I’m a little confused with the python on osx. I do not know if the previous owner of the laptop has installed macpython using macport. And I remembered that osx has an builtin version of python. I tried using type -a python and the result returned

python is /usr/bin/python
python is /usr/local/bin/python

However running both python at these locations give me [GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwin. Do they both refer to the same builtin python mac provided?

I also read that installing macpython one would

     A MacPython 2.5 folder in your Applications folder. In here you
 find IDLE, the development environment that is a standard part of
 official Python distributions...

I looked at Applications, and theres a MacPort folder with python2.6 and the mentioned stuff in it. But running IDLE, i find the same message as above.

Hmm I’m a little confused. Which is which?

[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] is the version of GCC that the Python(s) were built with, not the version of Python itself. That information should be on the previous line. For example:

# Apple-supplied Python 2.6 in OS X 10.6
$ /usr/bin/python
Python 2.6.1 (r261:67515, Jun 24 2010, 21:47:49) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> 

# python.org Python 2.7.2 (also built with newer gcc)
$ /usr/local/bin/python
Python 2.7.2 (v2.7.2:8527427914a2, Jun 11 2011, 15:22:34) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>>

Items in /usr/bin should always be or link to files supplied by Apple in OS X, unless someone has been ill-advisedly changing things there. To see exactly where the /usr/local/bin/python is linked to:

$ ls -l /usr/local/bin/python
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  wheel  68 Jul  5 10:05 /usr/local/bin/python@ -> ../../../Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python

In this case, that is typical for a python.org installed Python instance or it could be one built from source.

On Mac OS X, it’s in the Python framework in /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Resources.

Full path is:

/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Resources/Python.app/Contents/MacOS/Python

Btw it’s easy to find out where you can find a specific binary: which Python will show you the path of your Python binary (which is probably the same as I posted above).

I found the easiest way to locate it, you can use

which python

it will show something like this:

/usr/bin/python

This one will solve all your problems dealing with Python on basic shell:

If you have a Mac and you’ve installed python3 like most of us do :) (with brew install – ofc)

your file is located in:

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

How do you know? -> you can run this on every basic shell Run:

which python3

You should get:

/usr/local/bin/python3

Now this is a symbolic link, how do you know? Run:

ls -al /usr/local/bin/python3 

and you’ll get:

/usr/local/bin/python3 -> /usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

which means that your

/usr/local/bin/python3 

is actually pointing to:

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

If, for some reason, your

/usr/local/bin/python3 

is not pointing to the place you want, which in our case:

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

just backup it:

cp /usr/local/bin/python3{,.orig} 

and run:

rm -rf /usr/local/bin/python3

now create a new symbolic link:

ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/python3 

and now your

/usr/local/bin/python3

is pointing to

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3 

Check it out by running:

ls -al /usr/local/bin/python3

On High Sierra

which python

shows the default python but if you downloaded and installed the latest version from python.org you can find it by:

which python3.6

which on my machine shows

/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/python3.6

installed with ‘brew install python3’, found it here

I checked a few similar discussions and found out the best way to locate all python2/python3 builds is:

which -a python python3

i found it here: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin

which python3 simply result in a path in which the interpreter settles down.

Run this in your interactive terminal

import os
os.path

It will give you the folder where python is installed

run the following code in a .py file:

import sys

print(sys.version)
print(sys.executable)

I have a cook recipe for finding things in linux/macos

First update the locate db then do a

locate WHATiWANTtoSEARCH | less

do a /find to find what you are looking for.

to update your locate db in macos do this:

sudo /usr/libexec/locate.updatedb

it sometimes takes a while. Hope this helps :)