How To Find Python Library On Mac

How To Find Python Library On Mac 3,8/5 6695 votes
  1. Oct 02, 2008  hello, how can I determine the location of the Python installation under winXP / Linux, with a Python program? Thanks, Stef Mientki.
  2. Your best way to get started with Python on Mac OS X is through the IDLE integrated development environment, see section The IDE and use the Help menu when the IDE is running. If you want to run Python scripts from the Terminal window command line or from the Finder you first need an editor to create your script.
  3. Where is the python library installed? Ask Question Asked 7 years ago. So maybe I can solve this adding the path of the python library to the command. But I don't know where is it. See the full output here. Python install-from-source. Share improve this question. Asked Mar 14 '13 at 1:54.

Your Mac system likely already has Python installed on it. However, this installation is normally a few years old — or whatever the age of your system happens to be. You won’t be testing the limits of Python programming technology — just getting a great start using Python.

Python may be installed on your Mac already: you can test this out by opening Terminal and entering python -version. If it's not, you should make your way to the Python website and click the. For some reason, you may need to remove Python interpreter. But some users face issues when trying to get rid of Python package, which is why we recommend that you read a complete and safe deletion guide on how to uninstall Python on your Mac to prevent any issue. Mac OS X specific services¶. This chapter describes modules that are only available on the Mac OS X platform. See the chapters MacPython OSA Modules and Undocumented Mac OS modules for more modules, and the HOWTO Using Python on a Macintosh for a general introduction to Mac-specific Python.

The Leopard version of OS X (10.5) uses a really old version of Python 2.5.1. This particular version lacks direct access to the IDLE application. This article tells you more about how to overcome this particular issue. Currently, the newest version of OS X (Mavericks, or 10.9) comes with Python 2.7.

Depending on how you use Python, you might want to update your installation at some point. Part of this process involves installing the GNU Compiler Collection (GCC) tools so that Python has access to the low-level resources it needs. The following steps get you started with installing a new version of Python on your Mac OS X system.

  1. Navigate to the Python download site with your browser.

    You see information regarding the latest version of Python.

  2. Click the appropriate link for your version of OS X:

    1. Python 3.3.4 Mac OS X 64-bit/32-bit x86-64/i386 Installer for 32-bit or 64-bit versions on the Intel processor

    2. Python 3.3.4 Mac OS X 32-bit i386/PPC Installer for 32-bit versions on the Power PC processor

    The Python disk image begins downloading. Be patient: The disk image requires several minutes to download. Most browsers provide a method for monitoring the download process so that you can easily see how long the download will take. When the download is complete, your Mac automatically opens the disk image for you.

    The disk image actually looks like a folder. Inside this folder, you see a number of files, including python.mpkg. The python.mpkg file is the one that contains the Python application. The text files contain information about the build, licensing, and any late-breaking notes.

  3. Double-click python.mpkg.

    You see a Welcome dialog box that tells you about this particular Python build. Delete download files mac.

  4. Click Continue three times.

    The installation program displays late-breaking notes about Python, licensing information (click Agree when asked about the licensing information), and, finally, a destination dialog box.

  5. Select the Volume (hard drive or other media) that you want to use for installing Python and click Continue.

    The Installation Type dialog box appears. This dialog box performs two tasks:

    • Click Customize to change the feature set that is installed on your system.

    • Click Change Install Location to modify the place where the installer places Python.

  6. Click Install.

    The installer may request your administrator password. Type the administrator name and password, if required, into the dialog box and click OK. You see an Installing Python dialog box. The contents of this dialog box will change as the installation process proceeds so that you know what part of Python the installer is working with.

    After the installation is completed, you see an Install Succeeded dialog box.

  7. Click Close.

    Python is ready to use. (You can close the disk image at this point and remove it from your system.)

Author:Bob Savage <bobsavage@mac.com>

Python on a Macintosh running Mac OS X is in principle very similar to Python onany other Unix platform, but there are a number of additional features such asthe IDE and the Package Manager that are worth pointing out.

4.1. Getting and Installing MacPython¶

Mac OS X 10.8 comes with Python 2.7 pre-installed by Apple. If you wish, youare invited to install the most recent version of Python 3 from the Pythonwebsite (http://www.python.org). A current “universal binary” build of Python,which runs natively on the Mac’s new Intel and legacy PPC CPU’s, is availablethere.

What you get after installing is a number of things:

  • A MacPython3.3 folder in your Applications folder. In hereyou find IDLE, the development environment that is a standard part of officialPython distributions; PythonLauncher, which handles double-clicking Pythonscripts from the Finder; and the “Build Applet” tool, which allows you topackage Python scripts as standalone applications on your system.
  • A framework /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework, which includes thePython executable and libraries. The installer adds this location to your shellpath. To uninstall MacPython, you can simply remove these three things. Asymlink to the Python executable is placed in /usr/local/bin/.

