pip-licenses

Dump the software license list of Python packages installed with pip.

Table of Contents

• Description
• Installation
• Usage
• Command-Line Options
  • Common options
    • Option: from
    • Option: order
    • Option: format
      • Markdown
      • reST
      • Confluence
      • HTML
      • JSON
      • JSON LicenseFinder
      • CSV
      • Plain Vertical
    • Option: summary
    • Option: output-file
    • Option: ignore-packages
    • Option: packages
  • Format options
    • Option: with-system
    • Option: with-authors
    • Option: with-urls
    • Option: with-description
    • Option: with-license-file
    • Option: filter-strings
    • Option: filter-code-page
  • Verify options
    • Option: fail-on
    • Option: allow-only
  • More Information
• Dockerfile
• About UnicodeEncodeError
• License
  • Dependencies
• Uninstallation
• Contributing

Description

pip-licenses is a CLI tool for checking the software license of installed Python packages with pip.

Implemented with the idea inspired by composer licenses command in Composer (a.k.a PHP package management tool).

https://getcomposer.org/doc/03-cli.md#licenses

Installation

Install it via PyPI using pip command.

# Install or Upgrade to newest available version
$ pip install -U pip-licenses

# If upgrading from pip-licenses 3.x, remove PTable
$ pip uninstall -y PTable

Note for Python 3.7 users: pip-licenses 4.x discontinued support earlier than the Python 3.7 EOL schedule. If you want to use it with Python 3.7, install pip-licenses 3.x.

# Using old version for the Python 3.7 environment
$ pip install 'pip-licenses<4.0'

Note: If you are still using Python 2.7, install version less than 2.0. No new features will be provided for version 1.x.

$ pip install 'pip-licenses<2.0'

Usage

Execute the command with your venv (or virtualenv) environment.

# Install packages in your venv environment
(venv) $ pip install Django pip-licenses

# Check the licenses with your venv environment
(venv) $ pip-licenses
 Name    Version  License
 Django  2.0.2    BSD
 pytz    2017.3   MIT

Command-Line Options

Common options

Option: from

By default, this tool finds the license from Trove Classifiers or package Metadata. Some Python packages declare their license only in Trove Classifiers.

(See also): Set license to MIT in setup.py by alisianoi ・ Pull Request #1058 ・ pypa/setuptools, PEP 314#License

For example, even if you check with the pip show command, the license is displayed as UNKNOWN.

(venv) $ pip show setuptools
Name: setuptools
Version: 38.5.0
Summary: Easily download, build, install, upgrade, and uninstall Python packages
Home-page: https://github.com/pypa/setuptools
Author: Python Packaging Authority
Author-email: distutils-sig@python.org
License: UNKNOWN

The mixed mode (--from=mixed) of this tool works well and looks for licenses.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --from=mixed --with-system | grep setuptools
 setuptools    38.5.0   MIT License

In mixed mode, it first tries to look for licenses in the Trove Classifiers. When not found in the Trove Classifiers, the license declared in Metadata is displayed.

If you want to look only in metadata, use --from=meta. If you want to look only in Trove Classifiers, use --from=classifier.

To list license information from both metadata and classifier, use --from=all.

Note: If neither can find license information, please check with the with-authors and with-urls options and contact the software author.

• The m keyword is prepared as alias of meta.
• The c keyword is prepared as alias of classifier.
• The mix keyword is prepared as alias of mixed.
  • Default behavior in this tool

Option: order

By default, it is ordered by package name.

If you give arguments to the --order option, you can output in other sorted order.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --order=license

Option: format

By default, it is output to the plain format.

Markdown

When executed with the --format=markdown option, you can output list in markdown format. The m md keyword is prepared as alias of markdown.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --format=markdown
| Name   | Version | License |
|--------|---------|---------|
| Django | 2.0.2   | BSD     |
| pytz   | 2017.3  | MIT     |

When inserted in a markdown document, it is rendered as follows:

Name	Version	License
Django	2.0.2	BSD
pytz	2017.3	MIT

reST

When executed with the --format=rst option, you can output list in "Grid tables" of reStructuredText format. The r rest keyword is prepared as alias of rst.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --format=rst
+--------+---------+---------+
| Name   | Version | License |
+--------+---------+---------+
| Django | 2.0.2   | BSD     |
+--------+---------+---------+
| pytz   | 2017.3  | MIT     |
+--------+---------+---------+

Confluence

When executed with the --format=confluence option, you can output list in Confluence (or JIRA) Wiki markup format. The c keyword is prepared as alias of confluence.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --format=confluence
| Name   | Version | License |
| Django | 2.0.2   | BSD     |
| pytz   | 2017.3  | MIT     |

HTML

When executed with the --format=html option, you can output list in HTML table format. The h keyword is prepared as alias of html.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --format=html
<table>
    <tr>
        <th>Name</th>
        <th>Version</th>
        <th>License</th>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>Django</td>
        <td>2.0.2</td>
        <td>BSD</td>
    </tr>
    <tr>
        <td>pytz</td>
        <td>2017.3</td>
        <td>MIT</td>
    </tr>
</table>

JSON

When executed with the --format=json option, you can output list in JSON format easily allowing post-processing. The j keyword is prepared as alias of json.

