Check if a Debian package is installed from Python

Question

Is there an elegant and more Python-like way to check if a package is installed on Debian?

In a bash script, I\'d do:

dpkg -s packagename | grep Stat         


        

Answer 1

I needed a cross-platform compatible solution so I ended up using which.

import subprocess
retval = subprocess.call(["which", "packagename"])
if retval != 0:
    print("Packagename not installed!")

Although it's not as pythonic as the above answers it does work on most platforms.