picopip

Embed-friendly Python env/package scanner with zero deps.

This is primarily designed so that you can take src/picopip.py and copy it into your own project to use it without having to install dependencies.

Usage

Get list of installed packages

You can use get_packages_from_env to list all installed packages in a Python virtual environment. Here's how to do it using Python's built-in venv module:

>>> from picopip import get_packages_from_env
>>>
>>> pkgs = get_packages_from_env(venvdir)
>>> print(pkgs)
[('certifi', '2025.4.26'), ('charset-normalizer', '3.4.2'), ('idna', '3.10'), 
 ('pip', '21.2.4'), ('requests', '2.32.3'), ('setuptools', '58.0.4'), 
 ('urllib3', '2.4.0')]

• get_packages_from_env(<venv_path>) returns a list of (name, version) tuples for all installed packages in the given virtual environment.
• You can use any venv path, and the function will find all packages, including those installed via pip.

Get version of a package

If you only need the version of a specific package, you can get it using get_package_version_from_env

>>> from picopip import get_package_version_from_env
>>>
>>> version = get_package_version_from_env(venvdir, "pip")
>>> print(version)
'21.2.4'

Parse a version string

parse_version normalizes a version into a tuple that follows the same ordering rules used by pip/packaging. The first element is the release components, the second is an offset encoding pre/dev/post markers so you can compare the tuples with standard operators.

>>> from picopip import parse_version
>>>
>>> parse_version("1.13.5")
((1, 13, 5), 0)
>>> parse_version("1.13.5a1") < parse_version("1.13.5")
True
>>> parse_version("1.13.5.post2") > parse_version("1.13.5")
True