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Accepted
George Udosen
Asked: 2015-11-17 17:00:46 +0800 CST

Difference between "pip install sompackage and python pip install somepackage" commands

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I had to install Sphinx on Ubuntu for use with python (django) and I came across this two commands: pip install Sphinx, and then I saw this too python -m pip install Sphinx.

Are there any difference as to where Sphinx will be installed as I want to be able to use Sphinx globally ?

python

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    /usr/bin/pip is just a Python script that invokes the pip module using the load_entry_point function. Therefore, the following are (mostly) equivalent:

    python -m pip ...
pip ...

    See What's the difference between pip install and python -m pip install? on Stack Overflow for details.

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  2. As long as you don't have multiple versions of python installed, these two commands do the same. You can test this by doing

    pip list and python -m pip list it should output the same packages.

    If you do have multiple versions installed, either keep the preferred one on you path or call it directly with its absolute path i.e. /usr/bin/python

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