python location on mac osx

Question

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 buil

Answer 1

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