Package upgrades

More often than not, you will find yourself in a situation where you have to upgrade a package because either the new version is required by a dependency or it has additional features that you would like to use. First, check the version of the library you have installed by glancing at the __version__ attribute, as shown in the following example, numpy:

>>> import numpy
>>> numpy.__version__ # 2 underscores before and after
    '1.11.0'

Now, if you want to update it to a newer release, say the 1.12.1 version, you can run the following command from the command line:

$> pip install -U numpy==1.12.1

Alternatively, you can use the following command:

$> easy_install --upgrade numpy==1.12.1

Finally, if you're interested in upgrading it to the latest available version, simply run the following command:

$> pip install -U numpy

You can alternatively run the following command:

$> easy_install --upgrade numpy