What is the difference between pip and pip3? Introduction and distinction

What are pip and pip3? What's the difference between them?

When developing applications using the Python programming language, we often need to install and manage various third-party packages or libraries. In order to simplify this process, Python officially launched the pip tool, which is a Python package manager for downloading, installing and managing Python packages.

pip is the default package manager in the Python2 version, and pip3 is the package manager in the Python3 version. The two are basically the same in functionality, with the main difference being the supported Python versions.

Let’s take a closer look at the difference between pip and pip3.

Difference 1: Supported Python versions are different
pip is suitable for Python versions 2.7 and below, while pip3 is suitable for Python 3 and above. In Python3, pip has become the default package manager, and many of the latest third-party packages no longer support Python2, so Python3 users should use pip3 to manage packages.

Difference 2: Different usage methods
The usage methods of pip and pip3 are basically the same, and they both perform corresponding operations through the command line. We can use the following commands to perform common operations:

• Install the package:
  The command format for using pip to install the package is: pip install package_name
  The command format for using pip3 to install the package is: pip3 install package_name
• Upgrade package:
  The command format for using pip to upgrade the package is: pip install --upgrade package_name
  The command format for using pip3 to upgrade the package is: pip3 install --upgrade package_name
• View installed packages:
  The command format to use pip to view installed packages is: pip list
  The command format to use pip3 to view installed packages is: pip3 list
• Uninstall packages :
  The command format of using pip to uninstall a package is: pip uninstall package_name
  The command format of using pip3 to uninstall a package is: pip3 uninstall package_name

Difference 3: Different package management methods
There are some differences between pip and pip3 when managing packages. pip3 will install the package into the Python3 library directory, and pip will install the package into the Python2 library directory. This means that even if you install a package using pip in a Python3 environment, it will not be used in a Python2 environment.

Below we use a specific example to demonstrate the difference between pip and pip3.

Suppose we want to install the requests package. In the Python2 environment, we can use the following command:

pip install requests

In the Python3 environment, we should use the following command:

pip3 install requests

Through this example, we can clearly see the difference between pip and pip3.

To sum up, pip and pip3 are package management tools in Python, used to download, install and manage third-party packages. The biggest difference between them is the supported Python version and the library directory where the package is installed. When using it, we choose the appropriate tool to manage packages according to our Python version.

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