Check If Python Package Is Installed

Question

What's a good way to check if a package is installed while within a Python script? I know it's easy from the interpreter, but I need to do it within a script.

I guess I could check if there's a directory on the system that's created during the installation, but I feel like there's a better way. I'm trying to make sure the Skype4Py package is installed, and if not I'll install it.

My ideas for accomplishing the check

check for a directory in the typical install path
try to import the package and if an exception is throw, then install package

Accepted Answer

If you mean a python script, just do something like this:

Python 3.3+ use sys.modules and find_spec:

import importlib.util
import sys

# For illustrative purposes.
name = 'itertools'

if name in sys.modules:
    print(f"{name!r} already in sys.modules")
elif (spec := importlib.util.find_spec(name)) is not None:
    # If you choose to perform the actual import ...
    module = importlib.util.module_from_spec(spec)
    sys.modules[name] = module
    spec.loader.exec_module(module)
    print(f"{name!r} has been imported")
else:
    print(f"can't find the {name!r} module")

Python 3:

try:
    import mymodule
except ImportError as e:
    pass  # module doesn't exist, deal with it.

Python 2:

try:
    import mymodule
except ImportError, e:
    pass  # module doesn't exist, deal with it.

Answer 2

As of Python 3.3, you can use the find_spec() method

import importlib.util

# For illustrative purposes.
package_name = 'pandas'

spec = importlib.util.find_spec(package_name)
if spec is None:
    print(package_name +" is not installed")

Answer 3

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Updated answer

A better way of doing this is:

import subprocess
import sys

reqs = subprocess.check_output([sys.executable, '-m', 'pip', 'freeze'])
installed_packages = [r.decode().split('==')[0] for r in reqs.split()]

The result:

print(installed_packages)

[
    "Django",
    "six",
    "requests",
]

Check if requests is installed:

if 'requests' in installed_packages:
    # Do something

Why this way? Sometimes you have app name collisions. Importing from the app namespace doesn't give you the full picture of what's installed on the system.

Note, that proposed solution works:

When using pip to install from PyPI or from any other alternative source (like pip install or any other archive type).
When installing manually using python setup.py install.
When installing from system repositories, like sudo apt install python-requests.

Cases when it might not work:

When installing in development mode, like python setup.py develop.
When installing in development mode, like pip install -e /path/to/package/source/.