How do I find out what Python libraries are installed on my Mac?

Question

I'm just starting out with Python, and have found out that I can import various libraries. How do I find out what libraries exist on my Mac that I can import? How do I find out what functions they include?

I seem to remember using some web server type thing to browse through local help files, but I may have imagined that!

Answer 1

From the Python REPL (the command-line interpreter / Read-Eval-Print-Loop), type help("modules") to see a list of all your available libs.

Then to see functions within a module, do help("posix"), for example. If you haven't imported the library yet, you have to put quotes around the library's name.