CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonvirtualenv
Flavien
Flavien

Reputation: 8137

How do I add a path to PYTHONPATH in virtualenv

I am trying to add a path to the PYTHONPATH environment variable, that would be only visible from a particular virtualenv environment.

I tried SET PYTHONPATH=... under a virtualenv command prompt, but that sets the variable for the whole environment.

How do I achieve that?

Upvotes: 134

Views: 174012

Answers (7)

Danica
Danica

Reputation: 28856

You can usually avoid having to do anything with PYTHONPATH by using .pth files. Just put a file with a .pth extension (any basename works) in your virtualenv's site-packages folder, e.g. lib/python3.13/site-packages or (on Windows) lib\site-packages. The file should contain just a path to the directory containing your package; it can be either an absolute path or one relative to the .pth file.

Upvotes: 204

Christian
Christian

Reputation: 101

I agree with most of the answers here that changing PYTHONPATH through whatever means is less elegant than adding the package you want through some form of link. However, I think the best way to add such links is through pip install -e /path/to/your/lib (after activating the virtualenv, of course). This also creates a .egg-link file in the appropriate site-packages directory, so there is no need for elaborate ways to find the right site-packages dir. And you do not need any virtualenv-specific tools installed.

As people pointed out above, that is not quite the same as changing PYTHONPATH because that appends to sys.path instead of prepending, but in many scenarios that is irrelevant.

Upvotes: 1

Hajar Razip
Hajar Razip

Reputation: 603

As suggested by @crimeminister above, you can use virtualenvwrapper then add2virtualenv like suggested by @Aneesh Panoli. If add2virtualenv is not working after pip install virtualenvwrapper, then follow instructions in the top voted answer by @chirinosky here. Works for me.

Upvotes: 0

Rubber Duck
Rubber Duck

Reputation: 3743

import sys
import os

print(str(sys.path))

dir_path = os.path.dirname(os.path.realpath(__file__))
print("current working dir: %s" % dir_path)

sys.path.insert(0, dir_path)

I strongly suggest you use virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper to avoid cluttering the path.

Upvotes: 2

Aneesh Panoli
Aneesh Panoli

Reputation: 216

If you are using virtualenvwrapper, 

$ cd to the parent folder
$ add2virtualenv  folder_to_add

console will display 

Warning: Converting "folder_to_add" to "/absoutle/path/to/folder_to_add"

That's it, and you should be good to go

Upvotes: 6

Slavko-t
Slavko-t

Reputation: 69

You can also try to put symlink to one of your virtualenv.

eg. 1) activate your virtualenv 2) run python 3) import sys and check sys.path 4) you will find python search path there. Choose one of those (eg. site-packages) 5) go there and create symlink to your package like: ln -s path-to-your-package name-with-which-you'll-be-importing

That way you should be able to import it even without activating your virtualenv. Simply try: path-to-your-virtualenv-folder/bin/python and import your package.

Upvotes: 5

crimeminister
crimeminister

Reputation: 1359

If you're using virtualenv, you should probably also be using virtualenvwrapper, in which case you can use the add2virtualenv command to add paths to the Python path for the current virtualenv:

add2virtualenv directory1 directory2 …

Upvotes: 97

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