pip or pip3 to install packages for Python 3?

Your pip is a soft link to the same executable file path with pip3. you can use the commands below to check where your pip and pip3 real paths are:

$ ls -l `which pip`
$ ls -l `which pip3`

You may also use the commands below to know more details:

$ pip show pip
$ pip3 show pip

When we install different versions of python, we may create such soft links to

  • set default pip to some version.
  • make different links for different versions.

It is the same situation with pythonpython2python3

More information below if you’re interested in how it happens in different cases:

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