CODEWITHSUNDEEP
python
Rich Bradshaw
Rich Bradshaw

Reputation: 72975

How do I find out what Python libraries are installed on my Mac?

I'm just starting out with Python, and have found out that I can import various libraries. How do I find out what libraries exist on my Mac that I can import? How do I find out what functions they include?

I seem to remember using some web server type thing to browse through local help files, but I may have imagined that!

Upvotes: 13

Views: 36960

Answers (7)

Edoardo Guerriero
Edoardo Guerriero

Reputation: 1250

Considering that in every operating system most of python's packages are installed using 'pip' (see pip documentation) you can also use the command 'pip freeze' on a terminal to print a list of all the packages you have installed through it. Other tools like 'homebrew' for macOS (used when for some reason you can't install a package using pip) have similar commands, in this specific case 'brew list'.

Upvotes: 2

Steef
Steef

Reputation: 34685

For the web server, you can run the pydoc module that is included in the python distribution as a script:

python /path/to/pydoc.py -p 1234

where 1234 is the port you want the server to run at. You can then visit http://localhost:1234/ and browse the documentation.

Upvotes: 7

Kapil D
Kapil D

Reputation: 2660

just run the Python interpeter and type the command import "lib_name" if it gives an error, you don't have the lib installed...else you are good to go

Upvotes: 3

nic ferrier
nic ferrier

Reputation: 1660

You can install another library: yolk.

yolk is a python package manager and will show you everything you have added via pypi. But it will also show you site-packages added through whatever local package manager you run.

Upvotes: 3

ThibThib
ThibThib

Reputation: 8210

On Leopard, depending on the python package you're using and the version number, the modules can be found in /Library/Python:

/Library/Python/2.5/site-packages

or in /Library/Frameworks

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/Current/lib/python2.6/site-packages

(it could also be 3.0 or whatever version)... I guess it is quite the same with Tiger

Upvotes: 2

Otto Allmendinger
Otto Allmendinger

Reputation: 28278

Every standard python distribution has these libraries, which cover most of what you will need in a project.

In case you need to find out if a library exists at runtime, you do it like this

try:
    import ObscureModule
except ImportError:
    print "you need to install ObscureModule"
    sys.exit(1) # or something like that

Upvotes: 3

Mark Rushakoff
Mark Rushakoff

Reputation: 258348

From the Python REPL (the command-line interpreter / Read-Eval-Print-Loop), type help("modules") to see a list of all your available libs.

Then to see functions within a module, do help("posix"), for example. If you haven't imported the library yet, you have to put quotes around the library's name.

Upvotes: 40

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