Introduction to virtualenv
Keeping track of Python package dependencies can be a tricky task, especially when you’ve already got multiple packages installed and you’re not sure what your project is/isn’t using. Thankfully, a tool called virtualenv exists which helps keep track of your packages and lets you isolate installations.
Installing virtualenv is easy – it’s a Python script, and can be obtained by running pip install virtualenv.
Once virtualenv is installed, you can create your virtual environment by running virtualenv my_env_name. This will copy your system’s Python binary (you can specify a custom version by passing the --python=/path/to/your/desired/python flag), and install both pip and setuptools to the my_env_name folder. It also creates an activation script, which you can call by running source my_env_name/bin/activate. Activating your virtual environment will update your PATH to use the newly copied Python, as well as the new packages folder and pip install.
Now that your newly create virtual environment has been activated, any calls to python, easy_install or pip will be passed to your newly created Python install. This means that pip will install packages to your virtual environment rather than to your system install, and that any system packages that you had previously installed are no longer accessible. A useful side-effect of running under a virtual environment is that both pip and easy_install no longer require special write privileges – you’ll no longer need sudo/root privileges to install packages.
Another handy use of virtualenv is to generate a list of requirements for your project – running pip freeze > requirements.txt will create a pip install -r compatible requirements.txt file for you, allowing you to easily distribute and keep track of project dependencies.
virtualenv can be de-activated by running deactivate from your shell, which restores your environment to its former self.