Pipeline Doesn't Seem To Have Any Effect In Bash

Anyone can explain me why this python -V | awk '{print $2}' returns this Python 2.7.5 instead of 2.7.5 What to do to return only the version number

Solution 1:

If you run

python -V >/dev/null

you will notice that you still get output! Apparently, python -V prints its output to stderr, not to stdout.

In a bourne-like shell, this should work:

python -V 2>&1 | awk '{print $2}'

Solution 2:

How about using pure python command itself(I need to format it with dots in between though)

python -c 'import sys; print sys.version_info[0],sys.version_info[1],sys.version_info[2]'

OR as per Chris's comment use:

python -c 'import sys; print(".".join(map(str, sys.version_info[:3])))'