sinfo

sinfo prints version information for loaded modules in the current session, Python, the OS, and the CPU. It is designed as a minimum measure to increase reproducibility and provides similar information as sessionInfo in R. The name is shortened to encourage regular usage through reduced typing =)

Installation

sinfo can be installed via pip install sinfo. It does not rely on a package manager to find version numbers since it fetches them from the module's version string. Its only dependency is stdlib_list, which is used to distinguish between standard library and third party modules.

Usage

sinfo is versatile and particularly useful when conducting exploratory data analysis in Jupyter Notebooks. Listing the version numbers of all loaded modules in the last cell of a Notebook is a simple way to ensure a minimum level of reproducibility that requires little additional effort. This practice is useful when revisiting code and when sharing code with colleagues. sinfo is meant to complement more robust practices such as frozen virtual environments, containers and binder Notebooks. The default behavior is to only print modules from outside the standard library.

import math
import numpy
import pandas
import natsort
# Exploratory data analysis goes here...

# The last code cell of a Notebook.
import sinfo
sinfo.sinfo()

Output:

natsort         5.3.3
numpy           1.15.2
pandas          0.23.4
-----
Python 3.6.8 |Anaconda custom (64-bit)| (default, Dec 30 2018, 01:22:34) [GCC 7.3.0]
Linux-4.20.1-arch1-1-ARCH-x86_64-with-arch
-----
Session information updated at 2019-02-03 02:31

math is omitted since it is in the standard library, but can be included by specifying print_std_lib=True. To see not only the explicitly imported modules but also any dependencies they import, specify print_implicit=True. See the docstring for complete parameter info.

Background

sinfo started as minor modifications of py_session, and as it grew it became convenient to create a new package. sinfo was built with the help of information provided in stackoverflow answers and existing similar packages, including

• https://github.com/fbrundu/py_session
• https://github.com/jrjohansson/version_information
• https://stackoverflow.com/a/4858123/2166823
• https://stackoverflow.com/a/40690954/2166823