[
  {
    "Author": "Django Software Foundation",
    "License": "BSD",
    "Name": "Django",
    "URL": "https://www.djangoproject.com/",
    "Version": "2.0.2"
  },
  {
    "Author": "Stuart Bishop",
    "License": "MIT",
    "Name": "pytz",
    "URL": "http://pythonhosted.org/pytz",
    "Version": "2017.3"
  }
]

JSON LicenseFinder

When executed with the --format=json-license-finder option, you can output list in JSON format that is identical to LicenseFinder. The jlf keyword is prepared as alias of jlf. This makes pip-licenses a drop-in replacement for LicenseFinder.

[
  {
    "licenses": ["BSD"],
    "name": "Django",
    "version": "2.0.2"
  },
  {
    "licenses": ["MIT"],
    "name": "pytz",
    "version": "2017.3"
  }
]

CSV

When executed with the --format=csv option, you can output list in quoted CSV format. Useful when you want to copy/paste the output to an Excel sheet.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --format=csv
"Name","Version","License"
"Django","2.0.2","BSD"
"pytz","2017.3","MIT"

Plain Vertical

When executed with the --format=plain-vertical option, you can output a simple plain vertical output that is similar to Angular CLI's --extractLicenses flag. This format minimizes rightward drift.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --format=plain-vertical --with-license-file --no-license-path
pytest
5.3.4
MIT license
The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2004-2020 Holger Krekel and others

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies
of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do
so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE
AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER
LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM,
OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE
SOFTWARE.

Option: summary

When executed with the --summary option, you can output a summary of each license.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --summary --from=classifier --with-system
 Count  License
 2      BSD License
 4      MIT License

Note: When using this option, only --order=count or --order=license has an effect for the --order option. And using --with-authors and --with-urls will be ignored.

Option: output-file

When executed with the --output-file option, write the result to the path specified by the argument.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --format=rst --output-file=/tmp/output.rst
created path: /tmp/output.rst

Option: ignore-packages

When executed with the --ignore-packages option, ignore the package specified by argument from list output.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --ignore-packages django
 Name  Version  License
 pytz  2017.3   MIT

Package names of arguments can be separated by spaces.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --with-system --ignore-packages django pip pip-licenses
 Name        Version  License
 prettytable 3.5.0    BSD License
 pytz        2017.3   MIT
 setuptools  38.5.0   UNKNOWN
 wcwidth     0.2.5    MIT License

Option: packages

When executed with the packages option, look at the package specified by argument from list output.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --packages django
 Name   Version  License
 Django 2.0.2    BSD

Package names of arguments can be separated by spaces.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --with-system --packages prettytable pytz
 Name        Version  License
 prettytable 3.5.0    BSD License
 pytz        2017.3   MIT

Format options

Option: with-system

By default, system packages such as pip and setuptools are ignored.

And pip-licenses and the implicit dependency prettytable and wcwidth will also be ignored.

If you want to output all including system package, use the --with-system option.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --with-system
 Name          Version  License
 Django        2.0.2    BSD
 pip           9.0.1    MIT
 pip-licenses  1.0.0    MIT License
 prettytable   3.5.0    BSD License
 pytz          2017.3   MIT
 setuptools    38.5.0   UNKNOWN
 wcwidth       0.2.5    MIT License

Option: with-authors

When executed with the --with-authors option, output with author of the package.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --with-authors
 Name    Version  License  Author
 Django  2.0.2    BSD      Django Software Foundation
 pytz    2017.3   MIT      Stuart Bishop

Option: with-urls

For packages without Metadata, the license is output as UNKNOWN. To get more package information, use the --with-urls option.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --with-urls
 Name    Version  License  URL
 Django  2.0.2    BSD      https://www.djangoproject.com/
 pytz    2017.3   MIT      http://pythonhosted.org/pytz

Option: with-description

When executed with the --with-description option, output with short description of the package.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --with-description
 Name    Version  License  Description
 Django  2.0.2    BSD      A high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.
 pytz    2017.3   MIT      World timezone definitions, modern and historical

Option: with-license-file

When executed with the --with-license-file option, output the location of the package's license file on disk and the full contents of that file. Due to the length of these fields, this option is best paired with --format=json.

