To use the Docker container, you should first ensure that you have installed Docker on your computer.

For the container we will use, we currently provide a container hosted at singularityhub/sif that you can use to quickly run sif python without any installation of other dependencies or compiling on your host.

When you are ready, try running sif python using it. This first command will shell you inside the container to use python interactively:

$ docker run singularityhub/sif

SIF Python v0.0.11
usage: sif [-h] [--debug] [--quiet] [--version] {shell} ...

SIF Python

optional arguments:
  -h, --help  show this help message and exit
  --debug     use verbose logging to debug.
  --quiet     show SIF Python verison and exit
  --version   suppress additional output.

actions:
  actions for SIF Python

  {shell}     sif python actions
    shell     shell into a session a client.

It might also be desired to shell into the container (bash)

$ docker run -it --entrypoint bash singularityhub/sif 
bash-4.4#

To get the interactive shell for your container, you need to bind it as a volume.

$ docker run -it --volume $PWD:/data singularityhub/sif shell /data/boxes.simg

You can also go right into Python:

$ docker run -it --entrypoint ipython singularityhub/sif