find_libpython

A pypi project version of this gist, which also appears within the PyCall library.

The library is designed to find the path to the libpython dynamic library for the current Python environment. It should work with many types of installations, whether it be conda-managed, system-managed, or otherwise. And it should function on Windows, Mac OS/OS X, and any Linux distribution.

This code is useful in several contexts, including projects that embed a Python interpreter into another process, or Python library build systems.

Usage

find_libpython is both a script and a Python package. Usage as a script is useful in contexts like obtaining the path to libpython for linking in makefile-based build systems. It could also be used to determine the path to libpython for embedding a Python interpreter in a process written in another language. In that case the recommended usage is to simply call the script in a subprocess with no arguments and parse the output.

> find_libpython
/home/kaleb/miniconda3/envs/test/lib/libpython3.8.so.1.0

The full help message:

> find_libpython --help
usage: find_libpython [-h] [-v] [--list-all | --candidate-names | --candidate-paths | --platform-info | --version]

Locate libpython associated with this Python executable.

options:
  -h, --help         show this help message and exit
  -v, --verbose      Print debugging information.
  --list-all         Print list of all paths found.
  --candidate-names  Print list of candidate names of libpython.
  --candidate-paths  Print list of candidate paths of libpython.
  --platform-info    Print information about the platform and exit.
  --version          show program's version number and exit

Usage as a library might occur when you need to obtain the path to the library in a Python-based build system like distutils. It is recommended to use the find_libpython method which will return the path to libpython as a string, or None if it cannot be found.

>>> from find_libpython import find_libpython
>>> find_libpython()
'/home/kaleb/miniconda3/envs/test/lib/libpython3.8.so.1.0'