Pip Introduction

Pip is the default Python package manger. It allows you to install Python libraries to your computer so they can be imported within your Python code.

Installing Pip

Pip will come when you install Python >= 3.4, but you can also manually install it from pypl.

Installing 3rd Party Libraries with Pip

Let’s try to install a common Python library called Pandas. If you want to find more libraries, PyPi, the Python Package Index is the place. Once pip is installed on your computer and added to your path, simply run the command:

pip install pandas

Updating packages is simple

pip install --upgrade pandas

Uninstalling is just as easy

pip uninstall pandas

Upgrading pip itself

pip install --upgrade pip

Installing Your Own Packages with Pip

If you have your own package built locally, you simply install it by running pip install on the setup.py directory. Check my post about packages for details on creating your own packages.

pip install /path/to/package/

Other Pip Utilities

You can see all your installed libraries with pip list.

pip list

Package                Version      
---------------------- -------------
apturl                 0.5.2        
attrs                  19.3.0       
autopep8               1.5.3        
backcall               0.2.0       
...

You can also see specifics about a single library, such as version, dependencies, and install location, with pip show

pip show pandas

Name: pandas
Version: 1.0.5
Summary: Powerful data structures for data analysis, time series, and statistics
Home-page: https://pandas.pydata.org
Author: None
Author-email: None
License: BSD
Location: /home/james/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages
Requires: numpy, pytz, python-dateutil
Required-by:

Requirements.txt

If you’re working on a project, especially one with other people, you want to make sure you’re all using the same libraries. Requirements.txt files define which libraries your Python project needs. You can define package names and versions in requirements.txt, and use pip to install them.

requirements.txt
-----------------
pandas==1.0.5
boto3
-----------------

pip install -r requirements.txt