Python tries to read a library installed under ~/.local, even though I am working on an anaconda environment.
> conda create -n testproj python=3.6
> conda activate testproj
> conda install pandas
> python
>>> import pandas as pd
Then I got an ImportError
ImportError: C extension: /home/myname/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/ ...
But if I change the permission of site-packages
> chmod 000 ~/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages
Then I can import pandas without any error. Namely Python is looking at outside of the anaconda environment.
Question: How can I prevent Python from reading libraries outside the anaconda environment?
Environment: openSUSE Leap 15.0
EDIT: I found that sys.path contains site-packages under ~/.local. I do not think that the lines should be there.
['',
'/home/myname/anaconda3/envs/myproj/bin',
'/home/myname/anaconda3/envs/myproj/lib/python36.zip',
'/home/myname/anaconda3/envs/myproj/lib/python3.6',
'/home/myname/anaconda3/envs/myproj/lib/python3.6/lib-dynload',
'/home/myname/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages',
'/home/myname/anaconda3/envs/myproj/lib/python3.6/site-packages',
'/home/myname/.local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/IPython/extensions',
'/home/myname/.ipython']
I get the same behavior on windows, clean environments include your user local packages. This is an open issue: https://github.com/conda/conda/issues/7173. conda doesn't support doing what you're asking directly (yet).
You can always just set the environment variable PYTHONNOUSERSITE (to any value), or invoke your interpreter with the -s switch, and you wont get your local packages (~/.local on windows is C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python36\site-packages):
(test-env) C:\Users\matt>python -m site
sys.path = [
'C:\\Users\\matt',
'C:\\Anaconda440\\envs\\test-env\\python36.zip',
'C:\\Anaconda440\\envs\\test-env\\DLLs',
'C:\\Anaconda440\\envs\\test-env\\lib',
'C:\\Anaconda440\\envs\\test-env',
'C:\\Users\\matt\\AppData\\Roaming\\Python\\Python36\\site-packages',
'C:\\Users\\matt\\AppData\\Roaming\\Python\\Python36\\site-packages\\some_lib-1.0-py3.6.egg',
'C:\\Anaconda440\\envs\\test-env\\lib\\site-packages',
]
USER_BASE: 'C:\\Users\\matt\\AppData\\Roaming\\Python' (exists)
USER_SITE: 'C:\\Users\\matt\\AppData\\Roaming\\Python\\Python36\\site-packages' (exists)
ENABLE_USER_SITE: True
versus (note the -s switch, and now my local packages are no longer on my sys.path):
(test-env) C:\Users\matt>python -s -m site
sys.path = [
'C:\\Users\\matt',
'C:\\Anaconda440\\envs\\test-env\\python36.zip',
'C:\\Anaconda440\\envs\\test-env\\DLLs',
'C:\\Anaconda440\\envs\\test-env\\lib',
'C:\\Anaconda440\\envs\\test-env',
'C:\\Anaconda440\\envs\\test-env\\lib\\site-packages',
]
USER_BASE: 'C:\\Users\\matt\\AppData\\Roaming\\Python' (exists)
USER_SITE: 'C:\\Users\\matt\\AppData\\Roaming\\Python\\Python36\\site-packages' (exists)
ENABLE_USER_SITE: False
HTH.
I've been watching some issues on the jedi-vim repo and I found that :
https://github.com/davidhalter/jedi-vim/issues/704 and https://github.com/davidhalter/jedi/pull/829/files.
I tried to rename the lib in my venv to python3.5 and yes the autocompletion works, but when you run any python file it's broken (i mean i changed the name, so that's quite normal).
And for the other solutions, i can't find any files named jedi/evaluate/sys_path.py in my vundle dir.
Does anyone has an idea to make that work, i've been searching for quite a while now and can't find anything.
Thanks in advance
I got it working with my pyenv-virtualenv, vim and jedi setup after a long hours. Hope it helps you.
First I added the jedi-vim plugin within Vundle block in ~/.vimrc file:
set rtp+=~/.vim/bundle/Vundle.vim
call vundle#begin()
...
