Add nbformat-based validation script for Jupyter notebooks

Author: Aniketsy

scripts/format_check.sh

@@ -91,22 +91,14 @@ else
     exit 1
 fi
 
-# Check Jupyter Notebook format
-echo "Checking Jupyter Notebook format..."
-if ! command -v nbstripout &> /dev/null
-then
-    echo "nbstripout could not be found, please install it with 'pip install nbstripout'"
+# Check Jupyter Notebook format using nbformat
+echo "Checking Jupyter Notebook format with nbformat..."
+python3 scripts/validate_notebooks.py
+if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
+    echo "One or more notebooks failed nbformat validation."
     exit 1
 fi
 
-for notebook in $(find . -name "*.ipynb"); do
-    nbstripout --check "$notebook"
-    if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
-        echo "Notebook $notebook is not in the correct format. Please strip output and metadata."
-        exit 1
-    fi
-done
-
 echo "Checking C++ formatting...";
 formatting_outputs=$(find tensorflow_quantum/ -iname *.h -o -iname *.cc | xargs clang-format -style=google -output-replacements-xml);
 CFORMATCHECK=0

scripts/validate_notebooks.py

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+import sys
+import nbformat
+from pathlib import Path
+
+def main():
+    """Check all notebooks for valid nbformat structure."""
+    failed = False
+    notebooks = list(Path('.').rglob('*.ipynb'))
+    print(f"Found notebooks: {notebooks}")
+    for notebook_path in notebooks:
+        try:
+            with open(notebook_path, 'r', encoding='utf-8') as f:
+                nb = nbformat.read(f, as_version=4)
+            nbformat.validate(nb)
+            print(f"✓ {notebook_path}")
+        except Exception as e:
+            print(f"✗ {notebook_path} failed validation: {e}")
+            failed = True
+
+    if failed:
+        sys.exit(1)
+    else:
+        print("All notebooks passed nbformat validation.")
+
+if __name__ == "__main__":
+    main()