Question :
What’s a good way to check if a package is installed while within a Python script? I know it’s easy from the interpreter, but I need to do it within a script.
I guess I could check if there’s a directory on the system that’s created during the installation, but I feel like there’s a better way. I’m trying to make sure the Skype4Py package is installed, and if not I’ll install it.
My ideas for accomplishing the check
- check for a directory in the typical install path
- try to import the package and if an exception is throw, then install package
Answer #1:
If you mean a python script, just do something like this:
Python 3.3+ use sys.modules and find_spec:
import importlib.util
import sys
# For illustrative purposes.
name = 'itertools'
if name in sys.modules:
print(f"{name!r} already in sys.modules")
elif (spec := importlib.util.find_spec(name)) is not None:
# If you choose to perform the actual import ...
module = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
sys.modules[name] = module
spec.loader.exec_module(module)
print(f"{name!r} has been imported")
else:
print(f"can't find the {name!r} module")
Python 3:
try:
import mymodule
except ImportError as e:
pass # module doesn't exist, deal with it.
Python 2:
try:
import mymodule
except ImportError, e:
pass # module doesn't exist, deal with it.
Answer #2:
Updated answer
A better way of doing this is:
import subprocess
import sys
reqs = subprocess.check_output([sys.executable, '-m', 'pip', 'freeze'])
installed_packages = [r.decode().split('==')[0] for r in reqs.split()]
The result:
print(installed_packages)
[
"Django",
"six",
"requests",
]
Check if requests
is installed:
if 'requests' in installed_packages:
# Do something
Why this way? Sometimes you have app name collisions. Importing from the app namespace doesn’t give you the full picture of what’s installed on the system.
Note, that proposed solution works:
- When using pip to install from PyPI or from any other alternative source (like
pip install http://some.site/package-name.zip
or any other archive type). - When installing manually using
python setup.py install
. - When installing from system repositories, like
sudo apt install python-requests
.
Cases when it might not work:
- When installing in development mode, like
python setup.py develop
. - When installing in development mode, like
pip install -e /path/to/package/source/
.
Old answer
A better way of doing this is:
import pip
installed_packages = pip.get_installed_distributions()
For pip>=10.x use:
from pip._internal.utils.misc import get_installed_distributions
Why this way? Sometimes you have app name collisions. Importing from the app namespace doesn’t give you the full picture of what’s installed on the system.
As a result, you get a list of pkg_resources.Distribution
objects. See the following as an example:
print installed_packages
[
"Django 1.6.4 (/path-to-your-env/lib/python2.7/site-packages)",
"six 1.6.1 (/path-to-your-env/lib/python2.7/site-packages)",
"requests 2.5.0 (/path-to-your-env/lib/python2.7/site-packages)",
]
Make a list of it:
flat_installed_packages = [package.project_name for package in installed_packages]
[
"Django",
"six",
"requests",
]
Check if requests
is installed:
if 'requests' in flat_installed_packages:
# Do something
Answer #3:
As of Python 3.3, you can use the find_spec() method
import importlib.util
# For illustrative purposes.
package_name = 'pandas'
spec = importlib.util.find_spec(package_name)
if spec is None:
print(package_name +" is not installed")
Answer #4:
If you want to have the check from the terminal, you can run
pip3 show package_name
and if nothing is returned, the package is not installed.
If perhaps you want to automate this check, so that for example you can install it if missing, you can have the following in your bash script:
pip3 show package_name 1>/dev/null #pip for Python 2
if [ $? == 0 ]; then
echo "Installed" #Replace with your actions
else
echo "Not Installed" #Replace with your actions, 'pip3 install --upgrade package_name' ?
fi
Answer #5:
As an extension of this answer:
For Python 2.*, pip show <package_name>
will perform the same task.
For example pip show numpy
will return the following or alike:
Name: numpy
Version: 1.11.1
Summary: NumPy: array processing for numbers, strings, records, and objects.
Home-page: http://www.numpy.org
Author: NumPy Developers
Author-email: numpy-discussion@scipy.org
License: BSD
Location: /home/***/anaconda2/lib/python2.7/site-packages
Requires:
Required-by: smop, pandas, tables, spectrum, seaborn, patsy, odo, numpy-stl, numba, nfft, netCDF4, MDAnalysis, matplotlib, h5py, GridDataFormats, dynd, datashape, Bottleneck, blaze, astropy
Answer #6:
You can use the pkg_resources module from setuptools. For example:
import pkg_resources
package_name = 'cool_package'
try:
cool_package_dist_info = pkg_resources.get_distribution(package_name)
except pkg_resources.DistributionNotFound:
print('{} not installed'.format(package_name))
else:
print(cool_package_dist_info)
Note that there is a difference between python module and a python package. A package can contain multiple modules and module’s names might not match the package name.
Answer #7:
Open your command prompt type
pip3 list
Answer #8:
In the Terminal type
pip show some_package_name
Example
pip show matplotlib