CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpip
thibaultbl
thibaultbl

Reputation: 984

Difference in PIP format

What is the difference between: 

python -m pip install forecasting

and 

pip install forecasting

In my environment, the first is working when the second format raise the following error:

ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'pip._internal'

Upvotes: 1

Views: 197

Answers (3)

Nils Werner
Nils Werner

Reputation: 36775

They're two different ways a package can expose commands to the commandline.

pip is a console_script entry-point. Any package can define globally available commands that way, and PIP (the package) uses it to define pip (the command).

In case of pip, the function they're executing using this method is set to pip._internal.main():

entry_points={
    "console_scripts": [
        "pip=pip._internal:main",
    ],
},

On the other side python -m pip is using a switch for calling modules. If your module contains a __main__.py file, this file will simply be interpreted and executed by the Python interpreter.

In case of python -m pip, this file essentially contains

from pip._internal import main as _main 
if __name__ == '__main__':
    sys.exit(_main())

so the two commands try to do the same.

However, recently PIP has shown some weird quirks [1] [2] that cause one of the two to work, and the other one to fail.

Upvotes: 1

Mufeed
Mufeed

Reputation: 3208

Answer to your first question.

From pip docs
pip is a command line program. When you install pip, a pip command is added to your system, which can be run from the command prompt as follows:

$ pip <pip arguments>

If you cannot run the pip command directly (possibly because the location where it was installed isn't on your operating system's PATH) then you can run pip via the Python interpreter:

$ python -m pip <pip arguments>

Upvotes: 1

ScottMcC
ScottMcC

Reputation: 4460

With reference to this GitHub issue:

https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/5373

Try the following command:

sudo easy_install pip

Upvotes: 1

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