How can I tell which python implementation I'm using?

python cpython
Stuart Berg picture Stuart Berg · Feb 5, 2013 · Viewed 11.8k times · Source

Python has a few different implementations: CPython, Jython, PyPy, etc. I want to programmatically determine which implementation my code is running on. How can I do that?

To be specific, write a function called get_implementation_name() for me:

impl_name = get_implementation_name()
if impl_name == "CPython":
  print "I can abuse CPython implementation details. (I'm a bad, bad man.)"
elif impl_name == "PyPy":
  print "Can't count on reference-counting garbage collection here..."
else:
  print "I better be careful..."

Answer

unutbu picture unutbu · Feb 5, 2013 
In [50]: import platform    
In [52]: platform.python_implementation()
Out[52]: 'CPython'

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