Cannot find python xlrd version

Question

I have been using xlrd within python. However, xlrddoes not seem to provide a standard way to find its version number! I have tried:

• xlrd.version()
• xlrd.__version__
• xlrd.version
• xlrd.VERSION
• xlrd.VERSION()

Answer 1

You've almost got it: xlrd.__VERSION__.

Usually it's useful to see available attributes and methods by calling dir: dir(xlrd).

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You can even iterate through the results of dir() see if version is inside:

>>> import xlrd
>>> getattr(xlrd, next(item for item in dir(xlrd) if 'version' in item.lower()))
'0.9.3'

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A more reliable way, that would work for any installed package, is to use pkg_resources:

>>> import pkg_resources
>>> pkg_resources.get_distribution("xlrd").version
'0.9.3'