The Apple-provided build of Python is installed in/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework and /usr/bin/python,respectively. You should never modify or delete these, as they areApple-controlled and are used by Apple- or third-party software. Remember thatif you choose to install a newer Python version from python.org, you will havetwo different but functional Python installations on your computer, so it willbe important that your paths and usages are consistent with what you want to do.

IDLE includes a help menu that allows you to access Python documentation. If youare completely new to Python you should start reading the tutorial introductionin that document.

If you are familiar with Python on other Unix platforms you should read thesection on running Python scripts from the Unix shell.

4.1.1. How to run a Python script¶

Your best way to get started with Python on Mac OS X is through the IDLEintegrated development environment, see section The IDE and use the Help menuwhen the IDE is running.

If you want to run Python scripts from the Terminal window command line or fromthe Finder you first need an editor to create your script. Mac OS X comes with anumber of standard Unix command line editors, vim andemacs among them. If you want a more Mac-like editor,BBEdit or TextWrangler from Bare Bones Software (seehttp://www.barebones.com/products/bbedit/index.shtml) are good choices, as isTextMate (see http://macromates.com/). Other editors includeGvim (http://macvim.org) and Aquamacs(http://aquamacs.org/).

To run your script from the Terminal window you must make sure that/usr/local/bin is in your shell search path.

To run your script from the Finder you have two options:

  • Drag it to PythonLauncher
  • Select PythonLauncher as the default application to open yourscript (or any .py script) through the finder Info window and double-click it.PythonLauncher has various preferences to control how your script islaunched. Option-dragging allows you to change these for one invocation, or useits Preferences menu to change things globally.

4.1.2. Running scripts with a GUI¶

With older versions of Python, there is one Mac OS X quirk that you need to beaware of: programs that talk to the Aqua window manager (in other words,anything that has a GUI) need to be run in a special way. Use pythonwinstead of python to start such scripts.

With Python 3.3, you can use either python or pythonw.

4.1.3. Configuration¶

Python on OS X honors all standard Unix environment variables such asPYTHONPATH, but setting these variables for programs started from theFinder is non-standard as the Finder does not read your .profile or.cshrc at startup. You need to create a file ~/.MacOSX/environment.plist. See Apple’s Technical Document QA1067 for details.

For more information on installation Python packages in MacPython, see sectionInstalling Additional Python Packages.

4.2. The IDE¶

MacPython ships with the standard IDLE development environment. A goodintroduction to using IDLE can be found athttp://hkn.eecs.berkeley.edu/~dyoo/python/idle_intro/index.html.

4.3. Installing Additional Python Packages¶

There are several methods to install additional Python packages:

  • Packages can be installed via the standard Python distutils mode (pythonsetup.pyinstall).
  • Many packages can also be installed via the setuptools extensionor pip wrapper, see http://www.pip-installer.org/.

4.4. GUI Programming on the Mac¶

There are several options for building GUI applications on the Mac with Python.

PyObjC is a Python binding to Apple’s Objective-C/Cocoa framework, which isthe foundation of most modern Mac development. Information on PyObjC isavailable from http://pyobjc.sourceforge.net.

The standard Python GUI toolkit is tkinter, based on the cross-platformTk toolkit (http://www.tcl.tk). An Aqua-native version of Tk is bundled with OSX by Apple, and the latest version can be downloaded and installed fromhttp://www.activestate.com; it can also be built from source.

wxPython is another popular cross-platform GUI toolkit that runs natively onMac OS X. Packages and documentation are available from http://www.wxpython.org.

PyQt is another popular cross-platform GUI toolkit that runs natively on MacOS X. More information can be found athttp://www.riverbankcomputing.co.uk/software/pyqt/intro.

4.5. Distributing Python Applications on the Mac¶

The “Build Applet” tool that is placed in the MacPython 3.3 folder is fine forpackaging small Python scripts on your own machine to run as a standard Macapplication. This tool, however, is not robust enough to distribute Pythonapplications to other users.

How To Find Python On Mac

The standard tool for deploying standalone Python applications on the Mac ispy2app. More information on installing and using py2app can be foundat http://undefined.org/python/#py2app.

Install Python On Mac

4.6. Other Resources¶

How To Find Python Library On Machine

The MacPython mailing list is an excellent support resource for Python users anddevelopers on the Mac:

Python Library Download

Another useful resource is the MacPython wiki: