How to Use Code Interpreter in ChatGPT: A Complete Guide

How to Use Code Interpreter in ChatGPT: A Complete Guide

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Coders and data analysts have had it rough with ChatGPT in the past.

While the tool offered plenty of text-based functionality, such as research, ideation, writing, and summarization, it failed to satisfy needs like script creation and data analysis—until recently!

With the introduction of plugins, ChatGPT’s versatility increased, especially in the aspect of coding. Thanks to the ChatGPT Code Interpreter, you’re now able to manipulate datasets for required outcomes.

In this blog, we’ll take a look at how you can use the Code Interpreter to improve your workflow and project management skills.

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What is the ChatGPT Code Interpreter?

The ChatGPT Code Interpreter, now known as Data Analyst, is a GPT plugin from OpenAI that extends the ChatGPT platform’s core functionality. 

The tool analyzes data, finds coding errors to improve efficiency, and generates code snippets for existing workflows. It even improves your project management skills with task automation, data visualizations, and script generation for team collaboration tools!

While ChatGPT provides answers, summarizes text, or writes whatever you want it to write (including code), the Data Analyst performs more complex AI-based functions, like data parsing or audio transcribing on your media or text files. 🧩

📌 Please note: Initially, the Code Interpreter was a premium feature available only to ChatGPT Plus subscribers. But after its rebranding as Data Analyst, it’s available for everyone. However, we’ll still address it as Code Interpreter in this article, as the name remains popular among users. 

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Core Features and Use Cases of Code Interpreter by ChatGPT

Most uses of ChatGPT Code Interpreter can be grouped into four main use cases, which are detailed below:  

1. Data analysis and visualization

You don’t need to spend a hefty fee on data analysts when you’ve got the ChatGPT Code Interpreter plugin.  It can analyze your data and provide easy-to-understand explanations, complete with visualizations and graphs, to help you make sense of your datasets. 🧠

For example, if you are a stock trader, you can take a dataset that compiles the volume data and market movements of S&P 500 stocks for a month in a CSV file. Upload the file to ChatGPT Code Interpreter, and ask it to find the patterns in your data. It will discover all the patterns between market movements and volume, and share them with you in plain text and graphs.

2. Code debugging and testing

If you’re a developer wondering how to use AI for software development, ChatGPT Code Interpreter is a good place to start. You can use it to debug and test your code

You can upload your code file(s) and ask it to identify all the bugs that could potentially cause your code to return errors.

An open bracket here and there, an incorrect variable being called somewhere, or maybe a function you forgot to define—Code Interpreter can detect and fix them all through accurate prompting and help you become a better programmer. It’s time to finalize those AI-enabled code review settings.

3. File manipulation

Besides helping you deal with data analysis and software development challenges, ChatGPT Code Interpreter lets you convert, crop, and even edit your files.

For example, you can upload an image in one format and write a prompt asking the plugin to:

  • Convert it into another format 
  • Crop or resize it (with or without squeezing)
  • Provide a grayscale version of it

The same goes for text files as well—you can upload your file in one text format, request an output in another format, or ask the Code Interpreter to make changes to the file. 📝

4. Solving math equations

ChatGPT Code Interpreter can also solve complex math equations you’d otherwise struggle to solve with the basic version of ChatGPT. Whenever you find a complex problem in your math textbook, you can click a picture of it, upload it to Code Interpreter, and ask it to solve the equation in your image

Not only will it provide you with the correct answer, but it will also explain how it arrived at the answer in complete detail. A nightmare for math teachers skeptical of their students, isn’t it? 😉

This function can be useful in education, cryptography, data modeling, and construction industries

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How To Activate the ChatGPT Code Interpreter Plugin?

Now that you know what you can accomplish with ChatGPT Code Interpreter, you must be wondering how to get started with it, right? Well, it’s quite simple.

However, before you can use it, you need to activate it. Follow the steps explained below:

Step 1: Go to Explore GPTs

Sign in to ChatGPT with your account if you haven’t signed in already. If you don’t have an account, make one. Once you sign in, you’ll see an Explore GPTs option in the sidebar. Click on it to open the list of ChatGPT plugins available for use.

Step 2: Find the Data Analyst GPT

The next step is to find the Data Analyst GPT. To do so, you can either scroll down and navigate to the ‘By ChatGPT’ section or simply search for it from the search bar. Once you find it, click on it.

ChatGPT Data Analyst) plugin

In the Data Analyst popup window, you can see that its abilities include the “Code Interpreter and Data Analysis” functionality. Click the ‘Start Chat’ button to activate Data Analyst GPT instead of the standard ChatGPT. 

