Question: Is there any way to see if a command is currently being executed in the PyCharm console?

Running an interactive python session in the terminal, after executing a command, the prompt disappears until execution has finished. For example when I call `time.sleep(5)`, it takes 5 seconds until the `>>>` appears again, so I know the command is still being executed.

Running an IPython console in PyCharm the prompt never disappears. Only when I start typing again I get a message "Previous command is still running". This way it's hard to see when a command has finished without constantly "probing" the prompt.

Answer: 
I've found the best way to do when using IPython is to the `%time` magic command whenever you need to run a long command. For details, see <https://ipython.org/ipython-doc/3/interactive/magics.html#magic-time>

Usage:

```
In[1]: %time time.sleep(5)
Wall time: 5 s

```

The second line will appear when the code finishes. This also has the added bonus of telling you how long execution took.

Note: Don't accidentally confuse it with the `%timeit` command which will run your code several times
[This is resolved in the latest builds of PyCharm.](https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/PY-15727)