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Introduction to Conda

Cheat sheet

Table of contents
  1. Cheat sheet
    1. Basics
    2. Environments
    3. Finding and installing packages
    4. Managing multiple versions of Python
    5. Define version numbers

There is an official cheatsheet (see here), but I decided to highlight some commands, that I definitely use on a close to daily basis.

Basics

Command Description
conda info Verify conda is installed, and its version
conda update conda Update conda
conda install PACKAGENAME Install package
conda update PACKAGENAME Update specific package
COMMANDNAME --help Command line help
conda clean --all Removes unused, cached packages that are ok to delete

Environments

Command Description
conda create --name py35 python=3.5 Create a new environemt name py35, install Python 3.5
conda activate ENVIRONMENT Activate the specficic environment
conda env list List all environment
conda create --clone py35 --name py35-2 Create clone of the original environment (DONT JUST COPY!!!)
conda list List all Packages instsalled in the environment
conda list --explicit > hello-env.txt Save environment to text file
conda env remove --name hello-env Remove environment with the name hello-env
conda deactivate deactivate environment
conda env create [--name hello-env] --file hello-env.yml Create new environment from file with optional name
conda create --name hello-env hellopython Stacking commands: create new env, name it hello-env, install hellopython

Finding and installing packages

Command Description
conda search PACKAGENAME Search for a specific package
conda install jupyter Install package, here jupyter, in active env
conda install --name hello-env toolz Install package in a specific environment
conda install --channel conda-forge boltons Install package (boltons) from a specfic channel (conda-forge)
pip install boltons Install package (boltons) directly from Pypi in current env
conda remove --name hello-env toolz boltons Remove one or more packages from (hello-env)

Managing multiple versions of Python

If you need 2 or more different versions of python the recipe is to create multiple environments, so that the python versions do not interfere with each other.

Check which python you are running:

# Windows
where python

# Linux/macOS
which -a python

Check the version of Python using python --version

Define version numbers

Constraint Specification Result
Fuzzy numpy=1.11 1.11.0, 1.11.1, etc.
Exact numpy==1.11 1.11.0
Greater than or equal to "numpy>=1.11" 1.11.0 or higher
OR "numpy=1.11.1\|1.11.3" 1.11.1 or 1.11.3
AND "numpy>=1.8,<2"  

NOTE: You have to use quotation marks if you are using any of [> < | *] in the specification or if the specification contains a space.