pip: how to see who needs a module BEFORE uninstall?

Question

is there anyway to use pip to see who needs a module BEFORE uninstall? how?

here's why i'm asking:

In RPM package land:

• each package lists it's own software deps
• when you go to do a yum remove NAME yum says "PACKAGE_A, PACKAGE_B, ... each depend on NAME" and then yum will bring up an interactive prompt asking "do you want to remove NAME and PACKAGE_A, PACKAGE_B, ..., yes or no?"
• yum has told me that doing a yum remove NAME would break other things... and so i say "no" and reconsider (or say yes because i want PACKAGE_A, PACKAGE_B, ..., removed)

In PIP package land:

• each package lists it's own software deps
• when you go to do a pip uninstall botocore pip says "do you want to remove ${list_of_files_for_botocore_package}, yes or no?"
• you say yes because you want to remove botocore
• then you are afraid of breaking stuff so you do
• pip check
• then you see "boto3 ... requires botocore, which is not installed"
• pip uninstall has now left one or more modules in a broken state
  • even though pip knew ahead of time that boto3 required botocore...
  • pip could have warned me or said something or offered to remove boto3 like yum did

i guess i could write some python code to construct a graph... then figure out who needs botocore by looking at the graph... but i'm wondering... does pip already have such a feature already? seems like the default behavior is not that good (it should at least print a message).

Answer 1

in a nutshell: no

• pip does not look like it has a reverse dependency checker out of the box.
• The pip roadmap doesn't look like it will change the uninstall behavior any time soon.
• so overall the answer is: no

workaround: you have to use a third-party solution like pipdeptree or pipdep

• pipdeptree with --reverse option
• deptree with --reverse feature
• or copy/paste code from this SO question

Make sure before calling pip uninstall to always check the reverse software deps to see if you will break anything.

Answer 2

What you want is pipenv. Pipenv takes care of installing your packages and setting up your virtual environment in a few easy steps. To see what uses what when you install packages with pipenv, run the command in your terminal

pipenv graph

and you should get a tree list of all dependencies