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Ousseynou Diop
Ousseynou Diop

Posted on • Edited on

Python : How to setup your Virtualenv correctly

#python #venv #virtualenv #pyenv

Originally posted on my blog

Introduction

Pipenv is a dependency manager for Python projects. If you’re familiar with Node.js’ npm or Ruby’s bundler, it is similar in spirit to those tools.

Everytime you want to create a new Python project or you follow a new course, you get sucked with the VirtualEnv ?
What the heck virtualenv is ?
How you can setup it Correctly ?

Requirements

Python : 3.4 or later
pip

Package Manager VS Dependency Manager

Based on a StackOverFlow answer

Package Manager - is used to configure the system, ie to setup your development environment, and with these settings you can build many projects.

Dependency Manager - Is specific to project. You manage all dependencies for a single project and those dependencies are going to be saved on your project. When you start another project you should manage your dependencies again.

Why we need it

The main purpose of using a dependency manager is to separate your application dependencies, that will give you the ability to use the one Framework in different project with different version.

A simple use case :

Imagine we have two(2) Django applications and we want to install differents versions of Django.

What we do ?

We've the choice to install all versions in one machine, but this is not the ideal way to do.

How to setup your virtualenv Correctly

Installation

As Pythonist we've many choices

  • Poetry
  • Pip
  • Pipenv
  • etc...

In this tutorial, we will use pipenv and i think is the easiest to setup.
And it is recommended for collaborative and Team projects.

Make sure you've Python and Pip installed in your machine

Let's check your installation

$ python --version
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The output should look something like this

Python 3.7.5
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And check the pip installation

$ pip --version
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The output

pip 19.3.1 from /usr/local/lib/python3.7/dist-packages/pip (python 3.7
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Installing pipenv using pip 

$ pip install --user pipenv
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Check the installation 

$ pipenv --version
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The output

pipenv, version 11.9.0
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Create new project 

$ mkdir test_pipen && cd test_pipenv
$ touch app.py
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Installing packages for your project 

$ pipenv install requests
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Creating a virtualenv for this project…
Using /usr/bin/python3 (3.7.5) to create virtualenv…
⠋Already using interpreter /usr/bin/python3
Using base prefix '/usr'
New python executable in /home/username/.local/share/virtualenvs/test_pipenv-3gXMtvzy/bin/python3
Also creating executable in /home/username/.local/share/virtualenvs/test_pipenv-3gXMtvzy/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...
done.

Virtualenv location: /home/username/.local/share/virtualenvs/test_pipenv-3gXMtvzy
Creating a Pipfile for this project…
Installing requests…
Looking in indexes: https://pypi.python.org/simple
Collecting requests
 Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/51/bd/23c926cd341ea6b7dd0b2a00aba99ae0f828be89d72b2190f27c11d4b7fb/requests-2.22.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Collecting idna<2.9,>=2.5
 Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/14/2c/cd551d81dbe15200be1cf41cd03869a46fe7226e7450af7a6545bfc474c9/idna-2.8-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Collecting urllib3!=1.25.0,!=1.25.1,<1.26,>=1.21.1
 Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/b4/40/a9837291310ee1ccc242ceb6ebfd9eb21539649f193a7c8c86ba15b98539/urllib3-1.25.7-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Collecting chardet<3.1.0,>=3.0.2
 Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/bc/a9/01ffebfb562e4274b6487b4bb1ddec7ca55ec7510b22e4c51f14098443b8/chardet-3.0.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Collecting certifi>=2017.4.17
 Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/b9/63/df50cac98ea0d5b006c55a399c3bf1db9da7b5a24de7890bc9cfd5dd9e99/certifi-2019.11.28-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Installing collected packages: idna, urllib3, chardet, certifi, requests
Successfully installed certifi-2019.11.28 chardet-3.0.4 idna-2.8 requests-2.22.0 urllib3-1.25.7

Adding requests to Pipfile's [packages]…
Pipfile.lock not found, creating…
Locking [dev-packages] dependencies…
Locking [packages] dependencies…
Updated Pipfile.lock (5a8f8c)!
Installing dependencies from Pipfile.lock (5a8f8c)…
 🐍   ▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉▉ 5/5 — 00:00:01
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Activate your new environment 

$ pipenv shell
$ (test_pipenv-3gXMtvzy) ....
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Add this line in your app.py file

import requests

response = requests.get('https://httpbin.org/ip')

print('Your IP is {0}'.format(response.json()['origin']))
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Run the application

$ python app.py
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You should get output similar to this:

Your IP is 0.0.0.224, 0.0.0.224
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See you next :-)

Top comments (2)

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miniscruff profile image
miniscruff •

Highly recommend pipx, pipxproject.github.io/pipx/, for any global python packages, especially pipenv. Also recommend pyenv in Unix.

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xarala221 profile image
Ousseynou Diop •

Interesting, i will test it.

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