This section covers the basics of how to install Python packages.
It’s important to note that the term “package” in this context is being used to describe a bundle of software to be installed [i.e. as a synonym for a distribution]. It does not to refer to the kind of package that you import in your Python source code [i.e. a container of modules]. It is common in the Python community to refer to a distribution using the term “package”. Using the term “distribution” is often not preferred, because it can easily be confused with a Linux distribution, or another larger software distribution like Python itself.
Requirements for Installing Packages¶
This section describes the steps to follow before installing other Python packages.
Ensure you can run Python from the command line¶
Before you go any further, make sure you have Python and that the expected version is available from your command line. You can check this by running:
You should get some output like Python 3.6.3
. If you do not have Python, please install the latest 3.x version from
python.org or refer to the Installing Python section of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to Python.
Note
If you’re a newcomer and you get an error like this:
>>> python --version Traceback [most recent call last]: File "", line 1, in NameError: name 'python' is not defined
It’s because this command and other suggested commands in this tutorial are intended to be run in a shell [also called a terminal or console]. See the Python for Beginners getting started tutorial for an introduction to using your operating system’s shell and interacting with Python.
Note
If you’re using an enhanced shell like IPython or the Jupyter notebook, you can run system commands like those in this tutorial by prefacing them
with a !
character:
In [1]: import sys !{sys.executable} --version Python 3.6.3
It’s recommended to write {sys.executable}
rather than plain python
in order to ensure that commands are run in the Python installation matching the currently running notebook [which may not be the same Python installation that the python
command refers to].
Note
Due to the way most Linux distributions are handling the Python 3 migration, Linux users using the system Python without creating a virtual
environment first should replace the python
command in this tutorial with python3
and the python -m pip
command with python3 -m pip --user
. Do not run any of the commands in this tutorial with sudo
: if you get a permissions error, come back to the section on creating virtual environments, set one up, and then continue with the tutorial as written.
Ensure you can run pip from the command line¶
Additionally, you’ll need to make sure you have pip available. You can check this by running:
If you installed Python from source, with an installer from python.org, or via Homebrew you should already have pip. If you’re on Linux and installed using your OS package manager, you may have to install pip separately, see Installing pip/setuptools/wheel with Linux Package Managers.
If pip
isn’t already
installed, then first try to bootstrap it from the standard library:
Unix/macOS
python3 -m ensurepip --default-pip
Windows
py -m ensurepip --default-pip
If that still doesn’t allow you to run python -m pip
:
Securely Download get-pip.py 1
Run
python get-pip.py
. 2 This will install or upgrade pip. Additionally, it will install setuptools and wheel if they’re not installed already.Warning
Be cautious if you’re using a Python install that’s managed by your operating system or another package manager. get-pip.py does not coordinate with those tools, and may leave your system in an inconsistent state. You can use
python get-pip.py --prefix=/usr/local/
to install in/usr/local
which is designed for locally-installed software.
Ensure pip, setuptools, and wheel are up to date¶
While pip
alone is sufficient to install from pre-built binary archives, up to date copies of the setuptools
and wheel
projects are useful to ensure you can also install from source archives:
Unix/macOS
python3 -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
Windows
py -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
Optionally, create a virtual environment¶
See section below for details, but here’s the basic venv 3 command to use on a typical Linux system:
Unix/macOS
python3 -m venv tutorial_env
source tutorial_env/bin/activate
Windows
py -m venv tutorial_env tutorial_env\Scripts\activate
This will create a new virtual environment in the tutorial_env
subdirectory, and configure the current shell to use it as the default python
environment.
Creating Virtual Environments¶
Python “Virtual Environments” allow Python packages to be installed in an isolated location for a particular application, rather than being installed globally. If you are looking to safely install global command line tools, see Installing stand alone command line tools.
Imagine you have an application that needs version 1 of LibFoo, but another application requires version 2. How can you use both these applications? If you install everything into /usr/lib/python3.6/site-packages [or whatever your platform’s standard location is], it’s easy to end up in a situation where you unintentionally upgrade an application that shouldn’t be upgraded.
Or more generally, what if you want to install an application and leave it be? If an application works, any change in its libraries or the versions of those libraries can break the application.
Also, what if you can’t install packages into the global site-packages directory? For instance, on a shared host.
In all these cases, virtual environments can help you. They have their own installation directories and they don’t share libraries with other virtual environments.
Currently, there are two common tools for creating Python virtual environments:
venv is available by default in Python 3.3 and later, and installs pip and setuptools into created virtual environments in Python 3.4 and later.
virtualenv needs to be installed separately, but supports Python 2.7+ and Python 3.3+, and pip, setuptools and wheel are always installed into created virtual environments by default [regardless of Python version].
The basic usage is like so:
Using venv:
Unix/macOS
python3 -m venv
source /bin/activate
Windows
py -m venv
\Scripts\activate
Using virtualenv:
Unix/macOS
python3 -m virtualenv
source /bin/activate
Windows
virtualenv
\Scripts\activate
For more information, see the venv docs or the virtualenv docs.
The use of source under Unix shells ensures that the virtual environment’s variables are set within the current shell, and not in a subprocess [which then disappears, having no useful effect].
In both of the above cases, Windows users should _not_ use the source command, but should rather run the activate script directly from the command shell like so:
Managing multiple virtual environments directly can become tedious, so the dependency management tutorial introduces a higher level tool, Pipenv, that automatically manages a separate virtual environment for each project and application that you work on.
Use pip for Installing¶
pip is the recommended installer. Below, we’ll cover the most common usage scenarios. For more detail, see the pip docs, which includes a complete Reference Guide.
Installing from PyPI¶
The most common usage of pip is to install from the Python Package Index using a requirement specifier. Generally speaking, a requirement specifier is composed of a project name followed by an optional version specifier. PEP 440 contains a full specification of the currently supported specifiers. Below are some examples.
To install the latest version of “SomeProject”:
Unix/macOS
python3 -m pip install "SomeProject"
Windows
py -m pip install "SomeProject"
To install a specific version:
Unix/macOS
python3 -m pip install "SomeProject==1.4"
Windows
py -m pip install "SomeProject==1.4"
To install greater than or equal to one version and less than another:
Unix/macOS
python3 -m pip install "SomeProject>=1,=1,