active  
then the context is no :limit-ed and you can see the entire set of data. You can  
even scroll left and right. Unfortunately, I haven’t figured out a way to allow text  
output to be handled by TerminalPager.jl but to allow graphics object through so  
they are displayed (e.g. Makie figures).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![stevengj](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/stevengj/32/71_2.png) [@stevengj](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/stevengj)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2026, 9:55pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/8 "2026-02-11T21:55:16Z")

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> [@devel-chm](#):
>
> It would be nice if the REPL would allow you to toggle this as a feature.

It already does, no?

That being said, I would really like to see a better API here: [julia#61005](https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/61005).

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**Author:** ![ianshmean](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/ianshmean/32/216042_2.png) [@ianshmean](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/ianshmean)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2026, 11:22pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/9 "2026-02-11T23:22:49Z")

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I’ve tried and failed before to come up with a shorthand for doing this in the repl. I think it would be good to figure that out.

> <https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/pull/47520>
>
> Updated to a single trailing \`:\`
> \_\_\_\_
> 
> This is a proposal to make terminating… input in the repl with \`;;\` a convenient way to \`display\` output without row limit.
> 
> Sometimes you just want to see the entire object, printed in the nice formatting that \`display\` provides, without truncating to the terminal window height.
> 
> When generating this the terminal window was quite short to illustrate the effect.
> 
> \`\`\`
> julia\> d = Dict(i =\> i for i in 1:20)
> Dict{Int64, Int64} with 20 entries:
> 5 =\> 5
> 16 =\> 16
> 7 =\> 7
> 20 =\> 20
> 12 =\> 12
> 8 =\> 8
> 17 =\> 17
> 1 =\> 1
> ⋮ =\> ⋮
> 
> julia\> 
> \`\`\`
> A single \`;\` still suppresses output.
> \`\`\`
> julia\> d;
> 
> julia\> 
> \`\`\`
> Double \`;;\` allows \`display\` to show all rows (requiring the user to scroll up)
> \`\`\`
> julia\> d;;
> Dict{Int64, Int64} with 20 entries:
> 5 =\> 5
> 16 =\> 16
> 7 =\> 7
> 20 =\> 20
> 12 =\> 12
> 8 =\> 8
> 17 =\> 17
> 1 =\> 1
> 19 =\> 19
> 4 =\> 4
> 6 =\> 6
> 13 =\> 13
> 2 =\> 2
> 10 =\> 10
> 11 =\> 11
> 9 =\> 9
> 15 =\> 15
> 18 =\> 18
> 14 =\> 14
> 3 =\> 3
> 
> julia\>
> \`\`\`

> <https://github.com/JuliaLang/julia/issues/29223>
>
> There is currently no simple way to print all entries in a collection (in partic…ular in a vector) in a readable way. For example, if one wants to get all the column names in a table/data frame. \`show(x)\` prints a vector in full, but the entries are not aligned, making it quite painful to read on most terminals:
> \`\`\`julia
> julia\> show(string.("col", 1:50))
> \["col1", "col2", "col3", "col4", "col5", "col6", "col7", "col8", "col9", "col10", "
> col11", "col12", "col13", "col14", "col15", "col16", "col17", "col18", "col19", "co
> l20", "col21", "col22", "col23", "col24", "col25", "col26", "col27", "col28", "col2
> 9", "col30", "col31", "col32", "col33", "col34", "col35", "col36", "col37", "col38"
> , "col39", "col40", "col41", "col42", "col43", "col44", "col45", "col46", "col47", 
> "col48", "col49", "col50"\]
> \`\`\`
> 
> Currently the only way to print all entries in a vertical layout is \`show(stdout, "text/plain", x)\`. It works well, but telling newcomers to write this just to see the list of columns in their table isn't terribly convincing, and it's very hard to discover.
> 
> Can we do something about this? Intuitively I would have expected \`show(x)\` to be equivalent to \`show(stdout, "text/plain", x)\` (and have \`print(x)\` do what \`show(x)\` currently does), but it's kind of late to change this. Should we introduce a new convenience function, or a standardized keyword argument?
> 
> FWIW, this issue also exists e.g. with DataFrames, where we support a few keyword arguments to easily decide whether to print all rows/columns (https://github.com/JuliaData/DataFrames.jl/pull/1506).

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![technocrat](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/technocrat/32/220947_2.png) [@technocrat](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/technocrat)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2026, 11:45pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/10 "2026-02-11T23:45:31Z")

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````julia-auto
macro p(ex)
    :(println($(esc(ex))))
end
DataArray1 = collect(1:100)

@p DataArray1
# 
julia> @p DataArray1
[1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100]```
````

---

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**Author:** ![devel-chm](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/devel-chm/32/3572_2.png) [@devel-chm](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/devel-chm)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2026, 1:45pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/11 "2026-02-12T13:45:32Z")

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[quote=“stevengj, post:8, topic:135580, full:true”]

> [@devel-chm](#):
>
> It would be nice if the REPL would allow you to toggle this as a feature.

It already does, no?

Not that I could find. In fact in the LTS 1.10.x julia it is the iocontext  
option is listed as experimental.

I think it would help me if information on the REPL state were more  
discoverable. For example, the standard varinfo() at the REPL prompt  
doesn’t show anything tied to the REPL.

An empty `help/?` at the REPL does not return any information about the  
REPL, just has references to julia as a language:

> search: ] [ = $ ; ( @ { " ) ? . } ⊽ ⊼ ⊻ ⊋ ⊊ ⊉ ⊈ ⊇ ⊆ ≥ ≤ ≢ ≡ ≠ ≉ ≈ ∪ ∩ ∜ ∛ √ ∘ ∌ ∋ ∉ ∈ ℯ π ÷ ~ | ^ \ \> \< : / - + \* ’ & % ! a && if :: as ‘’ ?: {} → () || do .= IO |\>
> 
> Welcome to Julia 1.10.10. The full manual is available at
> 
> [https://docs.julialang.org](https://docs.julialang.org)
> 
> as well as many great tutorials and learning resources:
> 
> [Get started with Julia](https://julialang.org/learning/)\>
> 
> For help on a specific function or macro, type ? followed by its name, e.g. ?cos, or ?@time, and press enter. Type ; to enter shell mode, ] to enter package mode.
> 
> To exit the interactive session, type CTRL-D (press the control key together with the d key), or type exit().

It would be more useful if there were something like an `repl` entry that  
could be looked at or even `?repl` to give information on various options  
and features. Maybe a reference to the `varinfo()` too?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![GunnarFarneback](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/julialang/user_avatar/discourse.julialang.org/gunnarfarneback/32/1827_2.png) [@GunnarFarneback](https://discourse.julialang.org/u/GunnarFarneback)\
**Post date:** [February 12, 2026, 2:10pm UTC](https://discourse.julialang.org/t/shortcut-to-display-an-entire-vector-in-the-repl/135580/12 "2026-02-12T14:10:55Z")

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In addition to other suggestions, and for those who generally prefer truncated output, a reasonably easy way to print all elements of a vector is

```julia-auto
foreach(println, v)

```