pip: ERROR: Invalid requirement: 'requests=2.32.3'

ERROR: Invalid requirement: 'requests=2.32.3' means pip could not parse the requirement string. Here the cause is the single =: Python packaging has no = operator, so pip stops and suggests ==. Write pip install "requests==2.32.3" for an exact version, or a range like "requests>=2.32,<3".

Reproduce it

pip download parses requirements exactly like pip install, so it shows the same error without installing anything:

pip download --disable-pip-version-check --no-deps -d dl "requests=2.32.3"

ERROR: Invalid requirement: 'requests=2.32.3': Expected semicolon (after name with no version specifier) or end
    requests=2.32.3
            ^
Hint: = is not a valid operator. Did you mean == ?

The caret points at the first character pip could not accept, and the Hint line names the fix.

Fix

pip download --disable-pip-version-check --no-deps -q -d dl "six==1.16.0"
ls dl

six-1.16.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl

Version operators