Question

How do I get the name of a Conda environment?

Answer and Explanation

There are several ways to retrieve the name of the currently active Conda environment. Here are the most common methods:

1. Using the `conda env list` command:

This command lists all available Conda environments, and the currently active environment is marked with an asterisk (). You can parse the output to get the name of the active environment.

- Open your terminal or command prompt.

- Type conda env list and press Enter.

- The output will look something like this:

# conda environments:
#
#base /Users/yourname/miniconda3
myenv /Users/yourname/miniconda3/envs/myenv
otherenv /Users/yourname/miniconda3/envs/otherenv

- The active environment is the one marked with on the left. In this example, it is myenv.

2. Using the `conda info` command:

The conda info command displays a lot of Conda related information, including the active environment. This is a more structured way to get the environment name.

- Open your terminal or command prompt.

- Type conda info and press Enter.

- Look for the line that starts with active env. It will show you the name of the active environment (e.g., active env : myenv ).

3. Using the `CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV` environment variable:

Conda sets the CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV environment variable when you activate an environment. You can directly access this variable to get the environment's name.

- In bash or similar shells on macOS/Linux, use echo $CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV.

- On Windows, use echo %CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV%.

- This will output the name of the active environment (e.g., myenv).

4. Using Python within an active environment:

If you are working within a Python script that is part of a conda environment you can determine the current environment name.

- Execute the following in your python terminal:

import os
environment_name = os.environ.get('CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV')
print(environment_name)

In summary, the quickest method is using echo $CONDA_DEFAULT_ENV (or the Windows equivalent) from your shell. If you need more structured output or want to parse the output, using the conda info or conda env list commands are good choices.

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