Pip can be used to do more than just install packages. A list of common pip commands you might find useful are listed in the article
Table of Contents
- What is Pip?
- Setting up Virtual Environment
- Update Pip
- Install A Package
- Update Package
- Install Specific version of a package
- Uninstall a Package
- Information about an installed package
- List all installed packages
- List all installed packages which are not up to date
- Generate a requirements.txt file
- Install all dependencies from requirements.txt file
- Verify installed packages have compatible dependencies
- A hack to update all packages
What is Pip?
Pip is a package manager tool for Python. If you have worked with Python before, you have most probably worked with pip as well. The most common use of pip is to install packages but there are a few other helpful commands you might not know.
Pip fetches packages from PyPI
Setting up Virtual Environment
Install virtualenv
On macOS and Linux:
python3 -m pip install --user virtualenv
On Windows:
python -m pip install --user virtualenv
Create virtual environment
On macOS and Linux:
python3 -m venv env
On Windows:
python -m venv env
This will create a virtual environment named venv
Activate Virtual Environment
Ensure your file paths are correct.
On macOS and Linux:
source venv/bin/activate
On Windows:
venv\Scripts\activate
Select Interpreter for VS Code
- Press ‘Ctrl+Shift+P’ for Windows/Linux and ⇧⌘P for Mac to open the command palette
- Search for ‘Select Interpreter’
- Click ‘Enter Interpreter Path’ > ‘Find’
- A file explore should open up, go to venv>Scripts>python.exe
Deactivate/Leave the virtual environment
Type the following command
deactivate
Update Pip
python -m pip install --upgrade pip
Install A Package
pip install <package-name>
If I want to install pandas, a python package, I’d type the following
pip install pandas
This is going to install the latest version of a package available on PyPI
Update Package
pip install -U <package name>
If I want to update my version of pandas, I’d type the following
pip install -U pandas
If an old version of the package exists, pip will first uninstall that version. It will then install the most up-to-date version from PyPI. If an up-to-date version is already installed, pip won’t do anything.
Install Specific version of a package
pip install <package-name>==<version>
If I wanted to install pandas version 1.20, I’d type the following
pip install pandas==1.2.0
If a version of a package is already installed, pip will uninstall the existing package and install the specified version of the package
If you want to install a version of a package newer than a specific version, type the following
pip install <packagename>>=<version>
To install a version of pandas, newer than 1.2.0
pip install pandas>=1.2.0
Uninstall a Package
pip uninstall pandas
Information about an installed package
pip show <package name>
To get information about the package pandas which I installed earlier
pip show pandas
If you try to get information about a package that is not installed in your environment, pip will return a warning ‘Package Not Found’
List all installed packages
pip list
This will list all the installed packages in the environment in a tabular format
An alternative is the following
pip freeze
List all installed packages which are not up to date
pip list -o
Generate a requirements.txt file
pip freeze > requirements.txt
Install all dependencies from requirements.txt file
pip install -r requirements.txt
Pip will ignore all the packages which have already been installed before
Verify installed packages have compatible dependencies
pip check
A hack to update all packages
- Generate a requirements.txt file
pip freeze > requirements.txt
- Open the requirements.txt file and replace all instances of == with >=
- Installed dependencies from requirements.txt
pip install -r requirements.txt --upgrade
- Any packages which are up to date will be ignored and packages with a newer version available on PyPI will be installed.