Plugin 'davidhalter/jedi-vim'
call vundle#end()
Next I added the following python3 code in ~/.vimrc to search and add packages from the pyenv/virtualenv directories individually. Unfortunately there is no activate_this.py script to do this automatically
py3 << EOF
import os.path
import sys
import vim
import jedi
if 'VIRTUAL_ENV' in os.environ:
base = os.environ['VIRTUAL_ENV']
site_packages = os.path.join(base, 'lib', 'python%s' % sys.version[:3], 'site-packages')
prev_sys_path = list(sys.path)
import site
site.addsitedir(site_packages)
sys.real_prefix = sys.prefix
sys.prefix = base
# Move the added items to the front of the path:
new_sys_path = []
for item in list(sys.path):
if item not in prev_sys_path:
new_sys_path.append(item)
sys.path.remove(item)
sys.path[:0] = new_sys_path
EOF
Make sure that you are able to run import jedi and import vim in your native Python. You can install them with the following commands in your terminal:
pip3 -install jedi and
pip3 -install vim
Finally, I set the following values in my vimrc file:
set omnifunc=jedi#completions
let g:jedi#force_py_version = '3'
Make sure you switch to your pyenv environment with pyenv activate before launching vim. Only after this can the autocomplete work.
Whenever I try to create a workspace:
~/catkin_ws$ catkin_make
It shows like this:
ImportError: "from catkin_pkg.package import parse_package" failed: No module named 'catkin_pkg'
Make sure that you have installed "catkin_pkg", it is up to date and on the PYTHONPATH.
CMake Error at /opt/ros/kinetic/share/catkin/cmake/safe_execute_process.cmake:11 (message):
execute_process(/home/usuario/miniconda3/bin/python
"/opt/ros/kinetic/share/catkin/cmake/parse_package_xml.py"
"/opt/ros/kinetic/share/catkin/cmake/../package.xml"
"/home/usuario/catkin_ws/build/catkin/catkin_generated/version/package.cmake")
returned error code 1
Call Stack (most recent call first):
/opt/ros/kinetic/share/catkin/cmake/catkin_package_xml.cmake:63 (safe_execute_process)
/opt/ros/kinetic/share/catkin/cmake/all.cmake:151 (_catkin_package_xml)
/opt/ros/kinetic/share/catkin/cmake/catkinConfig.cmake:20 (include)
CMakeLists.txt:52 (find_package)
-- Configuring incomplete, errors occurred!
See also "/home/usuario/catkin_ws/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeOutput.log".
See also "/home/usuario/catkin_ws/build/CMakeFiles/CMakeError.log".
Invoking "cmake" failed
It seems like there is a problem with catkin_pkg but I dont find the solution
I just installed ROS on Ubuntu 16.04, had the same issue, and fixed it. The location for catkin_pkg is likely not on your PYTHONPATH and needs to be added.
From the error output:
Make sure that you have installed "catkin_pkg", it is up to date and on the PYTHONPATH.
Try locating catkin_pkg and check your PYTHONPATH. catkin_pkg wasn't on my PYTHONPATH (likely due to other program installs), so I added it and ran catkin_make again, this time successfully.
~/catkin_ws$ locate catkin_pkg
/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/catkin_pkg
~/catkin_ws$ echo $PYTHONPATH
/opt/ros/kinetic/lib/python2.7/dist-packages
To append the catkin_pkg dir to PYTHONPATH (for this session):
~/catkin_ws$ export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages
For permanency I appended the catkin_pkg dir to PYTHONPATH in my .bashrc (you might want to backup your .bashrc file first, e.g. cp -p ~/.bashrc ~/.bashrc-ros-catkin.bak).
To do this, edit your ~/.bashrc file (you might need to use sudo to edit this file) and add the following two lines to the end of the file:
# manually added for ROS catkin_make workspace setup
export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages
Save the file and run source to update your session:
~/catkin_ws$ source ~/.bashrc
Check your PYTHONPATH again:
~/catkin_ws$ echo $PYTHONPATH
/opt/ros/kinetic/lib/python2.7/dist-packages:/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages
Obviously the location of your catkin_pkg files might be different to mine, so use that path instead when appending to $PYTHONPATH above.
Now try running catkin_make again. If you get the same error, paste the output of your catkin_pkg location and PYTHONPATH here.
Cheers,
sb
Are you using Anaconda environment?
This issue is quite common with Anaconda's Python installation.
Try: python --version
If you see Anaconda in the output, go to your bashrc file with vi ~/.bashrc and then comment the line where anaconda is added to path.
