msys2 shell can't find python even though it exists

Question

If I use 'which' to find python it comes back:

$ which -a python.exe
which: no python.exe in (C:/msys32/mingw32/bin;/usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/opt/bin:/c/Windows/System32:/c/Windows:/c/Windows/System32/Wbem:/c/Windows/System32/WindowsPowerShell/v1.0/:/opt/xtensa-esp32-elf/bin:/usr/bin/site_perl:/usr/bin/vendor_perl:/usr/bin/core_perl)

but if I do a 'dir' of C:/msys32/mingw32/bin python files are found:

$ dir C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/py*
C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/pydoc
C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/python.exe
C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/python2.7.exe
C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/python2.7-config
C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/python2.exe
C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/python2-config
C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/python2w.exe
C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/python-config
C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/python-config.sh
C:/msys32/mingw32/bin/python-config-u.sh

This is under Windows 10. Any ideas please?

Answer 1

The problem is that the bash shell can not locate the python executable. To solve the issue a change should be done inside the .bashrc file.

The following configuration should be done inside the .bashrc file.

# python and pip alias
alias python="c:/msys64/mingw64/bin/python3.8.exe"
alias pip="c:/msys64/mingw64/bin/pip3.exe"

More detailed information can be found on this blogpost.