Can no longer install via python code

[cleppanen]

Environment

• pip version:19.3
• Python version: 3.6.7
• OS: Ubuntu 18.04
• Using python3-venv to create a virtual environment.

Description
As of pip version 19.3, I am no longer able to use the following code snippet to import libraries on the fly in my python project. I receive the error TypeError: 'module' object is not callable

from pip._internal import main as pip

pip(['install', 'libnamehere'])

This similar code works in 19.2, without error.

Expected behavior
The library installs cleanly into the current environment, with no issue.
How to Reproduce

• Install pip version 19.3
• Use the code snippet above, and replace libnamehere with any python library.
• run the code

Output

TypeError: 'module' object is not callable

We can, and probably will pin pip to just run as 19.2 for now, but wanted the team to be aware of this loss of functionality.

If there is a new method, or a better preferred method from the one I posted above in my snippet, I'll take that as feedback as well.

Thank you.

[chrahunt]

Hello. Thanks for trying the latest release and reporting your experience!

As mentioned in the docs, importing and running pip in that way is unsupported. The documentation also has a few options for running pip in your code, for example:

subprocess.check_call([sys.executable, '-m', 'pip', 'install', 'my_package'])

[cleppanen]

Indeed it is right there, in the documentation, to which I must've missed all this time.

Thank you, @chrahunt for this! Will implement and we can close this ticket.

Thanks again!