Why is there no command line to find python location?-CodePudding

I can find python version with python --version But I cannot find the location of python executable. Is there a command like python --path? If not, is there a reason why?

CodePudding user response：

Use sys.executable:

python -c 'import sys; print(sys.executable)'

CodePudding user response：

use 'where python' in your terminal to get the path to it

edit

where python works for windows and which python works for linux

CodePudding user response：

Use which python or which python3. Work on unix based OS.

For Windows, see other answers.

CodePudding user response：

(Note: the which and ls -l commands won't work on Windows, but the general tracking of where Python has been installed on the file system should still be available in sys.base_prefix)

To elaborate a bit on Wim's answer (I nosed around in the sys namespace before seeing their answer) there are different possible "pythons" you might be interested in: the which python location. (or in Windows terms, where does it first see python in a %PATH% location?)

Also you might be interested to know: where is python actually installed on the file system?

sys.base_prefix helps with the latter.

python -c 'import sys; print(f"{sys.executable=}\n{sys.base_prefix=}" )'

Without an activated virtualenv, I get this on macos using a macport-based python:

sys.executable='/opt/local/bin/python'
sys.base_prefix='/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.10'

And in fact if you dig into what's on in that bin directory, you find:

% ls -l /opt/local/bin/python
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  25  7 Jan  2022 /opt/local/bin/python -> /opt/local/bin/python3.10

and

% ls -l /opt/local/bin/python3.10
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  admin  75  7 Jun 02:02 /opt/local/bin/python3.10 -> /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.10/bin/python3.10

So the actual installed binary is under the location of base_prefix.

If I activate my virtual environment, base_prefix stays the same, but the sys.executable reflects the fact that I am now in a virtualenv

sys.executable='/Users/me/kds2/venvs/bme/bin/python'
sys.base_prefix='/opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.10'