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

using sys.hexversion could be useful if you want to compare version in shell script

ret=`python -c 'import sys; print("%i" % (sys.hexversion<0x03000000))'`
if [ $ret -eq 0 ]; then
    echo "we require python version <3"
else 
    echo "python version is <3"
fi