python location on mac osx

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I'm a little confused with the python on osx. I do not know if the previous owner of the laptop has installed macpython using macport. And I remembered that osx has an builtin version of python. I tried using type -a python and the result returned 

python is /usr/bin/python
python is /usr/local/bin/python

However running both python at these locations give me [GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5646)] on darwin. Do they both refer to the same builtin python mac provided?

I also read that installing macpython one would 

     A MacPython 2.5 folder in your Applications folder. In here you
 find IDLE, the development environment that is a standard part of
 official Python distributions...

I looked at Applications, and theres a MacPort folder with python2.6 and the mentioned stuff in it. But running IDLE, i find the same message as above.

Hmm I'm a little confused. Which is which?

macos python
12 Answers

This one will solve all your problems not only on Mac but find your Python location on Linux also ( & every basic shell).

TL;DR (you don't have to go through all of it).
Just Run in terminal:

which python3

On Mac you should get:

/usr/local/bin/python3

WAIT!!! This is prob a symbolic link, how do you know? Run:

ls -al /usr/local/bin/python3

and you'll get (if you've installed Python w/ Brew):

/usr/local/bin/python3 -> /usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

which means that your

/usr/local/bin/python3

is actually pointing to (the real location)

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

That's it!

Longer version (optional): If for some reason, your

/usr/local/bin/python3

is not pointing to the place you want, which in our case:

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

just back it up (+cool trick to add .orig suffix to file):

cp /usr/local/bin/python3{,.orig}

and run:

rm -rf /usr/local/bin/python3

now create a new symbolic link:

ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3 /usr/local/bin/python3

and now your

/usr/local/bin/python3

is pointing to

/usr/local/Cellar/python/3.6.4_4/bin/python3

Check it out by running:

ls -al /usr/local/bin/python3
user_13406040

I found the easiest way to locate it, you can use

which python

it will show something like this:

/usr/bin/python

user_25274300

installed with 'brew install python3', found it here enter image description here

user_4238680

which python3 simply result in a path in which the interpreter settles down.

user_49906420

run the following code in a .py file:

import sys

print(sys.version)
print(sys.executable)
user_3884580
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