Snow Leopard comes packaged with a version of Python 2.6 that is incompatible with many popular libraries, so I've downloaded a version of Python 2.6 from python.org. However, when I type python
at the terminal, I still get the old version of Python. How can I change this?
which python
currently gives me /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/bin/python
ls -l /usr/bin/python
is not a symbolic link to the above (nor to Versions/Current
).
I have a version at /opt/local/bin/python2.6
that I wish to be using.
Best Answer
I don't know how this will affect other usage† of Python in OS X, but as currently the OS X Python is listed in your
PATH
, you just need to change that:I don't know if it matters, but just for the archives: on my OS X 10.6 (which is an upgrade from 10.4 via 10.5),
/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/bin/
is not listed inPATH
. Instead,which python
yields/usr/bin/python
.† For example:
file /usr/bin/xattr
yields/usr/bin/xattr: python script text executable
, and hence might be affected by changing the Python executable!