| single |
# [`python-discovery`]
[PyPI]
[Supported Python versions]
[Downloads]
[check]
[Documentation Status]
## What is python-discovery?
`python-discovery` is a library for discovering Python interpreters
installed on your machine. You may have multiple
Python versions from system packages, [pyenv], [mise],
[asdf], [uv], or the Windows registry (PEP 514). This library finds
the right one for you.
Give it a requirement like `python3.12` or `>=3.11,<3.13`, and it searches
all known locations, verifies each candidate,
and returns detailed metadata about the match. Results are cached to disk
so repeated lookups are fast.
The library runs on Python 3.8+ and discovers interpreters as old as Python
3.6; anything older is skipped with a
warning naming the version it found.
## Usage
```python
from pathlib import Path
from python_discovery import DiskCache, get_interpreter
cache = DiskCache(root=Path("~/.cache/python-discovery").expanduser())
result = get_interpreter("python3.12", cache=cache)
if result is not None:
print(result.executable) # /usr/bin/python3.12
print(result.implementation) # CPython
print(result.version_info[:3]) # (3, 12, 1)
```
The `get_interpreter()` function accepts various specification formats:
- Absolute path: `/usr/bin/python3.12`
- Version: `3.12`
- Implementation prefix: `cpython3.12`
- [Version specifier]: `>=3.10`,
`>=3.11,<3.13`
## Documentation
Full documentation is available at [python-discovery.readthedocs.io]
|