python-venv.md

Creating a Python Virtual Environment

Bellow are the instructions that are enough to get the setup done and get you up and running :) You can also follow this guide for a more in depth set of instructions that accomplish exactly the same thing.

⚠️ You should always be using a virtual environment to install python packages. ⚠️ We'll use venv to set them up.

To install and update packages, we'll be using pip which is the reference Python package manager.

Step 1 Start by installing ensuring pip, setuptools, and wheel are up to date:

python3.8 -m pip install --user --upgrade pip setuptools wheel

Step 2 Create a virtual environment with the name slu00

python3.8 -m venv ~/.virtualenvs/slu00

Step 3 Activate the environment

source ~/.virtualenvs/slu00/bin/activate

Note: after you activate your virtual environment you should see at the leftmost of your command line the name of your virtual environment surrounded by parenthesis, like this:

mig@my-machine % source ~/.virtualenvs/slu00/bin/activate
(slu00) mig@my-machine %

And you're able to make sure your virtual environment is active using the which command (it outputs the location of your virtual environment's python installation):

(slu00) mig@my-machine % which python
/Users/mig/.virtualenvs/slu00/bin/python

Step 4 Now update pip.

(slu00) pip install -U pip