Detect python version in shell script

Question

I\'d like to detect if python is installed on a Linux system and if it is, which python version is installed.

How can I do it? Is there something more graceful than

Answer 1

You can use this command in bash:

PYV=`python -c "import sys;t='{v[0]}.{v[1]}'.format(v=list(sys.version_info[:2]));sys.stdout.write(t)";`
echo $PYV