How to Check ‘wheel’ Package Version in Python?

In this article, I’ll show you:

💬 How to check the version of the Python module (package, library) wheel? And how to check if wheel is installed anyways?

These are the eight best ways to check the installed version of the Python module wheel:

Method 1: pip show wheel
Method 2: pip list
Method 3: pip list | findstr wheel
Method 4: library.__version__
Method 5: importlib.metadata.version
Method 6: conda list
Method 7: pip freeze
Method 8: pip freeze | grep wheel

Before we go into these ways to check your wheel version, let’s first quickly understand how versioning works in Python—you’ll be thankful to have spent a few seconds on this topic, believe me!

A Note on Python Version Numbering

💡Python versioning adds a unique identifier to different package versions using semantic versioning. Semantic versioning consists of three numerical units of versioning information in the format major.minor.patch.

In this tutorial, we’ll use the shorthand general version abbreviation like so:

x.y.z

Practical examples would use numerical values for x, y, and z:

1.2.3
4.1.4
1.0.0

This is shorthand for

major.minor.patch

Major releases (0.1.0 to 1.0.0) are used for the first stable release or “breaking changes”, i.e., major updates that break backward compatibility.
Minor releases (0.1.0 to 0.2.0) are used for larger bug fixes and new features that are backward compatible.
Patch releases (0.1.0 to 0.1.1) are used for smaller bug fixes that are backward compatible.

Let’s dive into the meat of this article:

💬 Question: How to check the (major, minor, patch) version of wheel in your current Python environment?

Method 1: pip show

To check which version of the Python library wheel is installed, run pip show wheel or pip3 show wheel in your CMD/Powershell (Windows), or terminal (macOS/Linux/Ubuntu).

This will work if your pip installation is version 1.3 or higher—which is likely to hold in your case because pip 1.3 was released a decade ago in 2013!!

Here’s an example in my Windows Powershell: I’ve highlighted the line that shows that my package version is a.b.c:

PS C:\Users\xcent> pip show wheel
Name: wheel
Version: a.b.c
Summary: ...
Home-page: ...
Author: ...
Author-email: ...
License: ...
Location: ...
Requires: ...
Required-by: ...

In some instances, this will not work—depending on your environment. In this case, try those commands before giving up:

python -m pip show wheel
python3 -m pip show wheel
py -m pip show wheel
pip3 show wheel

Next, we’ll dive into more ways to check your wheel version.

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Method 2: pip list

To check the versions of all installed packages, use pip list and locate the version of wheel in the output list of package versions sorted alphabetically.

This will work if your pip installation is version 1.3 or higher.

Here’s a simplified example for Windows Powershell, I’ve highlighted the line that shows the package version is 1.2.3:

PS C:\Users\xcent> pip list
Package         Version
--------------- ---------
aaa             1.2.3
...
wheel             1.2.3
...
zzz             1.2.3

In some instances, this will not work—depending on your environment. Then try those commands before giving up:

python -m pip list
python3 -m pip list
py -m pip list
pip3 list

Method 3: pip list + findstr on Windows

To check the versions of a single package on Windows, you can chain pip list with findstr wheel using the CMD or Powershell command: pip3 list | findstr wheel to locate the version of wheel in the output list of package versions automatically.

Here’s an example for wheel:

pip3 list | findstr wheel

1.2.3

Method 4: Module version Attribute

To check which version is installed of a given library, you can use the library.__version__ attribute after importing the library (package, module) with import library.

Here’s the code:

import my_library
print(my_library.__version__)
# x.y.z for your version output

Here’s an excerpt from the PEP 8 docs mentioning the __version__ attribute.

“PEP 8 describes the use of a module attribute called __version__ for recording “Subversion, CVS, or RCS” version strings using keyword expansion. In the PEP author’s own email archives, the earliest example of the use of an __version__ module attribute by independent module developers dates back to 1995.”

You can also use the following one-liner snippet to run this from your terminal (macOS, Linux, Ubuntu) or CMD/Powershell (Windows):

python3 -c "import my_library; print(my_library.__version__)"

However, this method doesn’t work for all libraries, so while simple, I don’t recommend it as a general approach for that reason.

Method 5: importlib.metadata.version

The importlib.metadata library provides a general way to check the package version in your Python script via importlib.metadata.version('wheel') for library wheel. This returns a string representation of the specific version such as 1.2.3 depending on the concrete version in your environment.

Here’s the code:

import importlib.metadata
print(importlib.metadata.version('wheel'))
# 1.2.3

Method 6: conda list

If you have created your Python environment with Anaconda, you can use conda list to list all packages installed in your (virtual) environment. Optionally, you can add a regular expression using the syntax conda list regex to list only packages matching a certain pattern.

