Check if Python Package is installed

Question

What\'s a good way to check if a package is installed while within a Python script? I know it\'s easy from the interpreter, but I need to do it within a script.

I g

Answer 1

If you'd like your script to install missing packages and continue, you could do something like this (on example of 'krbV' module in 'python-krbV' package):

import pip
import sys

for m, pkg in [('krbV', 'python-krbV')]:
    try:
        setattr(sys.modules[__name__], m, __import__(m))
    except ImportError:
        pip.main(['install', pkg])
        setattr(sys.modules[__name__], m, __import__(m))