It would be something like,
export PATH="username/anaconda2/bin:$PATH"
After that source your bashrc with source ~/.bashrc, open a new terminal and navigate to your catkin workspace. Delete the old build folder and try the catkin_make command again.
Should solve your issue.
The Error Output:
ImportError: "from catkin_pkg.package import parse_package" failed: No module named 'catkin_pkg'
Make sure that you have installed "catkin_pkg", it is up to date and on the PYTHONPATH.
As mentioned above you need have "catkin_pkg" in PYTHONPATH. The easiest way if you ask me is:
$ pip install catkin_pkg
try this : pip install -U rosdep rosinstall_generator wstool rosinstall six vcstools
if pip shows any errror, switch to root and install pip and then try
Actually when you want to use Anaconda and ROS simultaneously then generally this error comes. So firstly go in .bashrc file and comment the path of anaconda.
Export PATH="/home/gaurav/anaconda3/bin:$PATH".
After commenting go in catkin_ws folder and delete the existing folder within the folder and make new src folder.
Then follow three steps:
1 - $ mkdir src
2 - $ catkin_init_workspace src
3 - $ catkin_make
It works for me.
This means you havent sourced ROS into your environment.
Add this line to the last line of your .bashrc file
source /opt/ros/kinetic/setup.bash
Save the .bashrc file, close the current terminal and start your process in a new terminal.
for me, it fixed by
sudo apt-get remove python3-catkin-tools
sudo apt-get install python-catkin-tools
In Python, I'm getting an error because it's loading a module from /usr/lib/python2.6/site-packages but I'd like it to use my version in $HOME/python-modules/lib/python2.6/site-packages, which I installed using pip-python --install-option="--prefix=$HOME/python-modules --ignore-installed
How can I tell Python to use my version of the library? Setting PYTHONPATH to $HOME/python-modules/lib/python2.6/site-packages doesn't help, since /usr/lib/... apparently has precedence.
Take a look at the site module for ways to customize your environment.
One way to accomplish this is to add a file to a location currently on sys.path called usercustomize.py, when Python is starting up it will automatically import this file, and you can use it to modify sys.path.
First, set $PYTHONPATH to $HOME (or add $HOME if $PYTHONPATH has a value), then create the file $HOME/usercustomize.py with the following contents:
import sys, os
my_site = os.path.join(os.environ['HOME'],
'python-modules/lib/python2.6/site-packages')
sys.path.insert(0, my_site)
Now when you start Python you should see your custom site-packages directory before the system default on sys.path.
Newer Python versions now have built-in support to search the opendesktop location:
$HOME/.local/lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages
If you put your local modules there you don't have to any sys.path manipulations.
If one has multiple versions of a package installed, say e.g. SciPy:
>>> import scipy; print(scipy.__version__); print(scipy.__file__)
0.17.0
/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/scipy/__init__.py
and one would like the user installed version (installed e.g. using pip install --user --upgrade scipy) to be prefered, one needs a usercustomize.py file in ~/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/ with e.g. this content:
import sys, os
my_site = os.path.join(
os.environ['HOME'], '.local/lib/python%d.%d/site-packages' % (
sys.version_info[0], sys.version_info[1]))
for idx, pth in enumerate(sys.path):
if pth.startswith('/usr'):
sys.path.insert(idx, my_site)
break
else:
raise ValueError("No path starting with /usr in sys.path")
(the for loop selecting index ensures that packages installed in "develop mode" takes precedence) now we get our user specific version of SciPy:
>>> import scipy; print(scipy.__version__); print(scipy.__file__)
0.18.1
/home/user/.local/lib/python3.5/site-packages/scipy/__init__.py
to prefer packages installed to userbase (e.g. pip install --user --upgrade cool_thing )
in ~/.bashrc,~/.profile, or whatever the init file for your shell is, add
export PYTHONUSERBASE="$HOME/python-modules"
in $PYTHONUSERBASE/usercustomize.py
#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys, site
sys.path.insert(0, site.getusersitepackages())
How do I find the location of my site-packages directory?
There are two types of site-packages directories, global and per user.
