How to set Python's default version to 3.x on OS X?
installation, macos, python, python-3.x
Solution
Changing the default python executable's version system-wide could break some applications that depend on python2.
However, you can alias the commands in most shells, Since the default shells in macOS (bash in 10.14 and below; zsh in 10.15) share a similar syntax. You could put `alias python='python3'` in your `~/.profile`, and then source `~/.profile` in your `~/.bash_profile` and/or your`~/.zsh_profile` with a line like:
[ -e ~/.profile ] && . ~/.profile
This way, your alias will work across shells.
With this, `python` command now invokes `python3`. If you want to invoke the "original" python (that refers to python2) on occasion, you can use `command python`, which will leaving the alias untouched, and works in all shells.
If you launch interpreters more often (I do), you can always create more aliases to add as well, i.e.:
alias 2='python2'
alias 3='python3'
Tip: For scripts, instead of using a shebang like:
#!/usr/bin/env python
use:
#!/usr/bin/env python3
This way, the system will use python3 for running python executables.
Problem
I'm running Mountain Lion and the basic default Python version is 2.7. I downloaded Python 3.3 and want to set it as default. Currently: ``` $ python version 2.7.5 $ python3.3 version 3.3 ``` How do I set it so that every time I run `$ python` it opens 3.3?