How to list all packages in the current environment?

conda list

How to list all packages installed into the environment 'xyz'?

conda list -n xyz

Regex: How to list all packages starting with 'wheel'?

conda list '^wheel'

Method 7: pip freeze

The pip freeze command without any option lists all installed Python packages in your environment in alphabetically order (ignoring UPPERCASE or lowercase). You can spot your specific package wheel if it is installed in the environment.

pip freeze

Output example (depending on your concrete environment/installation):

PS C:\Users\xcent> pip freeze
aaa==1.2.3
...
wheel==1.2.3
...
zzz==1.2.3

You can modify or exclude specific packages using the options provided in this screenshot:

Method 8: pip freeze + grep on Linux/Ubuntu/macOS

To check the versions of a single package on Linux/Ubuntu/macOS, you can chain pip freeze with grep wheel using the CMD or Powershell command: pip freeze | grep wheel to programmatically locate the version of your particular package wheel in the output list of package versions.

Here’s an example for wheel:

pip freeze | grep wheel
wheel==1.2.3

Related Questions

Check wheel Installed Python

How to check if wheel is installed in your Python script?

To check if wheel is installed in your Python script, you can run import wheel in your Python shell and surround it by a try/except to catch a potential ModuleNotFoundError.

try:
    import wheel
    print("Module wheel installed")
except ModuleNotFoundError:
    print("Module wheel not installed")

Check wheel Version Python

How to check the package version of wheel in Python?

To check which version of wheel is installed, use pip show wheel or pip3 show wheel in your CMD/Powershell (Windows), or terminal (macOS/Linux/Ubuntu) to obtain the output major.minor.patch.

pip show wheel  # or pip3 show wheel
# 1.2.3

Check wheel Version Linux

How to check my wheel version in Linux?

To check which version of wheel is installed, use pip show wheel or pip3 show wheel in your Linux terminal.

pip show wheel  # or pip3 show wheel
# 1.2.3

Check wheel Version Ubuntu

How to check my wheel version in Ubuntu?

To check which version of wheel is installed, use pip show wheel or pip3 show wheel in your Ubuntu terminal.

pip show wheel  # or pip3 show wheel
# 1.2.3

Check wheel Version Windows

How to check my wheel version on Windows?

To check which version of wheel is installed, use pip show wheel or pip3 show wheel in your Windows CMD, command line, or PowerShell.

pip show wheel  # or pip3 show wheel
# 1.2.3

Check wheel Version Mac

How to check my wheel version on macOS?

To check which version of wheel is installed, use pip show wheel or pip3 show wheel in your macOS terminal.

pip show wheel  # or pip3 show wheel
# 1.2.3

Check wheel Version Jupyter Notebook

How to check my wheel version in my Jupyter Notebook?

To check which version of wheel is installed, add the line !pip show wheel to your notebook cell where you want to check. Notice the exclamation mark prefix ! that allows you to run commands in your Python script cell.

!pip show wheel

Output: The following is an example on how this looks for wheel in a Jupyter Notebook cell:

Package         Version
--------------- ---------
aaa             1.2.3
...
wheel             1.2.3
...
zzz             1.2.3

Check wheel Version Conda/Anaconda

How to check the wheel version in my conda installation?

Use conda list 'wheel' to list version information about the specific package installed in your (virtual) environment.

conda list 'wheel'

Check wheel Version with PIP

How to check the wheel version with pip?

You can use multiple commands to check the wheel version with PIP such as pip show wheel, pip list, pip freeze, and pip list.

pip show wheel
pip list
pip freeze
pip list

The former will output the specific version of wheel. The remaining will output the version information of all installed packages and you have to locate wheel first.

Check Package Version in VSCode or PyCharm

How to check the wheel version in VSCode or PyCharm?

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) such as VSCode or PyCharm provide a built-in terminal where you can run pip show wheel to check the current version of wheel in the specific environment you’re running the command in.

pip show wheel
pip3 show wheel

pip list
pip3 list

pip freeze
pip3 freeze

You can type any of those commands in your IDE terminal like so:

Summary

In this article, you’ve learned those best ways to check a Python package version:

Method 1: pip show wheel
Method 2: pip list
Method 3: pip list | findstr wheel
Method 4: library.__version__
Method 5: importlib.metadata.version
Method 6: conda list
Method 7: pip freeze
Method 8: pip freeze | grep wheel

Thanks for giving us your valued attention — we’re grateful to have you here! 🙂

Programmer Humor

There are only 10 kinds of people in this world: those who know binary and those who don’t.
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~~~

There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand trinary, those who don’t, and those who mistake it for binary.
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