How can I check what the latest version of a PyPI module is at runtime?

Question

I have a simple CLI made with Python. Each time it's run, I want to check if it is updated to the latest version and print a little message if it isn't.

I believe that this bit of code

import pkg_resources
installed_version = pkg_resources.get_distribution("videocloud").version

should tell me which version is installed, but I can't find a way to tell what the latest version is.

Is there some sort of API that can get the latest version of a PyPI module?

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4888027/python-and-pip-list-all-versions-of-a-package-thats-available Does this help? — ComplicatedPhenomenon, Jul 16 '19 at 22:19
More precisely: https://stackoverflow.com/a/40745656/5218354 — norok2, Jul 16 '19 at 22:28
Possible duplicate of [Python and pip, list all versions of a package that's available?](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/4888027/python-and-pip-list-all-versions-of-a-package-thats-available) — norok2, Jul 16 '19 at 22:29
`subprocess.getoutput('pip list').splitlines()` will return a list of entry's like `numpy (version)` — Legorooj, Jul 17 '19 at 08:02
@Legorooj that seems to show the installed version, which I already have with `pkg_resources.get_distribution("videocloud").version`. What I'm looking for is the latest version — Param, Jul 17 '19 at 13:32
Ah sorry I thought you had neither for some weird reason. Will look at this... — Legorooj, Jul 17 '19 at 15:45

Legorooj · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-20T08:35:05.273

I wrote this script using beautifulsoup4 and urllib - so you'll need an internet connection for it to run.

import bs4 as bs
import urllib.request as request

repo = input('Please enter a repository name: ')

soup = bs.BeautifulSoup(request.urlopen(f'https://pypi.org/project/{repo}/'), 'lxml')

title = []
for item in soup.find_all('h1', {'class': 'package-header__name'}):
    title.append(item.text)

version = title[0].split()[-1]

print(version)

This works because the title on the pypi website has the version in it, and has a html identifier that allows you to find the title easily. EG:

Sample run:

Please enter a repository name: pyaes
1.6.1

Also as a function:

def version(repo):
    try:
        soup = bs.BeautifulSoup(request.urlopen(f'https://pypi.org/project/{repo}/'), 'lxml')

        title = []
        for item in soup.find_all('h1', {'class': 'package-header__name'}):
            title.append(item.text)

        return title[0].split()[-1]
    except urllib.error.URLError as e:
        print('No internet connection')

How about parsing [simple index](https://pypi.org/simple/cryptography/) instead of the complicated website that might change its layout? Also see [PEP 503](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0503/) — asikorski, Jul 19 '19 at 12:49
Hmm. I shall look into this for future answers. Thanks though! — Legorooj, Jul 20 '19 at 08:36

How can I check what the latest version of a PyPI module is at runtime?

1 Answers1