Nested requirements.txt in python

python requirements text files can in fact depend on each other due to the fact that you can pass pip install arguments right into your
requirements.txt file. The trick is to just prefix the file with a
-r flag, just like you would if you were installing it with pip
install

try it out

Lets create two requirements files in a new directory to play with.

mkdir requirements-nest cd requirements-nest touch requirements.txt requirements_dev.txt

Then add the following to each requirements file.

# requirements.txt
kedro[pandas.ParquetDataSet]

# requirements_dev.txt
-r requirements.txt
ipython

Installing

Installing requirements_dev.txt will install both ipython and pandas since it includes the base requirements file.

# this will install only pandas
pip install -r requirements.txt

# this will install both ipython and pandas
pip install -r requirements_dev.txt

Links

This is covered in the pip user guide, but it is not obvious that this can be done in a requirements.txt file.