If you also want to output the file NOTICE distributed under Apache License etc., specify the --with-notice-file option additionally.

Note: If you want to keep the license file path secret, specify --no-license-path option together.

Option: filter-strings

Some package data contains Unicode characters which might cause problems for certain output formats (in particular ReST tables). If this filter is enabled, all characters which cannot be encoded with a given code page (see --filter-code-page) will be removed from any input strings (e.g. package name, description).

Option: filter-code-page

If the input strings are filtered (see --filter-strings), you can specify the applied code page (default latin-1). A list of all available code pages can be found codecs module document.

Verify options

Option: fail-on

Fail (exit with code 1) on the first occurrence of the licenses of the semicolon-separated list. The license name matching is case-insensitive.

If --from=all, the option will apply to the metadata license field.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --fail-on="MIT License;BSD License"

Note: Packages with multiple licenses will fail if at least one license is included in the fail-on list. For example:

# keyring library has 2 licenses
$ pip-licenses --package keyring
 Name     Version  License                                         
 keyring  23.0.1   MIT License; Python Software Foundation License

# If just "Python Software Foundation License" is specified, it will fail.
$ pip-licenses --package keyring --fail-on="Python Software Foundation License;"
$ echo $?
1

# Matching is case-insensitive. Following check will fail:
$ pip-licenses --fail-on="mit license"

Option: allow-only

Fail (exit with code 1) if none of the package licenses are in the semicolon-separated list. The license name matching is case-insensitive.

If --from=all, the option will apply to the metadata license field.

(venv) $ pip-licenses --allow-only="MIT License;BSD License"

Note: Packages with multiple licenses will only be allowed if at least one license is included in the allow-only list. For example:

# keyring library has 2 licenses
$ pip-licenses --package keyring
 Name     Version  License                                         
 keyring  23.0.1   MIT License; Python Software Foundation License

# One or both licenses must be specified (order and case does not matter). Following checks will pass:
$ pip-licenses --package keyring --allow-only="MIT License"
$ pip-licenses --package keyring --allow-only="mit License"
$ pip-licenses --package keyring --allow-only="BSD License;MIT License"
$ pip-licenses --package keyring --allow-only="Python Software Foundation License"
$ pip-licenses --package keyring --allow-only="Python Software Foundation License;MIT License"

# If none of the license in the allow list match, the check will fail.
$ pip-licenses --package keyring  --allow-only="BSD License"
$ echo $?
1

More Information

Other, please make sure to execute the --help option.

Dockerfile

You can check the package license used by your app in the isolated Docker environment.

# Clone this repository to local
$ git clone https://github.com/raimon49/pip-licenses.git
$ cd pip-licenses

# Create your app's requirements.txt file
# Other ways, pip freeze > docker/requirements.txt
$ echo "Flask" > docker/requirements.txt

# Build docker image
$ docker build . -t myapp-licenses

# Check the package license in container
$ docker run --rm myapp-licenses
 Name          Version  License
 Click         7.0      BSD License
 Flask         1.0.2    BSD License
 Jinja2        2.10     BSD License
 MarkupSafe    1.1.1    BSD License
 Werkzeug      0.15.2   BSD License
 itsdangerous  1.1.0    BSD License

# Check with options
$ docker run --rm myapp-licenses --summary
 Count  License
 4      BSD
 2      BSD-3-Clause

# When you need help
$ docker run --rm myapp-licenses --help

Note: This Docker image can not check package licenses with C and C ++ Extensions. It only works with pure Python package dependencies.

If you want to resolve build environment issues, try using not slim image and more.

diff --git a/Dockerfile b/Dockerfile
index bfc4edc..175e968 100644
--- a/Dockerfile
+++ b/Dockerfile
@@ -1,4 +1,4 @@
-FROM python:3.11-slim-bullseye
+FROM python:3.11-bullseye

About UnicodeEncodeError

If a UnicodeEncodeError occurs, check your environment variables LANG and LC_TYPE.

Often occurs in isolated environments such as Docker and tox.

See useful reports:

• #35
• #45

License

MIT License

Dependencies

• prettytable by Luke Maurits and maintainer of fork version Jazzband team under the BSD-3-Clause License
  • Note: This package implicitly requires wcwidth.

pip-licenses has been implemented in the policy to minimize the dependence on external package.

Uninstallation

Uninstall package and dependent package with pip command.

$ pip uninstall pip-licenses prettytable wcwidth

Contributing

See contribution guidelines.