Step 3: Click the Start Chat button

Start a chat with chatgpt code interpreter by clicking here

Step 4: Start chatting and working

Now you’ll end up in a new chat window of Data Analyst. This is where you can work with its AI-powered Code Interpreter and upload your files for data analysis and processing. 

chatgpt code interpreter (data analyst) chat window
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How To Use The Code Interpreter?

Using ChatGPT Code Interpreter is pretty simple. Attach the file you want to work with, then send it with your desired prompt. 📎

It can be a code file, an image, a text document, an Excel spreadsheet, or any other kind of file (except for executables).

Code Interpreter will analyze it for you, perform your desired action, and return an output. Then, you can download the output file or ask for further modifications if you are unsatisfied with the outcome. Let’s explore the process in detail.

Step 1: Upload your data or file

The first step is to upload whatever data or files you want the ChatGPT Code Interpreter to analyze:

How to upload files to ChatGPT with Code Interpreter?

You can upload your files to ChatGPT Code Interpreter just as you’d upload them to an email or a text message on WhatsApp. Click on the paperclip icon next to the text box to add your data file as an attachment with your prompt/instructions.

Multiple selections are allowed, so you can hold the Ctrl key on your keyboard while selecting the files if you want to upload multiple files. 📚 

Upload files to chatgpt code interpreter from here

Step 2: Interpret your data

Once your data is uploaded, you should ask the ChatGPT Code Interpreter to analyze it so it can make sense of the file’s contents. You can send a prompt like this along with your uploaded file:

“Interpret this data.”

Once you send your file along with this prompt, the Code Interpreter will analyze it and let you know what it found in the file.

You can check if its interpretations are correct or not. If there’s something wrong, you can send another prompt to point out the mistake, and it will rectify its data interpretation in the background. 

Interpret your data using chatgpt code interpreter

Step 3: Clean your data

The next thing you want to do is clean your data to remove empty rows, duplicates, or any other kind of issues that might affect the results of your data analysis. To do this, send the following prompt to ChatGPT Code Interpreter:

“Clean this data and remove any errors that can affect the output quality.” 

Once you send this prompt, the Code Interpreter will clean your data and summarize its changes and their reasons. It can detect the datatype and its common errors, cleaning them without requiring any instructions from your end. 🙌

ChatGPT Code Interpreter cleaning the data before analysis

Depending on what you want to learn from your data, you can start sending prompts to extract that information. You can extract trends, patterns, anomalies, bugs, and other types of information from your data or file. You can also make changes to the file by sending an edit prompt

🌟 ChatGPT prompt templates to extract the results and make changes to your data

  • “Analyze the patterns hidden in this data”
  • “Analyze the trends in this data”
  • “Identify the outliers in this dataset”
  • “Identify the anomalies in this dataset”
  • “Share with me the 10 crucial learnings from this data”
  • “Provide individual graphics for each trend/pattern/learning”
  • “Find the bugs in this code”
  • “Edit this file to remove all instances of [whatever you want to be removed]”
  • “Debug this code”

These are just a few examples. If you want any other action to be performed, you can modify these prompts or even write new ones as per your requirements.

Patterns discovered by chatgpt code interpreter

Step 5: Download your results

Finally, based on whatever prompts you sent, the ChatGPT Code Interpreter will perform your desired analysis and provide an output.

If you had asked for trends or patterns, it would provide an explanation of identified trends with graphs and visualizations. If you had asked to debug your code or edit a file, it would provide an output file after making the changes you requested. 

Then you can download the file and use it as you see fit. 🤩

How to download files from ChatGPT with Code Interpreter?

Downloading the output files from ChatGPT Code Interpreter is also as easy as downloading them from an email or a chat message. You can download them by clicking the downloadable link provided with the output. 

If there’s no link to the file (as it usually happens with trends and patterns), you can ask the Code Interpreter to generate a downloadable file containing that information. Here’s the prompt to do so:

“Put this information in a downloadable doc/pdf file and share the download link.”

Once you send this prompt, the output will be shared with you in the file format you asked for. You can click its downloadable link and download the file.

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Security Considerations for the Code Interpreter

So far, so good. However, the functionality to execute code also comes with some security concerns, such as the possibility of code injections and unpatched flaws. ChatGPT Code Interpreter is no different. 

Its ability to execute Python code and access third-party websites has made it vulnerable to prompt injection attacks, which allow attackers to execute malicious scripts from another website. 

These scripts can ask the plugin to perform any action on the server. For instance, it can ask to extract the content of files inside a specific folder. 

