How to Check the NumPy Version in Your Script?

What is the NumPy Library?

NumPy is a Python library that allows you to perform numerical calculations. Think about linear algebra in school (or university) – NumPy is the Python library for it. It’s about matrices and vectors – and doing operations on top of them.

Get Version Number with np.__version__

To check the NumPy version running in your script, run two commands in your shell:

1. Import the library with import numpy as np, and
2. Run and print the attribute np.__version__ to check the version of NumPy running in your script.

Here’s the code and the output version on my computer:

import numpy as np
print(np.__version__)

The output in my Python script is:

1.19.2

Get Detailed Version Information with numpy.version

Alternatively, to check the NumPy version running in your script, run two commands in your shell:

1. Import the library with import numpy as np, and
2. Run and print the attribute np.version.version to check the version of NumPy running in your script.

Here’s the code and the output version on my computer:

import numpy as np
print(np.version.version)

The output in my Python script is:

1.19.2

The numpy.version name refers to a submodule itself that is packed with lots of additional information

>>> type(np.version)
<class 'module'>

For instance, the numpy.version module can provide you even more insight as shown in the following code snippet:

import numpy as np

print(np.version.version)
# 1.19.2

print(np.version.short_version)
# 1.19.2

print(np.version.full_version)
# 1.19.2

print(np.version.git_revision)
# 68752f786df542d340f25c41a8920d9b2aed66cf

print(np.version.release)
# True

How to Check Your NumPy Version with Pip? [Win, macOS, Linux]

To check your NumPy version with pip in your Windows command line, Powershell, macOS terminal, or Linux shell, run pip show numpy. The second line of the output provides your NumPy version.

PS C:\Users\xcent> pip show numpy
Name: numpy
Version: 1.18.4
Summary: NumPy is the fundamental package for array computing with Python.
Home-page: https://www.numpy.org
Author: Travis E. Oliphant et al.
Author-email: None
License: BSD
Location: c:\users\xcent\appdata\local\programs\python\python38\lib\site-packages
Requires:
Required-by: seaborn, scipy, pandas, matplotlib

Here’s a screenshot on my Windows computer using Powershell:

Resources and Further Reading

You can check the newest NumPy versions here: https://pypi.org/project/numpy/#history

If you need to get a refresher on NumPy, check out my in-depth NumPy Tutorial on this Finxter blog.

If you’re really ambitious about your data science skills, check out our in-depth book Coffee Break NumPy (Amazon Link).