How do you uninstall a python package that was installed using distutils?
PythonPython Problem Overview
Can you simply delete the directory from your python installation, or are there any lingering files that you must delete?
Python Solutions
Solution 1 - Python
It varies based on the options that you pass to install and the contents of the distutils configuration files on the system/in the package. I don't believe that any files are modified outside of directories specified in these ways.
Notably, distutils does not have an uninstall command at this time.
It's also noteworthy that deleting a package/egg can cause dependency issues – utilities like easy_install attempt to alleviate such problems.
Solution 2 - Python
The three things that get installed that you will need to delete are:
- Packages/modules
- Scripts
- Data files
Now on my linux system these live in:
- /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages
- /usr/bin
- /usr/share
But on a windows system they are more likely to be entirely within the Python distribution directory. I have no idea about OSX except it is more likey to follow the linux pattern.
Solution 3 - Python
Another time stamp based hack:
- Create an anchor:
touch /tmp/ts - Reinstall the package to be removed:
python setup.py install --prefix=<PREFIX> - Remove files what are more recent than the anchor file:
find <PREFIX> -cnewer /tmp/ts | xargs rm -r
Solution 4 - Python
Yes, it is safe to simply delete anything that distutils installed. That goes for installed folders or .egg files. Naturally anything that depends on that code will no longer work.
If you want to make it work again, simply re-install.
By the way, if you are using distutils also consider using the multi-version feature. It allows you to have multiple versions of any single package installed. That means you do not need to delete an old version of a package if you simply want to install a newer version.
Solution 5 - Python
In ubuntu 12.04, I have found that the only place you need to look by default is under
/usr/local/lib/python2.7/
And simply remove the associated folder and file, if there is one!
Solution 6 - Python
If this is for testing and/or development purposes, setuptools has a develop command that updates every time you make a change (so you don't have to uninstall and reinstall every time you make a change). And you can uninstall the package using this command as well.
If you do use this, anything that you declare as a script will be left behind as a lingering file.
Solution 7 - Python
install --record + xargs rm
sudo python setup.py install --record files.txt
xargs sudo rm -rf < files.txt
removes all files and but leaves empty directories behind.
That is not ideal, it should be enough to avoid package conflicts.
And then you can finish the job manually if you want by reading files.txt, or be braver and automate empty directory removal as well.
A safe helper would be:
python-setup-uninstall() (
sudo rm -f files.txt
sudo python setup.py install --record files.txt && \
xargs rm -rf < files.txt
sudo rm -f files.txt
)
Tested in Python 2.7.6, Ubuntu 14.04.
Solution 8 - Python
for Python in Windows:
python -m pip uninstall "package_keyword"
uninstall **** (y/n)?
Solution 9 - Python
For Windows 7,
Control Panel --> Programs --> Uninstall
, then
choose the python package to remove.
Solution 10 - Python
I just uninstalled a python package, and even though I'm not certain I did so perfectly, I'm reasonably confident.
I started by getting a list of all python-related files, ordered by date, on the assumption that all of the files in my package will have more or less the same timestamp, and no other files will.
Luckily, I've got python installed under /opt/Python-2.6.1; if I had been using the Python that comes with my Linux distro, I'd have had to scour all of /usr, which would have taken a long time.
Then I just examined that list, and noted with relief that all the stuff that I wanted to nuke consisted of one directory, /opt/Python-2.6.1/lib/python2.6/site-packages/module-name/, and one file, /opt/Python-2.6.1/lib/python2.6/site-packages/module-x.x.x_blah-py2.6.egg-info.
So I just deleted those.
Here's how I got the date-sorted list of files:
find "$@" -printf '%T@ ' -ls | sort -n | cut -d\ -f 2-
(I think that's got to be GNU "find", by the way; the flavor you get on OS X doesn't know about "-printf '%T@'")
I use that all the time.
Solution 11 - Python
On Mac OSX, manually delete these 2 directories under your pathToPython/site-packages/ will work:
- {packageName}
- {packageName}-{version}-info
for example, to remove pyasn1, which is a distutils installed project:
- rm -rf lib/python2.7/site-packages/pyasn1
- rm -rf lib/python2.7/site-packages/pyasn1-0.1.9-py2.7.egg-info
To find out where is your site-packages:
python -m site
Solution 12 - Python
ERROR: flake8 3.7.9 has requirement pycodestyle<2.6.0,>=2.5.0, but you'll have pycodestyle 2.3.1 which is incompatible. ERROR: nuscenes-devkit 1.0.8 has requirement motmetrics<=1.1.3, but you'll have motmetrics 1.2.0 which is incompatible. Installing collected packages: descartes, future, torch, cachetools, torchvision, flake8-import-order, xmltodict, entrypoints, flake8, motmetrics, nuscenes-devkit Attempting uninstall: torch Found existing installation: torch 1.0.0 Uninstalling torch-1.0.0: Successfully uninstalled torch-1.0.0 Attempting uninstall: torchvision Found existing installation: torchvision 0.2.1 Uninstalling torchvision-0.2.1: Successfully uninstalled torchvision-0.2.1 Attempting uninstall: entrypoints Found existing installation: entrypoints 0.2.3 ERROR: Cannot uninstall 'entrypoints'. It is a distutils installed project and thus we cannot accurately determine which files belong to it which would lead to only a partial uninstall.
Then I type:
conda uninstall entrypoints pip install --upgrade pycodestyle pip install nuscenes-devkit
Done!