Get a Python Package Version

By  on  

Part of maintaining a Django-based application like MDN's kuma is ensuring Python packages are up to date.  I was recently testing an upgrade on a remote system and needed to ensure that a given Python package was at the version number it should be.  Here's how I retrieved the package version:

import nose   # Nose is a test utility.  Replace with your desired package here.
nose.__version__

# Output:  0.3.1

The __version__ property returns the exact version number for a Python package.  Some Python packages use a VERSION property as well, but __version__ should be the most reliable.

Recent Features

  • By
    9 Mind-Blowing WebGL Demos

    As much as developers now loathe Flash, we're still playing a bit of catch up to natively duplicate the animation capabilities that Adobe's old technology provided us.  Of course we have canvas, an awesome technology, one which I highlighted 9 mind-blowing demos.  Another technology available...

  • By
    Conquering Impostor Syndrome

    Two years ago I documented my struggles with Imposter Syndrome and the response was immense.  I received messages of support and commiseration from new web developers, veteran engineers, and even persons of all experience levels in other professions.  I've even caught myself reading the post...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Modal-Style Text Selection with Fokus

    Every once in a while I find a tiny JavaScript library that does something very specific, very well.  My latest find, Fokus, is a utility that listens for text selection within the page, and when such an event occurs, shows a beautiful modal dialog in...

  • By
    Translate Content with the Google Translate API and JavaScript

    Note:  For this tutorial, I'm using version1 of the Google Translate API.  A newer REST-based version is available. In an ideal world, all websites would have a feature that allowed the user to translate a website into their native language (or even more ideally, translation would be...

Discussion

  1. Every once in a while a package might not define either VERSION or __version__, since they’re conventions, not required. You can always get the installed version with pkg_resources, though:

    >>> import pkg_resources
    >>> pkg_resources.get_distribution("PIL").version
    '1.1.7'
    
  2. Alfred Tarski

    @James, __version__ is recommended by PEP 396

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!