Global site-packages ("dist-packages") directories are listed in sys.path when you run:
python -m site
For a more concise list run getsitepackages from the site module in Python code:
python -c 'import site; print(site.getsitepackages())'
Caution: In virtual environments getsitepackages is not available with older versions of virtualenv, sys.path from above will list the virtualenv's site-packages directory correctly, though. In Python 3, you may use the sysconfig module instead:
python3 -c 'import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_paths()["purelib"])'
The per user site-packages directory (PEP 370) is where Python installs your local packages:
python -m site --user-site
If this points to a non-existing directory check the exit status of Python and see python -m site --help for explanations.
Hint: Running pip list --user or pip freeze --user gives you a list of all installed per user site-packages.
Practical Tips
<package>.__path__ lets you identify the location(s) of a specific package: (details)
$ python -c "import setuptools as _; print(_.__path__)"
['/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/setuptools']
<module>.__file__ lets you identify the location of a specific module: (difference)
$ python3 -c "import os as _; print(_.__file__)"
/usr/lib/python3.6/os.py
Run pip show <package> to show Debian-style package information:
$ pip show pytest
Name: pytest
Version: 3.8.2
Summary: pytest: simple powerful testing with Python
Home-page: https://docs.pytest.org/en/latest/
Author: Holger Krekel, Bruno Oliveira, Ronny Pfannschmidt, Floris Bruynooghe, Brianna Laugher, Florian Bruhin and others
Author-email: None
License: MIT license
Location: /home/peter/.local/lib/python3.4/site-packages
Requires: more-itertools, atomicwrites, setuptools, attrs, pathlib2, six, py, pluggy
>>> import site; site.getsitepackages()
['/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages']
(or just first item with site.getsitepackages()[0])
A solution that:
outside of virtualenv - provides the path of global site-packages,
insidue a virtualenv - provides the virtualenv's site-packages
...is this one-liner:
python -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print(get_python_lib())"
Formatted for readability (rather than use as a one-liner), that looks like the following:
from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib
print(get_python_lib())
Source: an very old version of "How to Install Django" documentation (though this is useful to more than just Django installation)
For Ubuntu,
python -c "from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib; print get_python_lib()"
...is not correct.
It will point you to /usr/lib/pythonX.X/dist-packages
This folder only contains packages your operating system has automatically installed for programs to run.
On ubuntu, the site-packages folder that contains packages installed via setup_tools\easy_install\pip will be in /usr/local/lib/pythonX.X/dist-packages
The second folder is probably the more useful one if the use case is related to installation or reading source code.
If you do not use Ubuntu, you are probably safe copy-pasting the first code box into the terminal.
This is what worked for me:
python -m site --user-site
A modern stdlib way is using sysconfig module, available in version 2.7 and 3.2+. Unlike the current accepted answer, this method still works regardless of whether or not you have a virtual environment active.
Note: sysconfig (source) is not to be confused with the distutils.sysconfig submodule (source) mentioned in several other answers here. The latter is an entirely different module and it's lacking the get_paths function discussed below. Additionally, distutils is deprecated in 3.10 and will be unavailable soon.
Python currently uses eight paths (docs):
stdlib: directory containing the standard Python library files that are not platform-specific.
platstdlib: directory containing the standard Python library files that are platform-specific.
platlib: directory for site-specific, platform-specific files.
purelib: directory for site-specific, non-platform-specific files.
include: directory for non-platform-specific header files.
platinclude: directory for platform-specific header files.
scripts: directory for script files.
data: directory for data files.
In most cases, users finding this question would be interested in the 'purelib' path (in some cases, you might be interested in 'platlib' too). The purelib path is where ordinary Python packages will be installed by tools like pip.
At system level, you'll see something like this:
# Linux
$ python3 -c "import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_path('purelib'))"
/usr/local/lib/python3.8/site-packages
# macOS (brew installed python3.8)
$ python3 -c "import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_path('purelib'))"
/usr/local/Cellar/python#3.8/3.8.3/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/site-packages
# Windows
C:\> py -c "import sysconfig; print(sysconfig.get_path('purelib'))"
C:\Users\wim\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Python38\Lib\site-packages
With a venv, you'll get something like this
# Linux
/tmp/.venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages
# macOS
/private/tmp/.venv/lib/python3.8/site-packages
# Windows
C:\Users\wim\AppData\Local\Temp\.venv\Lib\site-packages
The function sysconfig.get_paths() returns a dict of all of the relevant installation paths, example on Linux:
>>> import sysconfig
>>> sysconfig.get_paths()
{'stdlib': '/usr/local/lib/python3.8',
'platstdlib': '/usr/local/lib/python3.8',
'purelib': '/usr/local/lib/python3.8/site-packages',
'platlib': '/usr/local/lib/python3.8/site-packages',
'include': '/usr/local/include/python3.8',
'platinclude': '/usr/local/include/python3.8',
'scripts': '/usr/local/bin',
'data': '/usr/local'}
A shell script is also available to display these details, which you can invoke by executing sysconfig as a module:
python -m sysconfig
Addendum: What about Debian / Ubuntu?
