CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpycharm
Steven
Steven

Reputation: 801

How to work within individual files rather than projects in PyCharm

Relatively new to Python and PyCharm and as such most of the work. I'm doing is single files and therefore is not organized into projects.

Is there a way to configure Pycharm to be used to open single files and not use projects?

Similarly, is it possible to just run a single page/file?

Upvotes: 43

Views: 26250

Answers (6)

Zac
Zac

Reputation: 27

As of 20240306 with Pycharm 2023.3.4 (Professional Edition)

Direct Answer

You cannot use the full IDE to modify a file without Pycharm at least creating a temporary project directory in the background. If you don't mind that, just select the single file as normal in the UI.

What I Do

If you're going to have many small files that you're simply testing, I suggest creating for yourself a "sandbox" project that you can manage them in.

Similar Solution

Pycharm has a "LightEdit" mode with severely limited functionality. It technically allows you to modify a single file only, but will likely be missing features you'll want. Further, if Pycharm detects that a parent directory is configured as a project, it will open the full IDE for that project with the specified file in the editor. https://www.jetbrains.com/help/pycharm/lightedit-mode.html

  • GUI - "Right Click" the file and click "Open With" and choose Pycharm.

  • TERMINAL - Assuming you've configured Pycharm's bin directory in your environment's path variable, you can start "LightEdit" mode with pycharm -e {file} (it may be pycharm64)

Upvotes: 0

Ashley Fernandes
Ashley Fernandes

Reputation: 1207

You have to work with a configured project (indicated by folders) but there is a work around... In Pycharm when you create a project you will have a default file in .py or any other format.

Just follow the steps to work with individual files..

  1. right click on the folder (in left hand side project tree) and add new python file

  2. double click on the newly added file ,it will now be open in a new tab

(BUT..if you try to run this new file pycharm will still compile the previous file ...so to change that..)

  1. right click on the tab of your file and click run "file name" or you can press CTRL+shift+F10

  2. done :)

Screenshot

Upvotes: 3

tvt173
tvt173

Reputation: 1866

On Pycharm 5.0.4...

  1. Open the file (i.e. by double clicking in explorer)
  2. Navigate to File->Settings...
  3. Expand the Project tab on the left and select 'project interpreter' from the options that appear beneath
  4. Set your project interpreter from the dropdown menu, and you should be able now to run your file without creating a project

Upvotes: 10

Preston Landers
Preston Landers

Reputation: 460

You can always open a single file (File > Open) but to actually run or debug the code from within Pycharm, or use most of its other features, it needs a correctly configured project.

What you can do is create a single project to hold all of your "assorted" code. I usually recommend creating a virtualenv for this project as well and using that as your Pycharm project interpreter. You can further divide this project into different packages to keep things organized.

Update: PyCharm 4.5 now provide Scratch Files which seem relevant to this question.

Upvotes: 6

Fred
Fred

Reputation: 75

You can also create a .py file and implement it within a PyCharm project by dragging it into the editor. This method also allows you to use a separate text editor to create your .py file.

Upvotes: 0

Ayrat
Ayrat

Reputation: 1259

From the command line 

pycharm [path_to_your_file]

where pycharm on my machine is aliased to /opt/pycharm-community-3.1.1/bin/pycharm.sh in file ~/.bash_aliases.

As Preston mentioned, not all features seem to work: for example, navigation between files does not seem to work.

Upvotes: 1

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