The standard package manager for Python is pip. It allows you to install and manage packages that aren’t part of the Python standard library. If you’re looking for an introduction to pip, then you’ve come to the right place!
In this tutorial, you’ll learn how to:
- Set up
pipin your working environment - Fix common errors related to working with
pip - Install and uninstall packages with
pip - Manage projects’ dependencies using requirements files
You can do a lot with pip, but the Python community is very active and has created some neat alternatives to pip. You’ll learn about those later in this tutorial.
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Getting Started With pip
So, what exactly does pip do? pip is a package manager for Python. That means it’s a tool that allows you to install and manage libraries and dependencies that aren’t distributed as part of the standard library. The name pip was introduced by Ian Bicking in 2008:
I’ve finished renaming pyinstall to its new name: pip. The name pip is [an] acronym and declaration: pip installs packages. (Source)
Package management is so important that Python’s installers have included pip since versions 3.4 and 2.7.9, for Python 3 and Python 2, respectively. Many Python projects use pip, which makes it an essential tool for every Pythonista.
The concept of a package manager might be familiar to you if you’re coming from another programming language. JavaScript uses npm for package management, Ruby uses gem, and the .NET platform uses NuGet. In Python, pip has become the standard package manager.
Finding pip on Your System
The Python 3 installer gives you the option to install pip when installing Python on your system. In fact, the option to install pip with Python is checked by default, so pip should be ready for you to use after installing Python.
Note: On some Linux (Unix) systems like Ubuntu, pip comes in a separate package called python3-pip, which you need to install with sudo apt install python3-pip. It’s not installed by default with the interpreter.
You can verify that pip is available by looking for the pip3 executable on your system. Select your operating system below and use your platform-specific command accordingly:
On Windows and Unix systems, pip3 may be found in more than one location. This can happen when you have multiple Python versions installed. If you can’t find pip in any location on your system, then you may consider reinstalling pip.
Instead of running your system pip directly, you can also run it as a Python module. In the next section, you’ll learn how.
Running pip as a Module
When you run your system pip directly, the command itself doesn’t reveal which Python version pip belongs to. This unfortunately means that you could use pip to install a package into the site-packages of an old Python version without noticing. To prevent this from happening, you can run pip as a Python module:
$ python3 -m pip
Notice that you use python3 -m to run pip. The -m switch tells Python to run a module as an executable of the python3 interpreter. This way, you can ensure that your system default Python 3 version runs the pip command. If you want to learn more about this way of running pip, then you can read Brett Cannon’s insightful article about the advantages of using python3 -m pip.
Sometimes you may want to be more explicit and limit packages to a specific project. In situations like this, you should run pip inside a virtual environment.
Using pip in a Python Virtual Environment
To avoid installing packages directly into your system Python installation, you can use a virtual environment. A virtual environment provides an isolated Python interpreter for your project. Any packages that you use inside this environment will be independent of your system interpreter. This means that you can keep your project’s dependencies separate from other projects and the system at large.
Read the full article at https://realpython.com/what-is-pip/ »
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