As some commenters point out, the sysconfig results for Debian systems (and Ubuntu, as a derivative) are not accurate. When a user pip installs a package it will go into dist-packages not site-packages, as per Debian policies on Python packaging.
The root cause of the discrepancy is because Debian patch the distutils install layout, to correctly reflect their changes to the site, but they fail to patch the sysconfig module.
For example, on Ubuntu 20.04.4 LTS (Focal Fossa):
root#cb5e85f17c7f:/# python3 -m sysconfig | grep packages
platlib = "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages"
purelib = "/usr/lib/python3.8/site-packages"
root#cb5e85f17c7f:/# python3 -m site | grep packages
'/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages',
'/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages',
USER_SITE: '/root/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages' (doesn't exist)
It looks like the patched Python installation that Debian/Ubuntu are distributing is a bit hacked up, and they will need to figure out a new plan for 3.12+ when distutils is completely unavailable. Probably, they will have to start patching sysconfig as well, since this is what pip will be using for install locations.
Let's say you have installed the package 'django'. import it and type in dir(django). It will show you, all the functions and attributes with that module. Type in the python interpreter -
>>> import django
>>> dir(django)
['VERSION', '__builtins__', '__doc__', '__file__', '__name__', '__package__', '__path__', 'get_version']
>>> print django.__path__
['/Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/django']
You can do the same thing if you have installed mercurial.
This is for Snow Leopard. But I think it should work in general as well.
As others have noted, distutils.sysconfig has the relevant settings:
import distutils.sysconfig
print distutils.sysconfig.get_python_lib()
...though the default site.py does something a bit more crude, paraphrased below:
import sys, os
print os.sep.join([sys.prefix, 'lib', 'python' + sys.version[:3], 'site-packages'])
(it also adds ${sys.prefix}/lib/site-python and adds both paths for sys.exec_prefix as well, should that constant be different).
That said, what's the context? You shouldn't be messing with your site-packages directly; setuptools/distutils will work for installation, and your program may be running in a virtualenv where your pythonpath is completely user-local, so it shouldn't assume use of the system site-packages directly either.
The native system packages installed with python installation in Debian based systems can be found at :
/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/
In OSX - /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages
by using this small code :
from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib
print get_python_lib()
However, the list of packages installed via pip can be found at :
/usr/local/bin/
Or one can simply write the following command to list all paths where python packages are.
>>> import site; site.getsitepackages()
['/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages', '/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages']
Note: the location might vary based on your OS, like in OSX
>>> import site; site.getsitepackages()
['/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages', '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/site-python', '/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages']
pip show will give all the details about a package:
https://pip.pypa.io/en/stable/reference/pip_show/ [pip show][1]
To get the location:
pip show <package_name>| grep Location
In Linux, you can go to site-packages folder by:
cd $(python -c "import site; print(site.getsitepackages()[0])")
All the answers (or: the same answer repeated over and over) are inadequate. What you want to do is this:
from setuptools.command.easy_install import easy_install
class easy_install_default(easy_install):
""" class easy_install had problems with the fist parameter not being
an instance of Distribution, even though it was. This is due to
some import-related mess.
"""
def __init__(self):
from distutils.dist import Distribution
dist = Distribution()
self.distribution = dist
self.initialize_options()
self._dry_run = None
self.verbose = dist.verbose
self.force = None
self.help = 0
self.finalized = 0
e = easy_install_default()
import distutils.errors
try:
e.finalize_options()
except distutils.errors.DistutilsError:
pass
print e.install_dir
The final line shows you the installation dir. Works on Ubuntu, whereas the above ones don't. Don't ask me about windows or other dists, but since it's the exact same dir that easy_install uses by default, it's probably correct everywhere where easy_install works (so, everywhere, even macs). Have fun. Note: original code has many swearwords in it.
