Pip freeze vs pip list

Question

A comparison of outputs reveals differences   user user-VirtualBox    pip list feedparser  5 1 3  pip  1 4 1  setuptools  1 1 5  wsgiref  0 1 2  user user-VirtualBox    pip freeze feedparser  5 1 3 wsgiref  0 1 2   Pip s documentation states  freeze                      Output installed packages in requirements format  list                        List installed packages    but what  is  requirements format   and why does pip list generate a more comprehensive list than pip freeze

User · Answer

The main difference is that the output of pip freeze can be dumped into a requirements.txt file and used later to re-construct the "frozen" environment.

In other words you can run: pip freeze > frozen-requirements.txt on one machine and then later on a different machine or on a clean environment you can do: pip install -r frozen-requirements.txt and you'll get the an identical environment with the exact same dependencies installed as you had in the original environment where you generated the frozen-requirements.txt.

User · Answer

For those looking for a solution  If you accidentally made pip requirements with pip list instead of pip freeze  and want to convert into pip freeze format  I wrote this R script to do so  library tidyverse   pip list   read lines  quot requirements txt quot    pip freeze   pip list   gt     str replace all  quot      quot    quot    quot     gt     str replace all  quot      quot    quot  quot    pip freeze   gt   write lines  quot requirements txt quot

User · Answer

Look at the pip documentation  which describes the functionality of both as   pip list     List installed packages  including editables    pip freeze     Output installed packages in requirements format    So there are two differences    Output format  freeze gives us the standard requirement format that may be used later with pip install -r to install requirements from  Output content  pip list include editables which pip freeze does not

User · Answer

pip list shows ALL installed packages  pip freeze shows packages YOU installed via pip  or pipenv if using that tool  command in a requirements format  Remark below that setuptools  pip  wheel are installed when pipenv shell creates my virtual envelope  These packages were NOT installed by me using pip  test1   pipenv shell Creating a virtualenv for this project    Pipfile   Users terrence Development Python Projects test1 Pipfile Using  usr local Cellar pipenv 2018 11 26 3 libexec bin python3 8  3 8 1  to create virtualenv      Creating virtual environment     lt SNIP gt  Installing setuptools  pip  wheel    done    Successfully created virtual environment    lt SNIP gt   Now review  amp  compare the output of the respective commands where I ve only installed cool-lib and sampleproject  of which peppercorn is a dependency   test1   pip freeze        lt    Packages I VE installed w  pip  -e git https   github com gdamjan hello-world-python-package git 10 lt snip gt 71 egg cool lib peppercorn  0 6 sampleproject  1 3 1   test1   pip list          lt    All packages  incl  ones I ve NOT installed w  pip  Package       Version Location                                                                     ------------- ------- -------------------------------------------------------------------------- cool-lib      0 1   Users terrence  local share virtualenvs test1-y2Zgz1D2 src cool-lib            lt    Installed w   pip  command peppercorn    0 6        lt    Dependency of  quot sampleproject quot  pip           20 0 2   sampleproject 1 3 1      lt    Installed w   pip  command setuptools    45 1 0   wheel         0 34 2

User · Answer

When you are using a virtualenv  you can specify a requirements txt file to install all the dependencies   A typical usage     pip install -r requirements txt   The packages need to be in a specific format for pip to understand  which is   feedparser  5 1 3 wsgiref  0 1 2 django  1 4 2       That is the  requirements format    Here  django  1 4 2 implies install django version 1 4 2  even though the latest is 1 6 x   If you do not specify   1 4 2  the latest version available would be installed    You can read more in  Virtualenv and pip Basics    and the official  Requirements File Format  documentation

User · Answer

To answer the second part of this question  the two packages shown in pip list but not pip freeze are setuptools  which is easy install  and pip itself    It looks like pip freeze just doesn t list packages that pip itself depends on  You may use the --all flag to show also those packages    From the documentation      --all      Do not skip these packages in the output  pip  setuptools  distribute  wheel

User · Answer

pip list  List installed packages  show ALL installed packages that even pip installed implictly pip freeze  List installed packages   - list of packages that are installed using pip command pip freeze has --all flag to show all the packages  Other difference is the output it renders  that you can check by running the commands

[python] Pip freeze vs. pip list

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