Re-configure azure-cli to use Python3
When you use azure-cli (2.x) you know it uses Python 2 by default. Nevertheless Python 2.7 will not be maintained from January 1, 2020. This means Python 2 will retire soon. You can find some details and a counter for this special day here: https://pythonclock.org/
Don’t worry, Python 3 is here with standard libraries and higher speed. I am sure you will like it. Now you are thinking about whether how you can rewrite your existing Python2 codes. Luckily there are lot of useful tools for this operation:
| 2to3 | https://pypi.org/project/2to3 |
| Python Future | https://pypi.org/project/future |
| Modernize | https://python-modernize.readthedocs.io/en/latest |
| Six | https://pypi.org/project/six |
| Online converter | http://www.pythonconverter.com |
This is great. Are most of the problems solved? Not really.
How can we check whether azure-cli uses Python 2.7?
The answer is quite simple. Just execute the following command – check version:
az -v
Check the bottom of result:
This means azure-cli uses Python 2. This is not good news for us if we would like to use Python 3 for the future.
Re-configure azure-cli to use Python 3
Accordingly we should make some configuration steps in azure-cli.
1. Upgrade azure-cli with pip3
Be sure everything will work, so execute the upgrade command for azure-cli on Python 3
sudo pip3 install azure-cli --upgrade
2. Find the location of azure-cli
To find the location of the required file, you merely execute the following command.
# Find location of azure-cli which az
result:
/usr/local/bin/az
3. Edit “az” file
Simply edit the file and change the Python version inside it.
# Edit az file sudo vim /usr/local/bin/az
as you can see it uses Python 2 for running
Modify the python -m azure.cli “$@” line to python3 -m azure.cli “$@”
python3 -m azure.cli "$@"
Then save the file.
4. Check python version for azure-cli
Execute the known command again
az -v
Perfect…From this point azure-cli uses Python 3 and you can uninstall the Python 2 (please be careful!). 🙂
Conclusion
To modify the Python version under azure-cli is not a big deal.
Nevertheless you need to be careful when you upgrade it to latest version time by time because it may try to use Python 2 again.
However in some newer Linux releases the Python 2 is not installed so azure-cli will use Python 3 automatically.
Good luck for your new life with Python 3 🙂
