When i 'cd' into one of my GIT repositories from terminal and run the ls command i can see two entries. One of them i expect to see as it is the python file i created but i also see an entry '=3.4.0' as well. What is this entry? Is appears to be a version number of somesort. Can someone shed light on this?
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Did you see [this](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13605646/importerror-when-trying-to-import-python-module-in-sublimetext2)? – Georgy Apr 24 '18 at 16:32
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im sorry? what didnt i see? – PandaSurge Apr 24 '18 at 16:38
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oh whoops i see now. Sorry im still a newby with these sites – PandaSurge Apr 24 '18 at 16:47
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1Please do not post terminal output in images. Please see here for why: https://unix.meta.stackexchange.com/q/4086/40481 – darthbith Apr 25 '18 at 01:39
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1It's just another file you appear to have accidentally created. – chepner Aug 15 '18 at 13:26
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if i use vim to open it i get the output Requirement already up-to-date: protobuf in /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages (3.5.2.post1) Requirement not upgraded as not directly required: setuptools in /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages (from protobuf) (39.0.1) Requirement not upgraded as not directly required: six>=1.9 in /usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages (from protobuf) (1.11.0 – PandaSurge Aug 15 '18 at 13:27
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okay ill just delete this file. thanks – PandaSurge Aug 15 '18 at 13:29
1 Answers
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It looks like you ran something like the following at the command line
$ pip install protobuf>=3.4.0
But the >
character in the shell is the output redirection operator, so your shell reads this as "run pip install protobuf
and pipe its standard output to a file named =3.4.0
"
In the future, when trying to pip install packages with some version specifier I recommend putting it in quotes to prevent any problems like this:
$ pip install 'protobuf>=3.4.0'

Iguananaut
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well done. I actually remember doing exactly that. Thanks for that. – PandaSurge Aug 15 '18 at 13:36
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I have done the same enough times myself that I habitually put quotes around arguments to pip even if I'm not explicitly using a version specifier :) – Iguananaut Aug 15 '18 at 13:42
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Ive been used to using the '|' symbol for piping i forgot about the '>' symbol. What is the difference between them? – PandaSurge Aug 15 '18 at 13:49
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`|` pipes the standard output from one program to the standard input of another program. `>` just pipes directly to a file. – Iguananaut Aug 16 '18 at 10:32