Tom’s Hardware explored this vulnerability in detail, showing how ChatGPT Code Interpreter is tricked into executing malicious scripts from a third-party server. When I asked the Code Interpreter specifically whether or not its AI is vulnerable to prompt injection attacks, here’s what it said:

What ChatGPT Code Interpreter says about its prompt injection vulnerabilities

Obviously, nobody accepts their own shortcomings! Not even AI. 😄

This vulnerability was first discovered in November 2023. However, OpenAI hasn’t provided any direct proof of fixing this issue as of yet.

Also, these attacks are complex to execute—they require the users to send a prompt asking to access any malicious website. While people can be tricked into sending such commands with social engineering, the odds are fairly low. 

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Limitations of the Code Interpreter

While Code Interpreter is one of the more advanced features of ChatGPT, it’s not without its own set of limitations. There are several restrictions on what you can and can’t do with it, including:

  • File size limitations: You can’t upload a file larger than 100MB
  • Time limitations: There’s a limitation on how much time a task can take. If any task takes longer than 60 seconds, it will result in a timeout
  • File type limitations: While most of the popular text and image file formats (PNG, JPEG, CSV, JSON) are supported, video files, animated GIFs, and other proprietary file formats are unsupported
  • Concurrency: Requests are executed sequentially, so multiple processes can’t be executed simultaneously

These restrictions are in place to ensure that ChatGPT Code Interpreter remains useful for users.

If you want to work around them and process larger files requiring more computational time, you can try to break them down into multiple smaller files before uploading them to Code Interpreter. 🙌

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How ClickUp Enhances Your Workflow with ChatGPT Code Interpreter

If you’re a software developer or a data analyst looking to boost your productivity with ChatGPT Code Interpreter, you’re on the right path.

But you can take it truly to the next level if you combine ClickUp with the Code Interpreter

ClickUp is the everything app for work with robust task management, collaboration, and AI features that allow you to manage all aspects of your work from one place.

Combining ClickUp’s project management strengths with the advanced data analytics and automation capabilities of AI tools like the Code Interpreter unlocks a superior level of efficiency.

Let’s explore how you can use the ChatGPT Code Interpreter with ClickUp.

1. Complete your code faster

ClickUp’s built-in AI assistant, ClickUp Brain, helps you complete your coding projects faster by providing code suggestions as you write your code (much like GitHub Copilot).

It works perfectly with all popular programming languages, so you get suggestions regardless of the language you’re coding in. That makes it a robust ChatGPT alternative for coders

ClickUp Brain
Get coding suggestions by ClickUp Brain

But the genius of ClickUp for software developers doesn’t end there. 

The Github integration for ClickUp allows in-built version control without jumping between different platforms. You can see your entire Github activity within the ClickUp feed and act on pull requests from within the ClickUp environment. 

The same goes for updating your work progress in ClickUp from Github—update task statuses from Github itself by mentioning the task ID or description in your commit messages. Once you complete your code using these features, use ChatGPT Code Interpreter to debug and test it. 🧪

2. Streamline team collaboration

In the team collaboration department, ClickUp has no competition from ChatGPT.

Its strong collaboration features allow you to work with your team members on coding files. You can share coding files with team members within the ClickUp environment and discuss any necessary changes in the task comments or ClickUp Chat, the platform’s integrated chat functionality. 

Managers can also assign different code files to individual team members based on their workload. Once done, simply mark your work as done in ClickUp Tasks, automatically updating the overall project progress. ✅

ClickUp Chat
Assign comments to team members in ClickUp Tasks to enhance accountability and collaboration

💡Pro Tip: If your team uses Slack for communication, you can also use ClickUp’s Slack integration to streamline communication and file sharing. 

3. Organize your coding projects

Finally, you can also track the progress of all your coding projects using custom ClickUp Dashboards

Visualize team workload, individual productivity, sprint velocity, and more on your dashboards and share them with your clients if needed.

Create multiple dashboards to keep track of different projects or parameters, and easily fetch information from any dashboard by asking questions to ClickUp Brain. 

ClickUp Dashboard
Get an overview of workloads, task progress, milestones, and sprints with ClickUp Dashboards
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Maximize Your Data Analysis Capabilities with ClickUp

Boosting your productivity with AI has become the norm, especially for software development and data analysis projects.

Using AI-powered project management platforms like ClickUp, alongside tools like ChatGPT Code Interpreter, helps you increase your efficiency and productivity, ensuring you’re always ahead of the curve.

Try ClickUp for free and bring the best of AI capabilities and project management features together under one platform.

Everything you need to stay organized and get work done.
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