Why Is macOS Visual Studio Code Using Wrong Python Interpreter?

Question

I'm running VS Code 1.33.1 on macOS Sierra (10.12.6). When I run a simple Python program like the following, VS Code uses Python 2.7 as installed on my Mac rather than Python 3 which I installed using Homebrew.

    # show-python-version.py
    import sys
    print(sys.version)

Here's the output as displayed in the VS Code Output window:

    [Running] python -u "/Users/smith/Documents/Programming/Python/Examples/show-python-version.py" 
    2.7.15 (default, May  1 2018, 16:44:37) 
    [GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 9.0.0 (clang-900.0.39.2)]

    [Done] exited with code=0 in 0.032 seconds

As you can see, I'm getting version 2.7.15 because it's calling "python" instead of "python3", but I don't know how to get it to use python3. Here are all the things I've done to try to fix this problem:

I've ensure that none of my virtual environments that use Python 2.7 are running when I issue the "code ." command in the Examples directory.
I installed Python 3 using Homebrew so I opened the Command Pallette (shift + cmd + p), typed in "Python: Select Interpreter", and confirmed that it's using my Homebrew version: current: /usr/local/bin/python3.
I checked VS Code's Settings, searched for "python.pythonPath" and confirmed that it's the same as the interpreter path shown in step 2 above.
I also examined the file Examples/.vscode/settings.json to confirm the interpreter path there too:
```
{
        "python.pythonPath": "/usr/local/bin/python3"
}
```
I've restarted VS Code to no avail.

I have these extensions installed:

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It's may be related to my path which looks like the following since both python and python3 are in /usr/local/bin:

    $ echo $PATH
    /usr/local/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:....

What am I doing wrong?

What happens if you run it in a terminal window through vs code? — Matthew Barlowe
– Matthew Barlowe, Commented Apr 11, 2019 at 20:08
How is that done? "code --help" doesn't show a way to run a Python module through vscode via the command line. — Jim
– Jim, Commented Apr 11, 2019 at 20:31
right click file editor window and select Run Python File in Terminal — Matthew Barlowe
– Matthew Barlowe, Commented Apr 11, 2019 at 20:34
I see. Yes, when I do that my short program uses python3 like I want. Then why is it that if I hit ctrl + option + n, it uses python? Can this be fixed? — Jim
– Jim, Commented Apr 11, 2019 at 20:45
These keystrokes do nothing for me on my default VS code do you have them configured as a shortcut? — Matthew Barlowe
– Matthew Barlowe, Commented Apr 11, 2019 at 20:49

Aristide · Accepted Answer · 2020-02-21 19:28:07Z

10

It's because of the code runner extension. Add this "code-runner.executorMap.python": "python3 -u" to your settings.json and that should change the python version for when it runs code to python3 instead of python2

edited Feb 21, 2020 at 19:28

Aristide

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answered Apr 11, 2019 at 21:04

Matthew Barlowe

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3 Comments

Jim Over a year ago

That was it! I never would have thought of that. Thanks!

iFunction Over a year ago

I Get Unknown configuration setting for this so it doens't work

Matthew Barlowe Over a year ago

@iFunction if you don't have the code-runner extenstion the configuration setting won't exist

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