Unix & Linux Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for users of Linux, FreeBSD and other Un*x-like operating systems. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm using Debian 8.2 (Jessie), and have both Python 2.7 and 3.4 installed. Python 2.7 is the default and that's what is used when I run a Python script or interactively in the Terminal.
How can I switch between the two Python versions? I would like to start working in Python 3.4, and still be able to revert to 2.7.
Why not use #! /usr/bin/python2.7 when you want to use python 2.7 and #! /usr/bin/python3.4 when you want to use python 3.4?
Alternatively if you want your python programs to automatically use the latest python 2.x or python 3.x, use #!/usr/bin/python2 or #!/usr/bin/python3 - they are symlinks pointing to the latest versions, 2.7 and 3.4 respectively at the moment.
BTW, I have the following python interpreters installed on my debian sid system at the moment. They all work as expected.
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Mar 17 2015 /usr/bin/python -> python2.7*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Mar 17 2015 /usr/bin/python2 -> python2.7*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2652824 May 9 2013 /usr/bin/python2.6*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 3500648 Sep 14 11:04 /usr/bin/python2.7*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 9 Jun 28 09:42 /usr/bin/python3 -> python3.4*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2965608 Nov 28 2010 /usr/bin/python3.1*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 11 May 9 2013 /usr/bin/python3.2 -> python3.2mu*
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 2890040 May 9 2013 /usr/bin/python3.2mu*
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4148216 Sep 24 11:22 /usr/bin/python3.4*
-rwxr-xr-x 2 root root 4148216 Sep 24 11:22 /usr/bin/python3.4m*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 10 Jun 28 09:42 /usr/bin/python3m -> python3.4m*
python rather than python2 is potentially unreliable - eventually that symlink will probably point to python 3.x rather than 2.x. best to explicity use the python2 or python3 symlinks.
#! line in a script file.
found a (similar )reddit thread here, wherein, they have discussed the same concern