An additional note to the get_python_lib function mentioned already: on some platforms different directories are used for platform specific modules (eg: modules that require compilation). If you pass plat_specific=True to the function you get the site packages for platform specific packages.
This works for me.
It will get you both dist-packages and site-packages folders.
If the folder is not on Python's path, it won't be
doing you much good anyway.
import sys;
print [f for f in sys.path if f.endswith('packages')]
Output (Ubuntu installation):
['/home/username/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages',
'/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages',
'/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages']
This should work on all distributions in and out of virtual environment due to it's "low-tech" nature. The os module always resides in the parent directory of 'site-packages'
import os; print(os.path.dirname(os.__file__) + '/site-packages')
To change dir to the site-packages dir I use the following alias (on *nix systems):
alias cdsp='cd $(python -c "import os; print(os.path.dirname(os.__file__))"); cd site-packages'
A side-note: The proposed solution (distutils.sysconfig.get_python_lib()) does not work when there is more than one site-packages directory (as recommended by this article). It will only return the main site-packages directory.
Alas, I have no better solution either. Python doesn't seem to keep track of site-packages directories, just the packages within them.
from distutils.sysconfig import get_python_lib
print get_python_lib()
You should try this command to determine pip's install location
Python 2
pip show six | grep "Location:" | cut -d " " -f2
Python 3
pip3 show six | grep "Location:" | cut -d " " -f2
Answer to old question. But use ipython for this.
pip install ipython
ipython
import imaplib
imaplib?
This will give the following output about imaplib package -
Type: module
String form: <module 'imaplib' from '/usr/lib/python2.7/imaplib.py'>
File: /usr/lib/python2.7/imaplib.py
Docstring:
IMAP4 client.
Based on RFC 2060.
Public class: IMAP4
Public variable: Debug
Public functions: Internaldate2tuple
Int2AP
ParseFlags
Time2Internaldate
For those who are using poetry, you can find your virtual environment path with poetry debug:
$ poetry debug
Poetry
Version: 1.1.4
Python: 3.8.2
Virtualenv
Python: 3.8.2
Implementation: CPython
Path: /Users/cglacet/.pyenv/versions/3.8.2/envs/my-virtualenv
Valid: True
System
Platform: darwin
OS: posix
Python: /Users/cglacet/.pyenv/versions/3.8.2
Using this information you can list site packages:
ls /Users/cglacet/.pyenv/versions/3.8.2/envs/my-virtualenv/lib/python3.8/site-packages/
I made a really simple function that gets the job done
import site
def get_site_packages_dir():
return [p for p in site.getsitepackages()
if p.endswith(("site-packages", "dist-packages"))][0]
get_site_packages_dir()
# '/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/lib/python3.9/site-packages'
If you want to retrieve the results using the terminal:
python3 -c "import site;print([p for p in site.getsitepackages() if p.endswith(('site-packages', 'dist-packages')) ][0])"
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/lib/python3.9/site-packages
I had to do something slightly different for a project I was working on: find the relative site-packages directory relative to the base install prefix. If the site-packages folder was in /usr/lib/python2.7/site-packages, I wanted the /lib/python2.7/site-packages part. I have, in fact, encountered systems where site-packages was in /usr/lib64, and the accepted answer did NOT work on those systems.
Similar to cheater's answer, my solution peeks deep into the guts of Distutils, to find the path that actually gets passed around inside setup.py. It was such a pain to figure out that I don't want anyone to ever have to figure this out again.
import sys
import os
from distutils.command.install import INSTALL_SCHEMES
if os.name == 'nt':
scheme_key = 'nt'
else:
scheme_key = 'unix_prefix'
print(INSTALL_SCHEMES[scheme_key]['purelib'].replace('$py_version_short', (str.split(sys.version))[0][0:3]).replace('$base', ''))
That should print something like /Lib/site-packages or /lib/python3.6/site-packages.
Something that has not been mentioned which I believe is useful, if you have two versions of Python installed e.g. both 3.8 and 3.5 there might be two folders called site-packages on your machine. In that case you can specify the python version by using the following:
py -3.5 -c "import site; print(site.getsitepackages()[1])