Python Version Aliases (Alternatives)

To check the Python version in your shell, you can use the following alternatives (aliases):

Terminal: The following commands can be used to check the Python version in your terminal. Note that the first and second are aliases whereas the third one provides more information about the built.

  • python --version
  • python -V
  • python -VV

Note that you can also use the short-hand py command to check the Python version in your terminal:

  • py --version
  • py -V
  • py -VV

To learn about the difference between “py” and “python” commands, check out this article on the Finxter blog.

Script: You can also check the Python version in your Python script.

You can import the sys library and call the sys.version attribute to obtain a string representation of your Python version.:

import sys
print(sys.version)
# 3.9.5 (tags/v3.9.5:0a7dcbd, May  3 2021, 17:27:52) [MSC v.1928 64 bit (AMD64)]

Even simpler, you can also just check the IDLE code editor for basic version information:

You can also obtain the version info in a tuple by using the following alternative:

import sys
print(sys.version_info)
# sys.version_info(major=3, minor=9, micro=5, releaselevel='final', serial=0)

An alternative is to use the following platform.python_version() method:

import platform
print(platform.python_version())
# 3.9.5

And if you need the version info in a tuple, use the following alternative:

import platform
print(platform.python_version_tuple())
# ('3', '9', '5')

You can learn more about checking your Python version on the in-depth Finxter tutorial.