CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonpython-3.xmacosvirtualenv
charliesneath
charliesneath

Reputation: 2039

Can't install Python virtual environment for Python 3

I'm following these instructions on installing Python 3 with with Homebrew on my MacBook running Mac OSX High Sierra.

I'm having trouble with this step:

Once you’ve installed Homebrew, insert the Homebrew directory at the top of your PATH environment variable. You can do this by adding the following line at the bottom of your ~/.profile file

export PATH=/usr/local/bin:/usr/local/sbin:$PATH

After updating ~/.profile and running python --version, I still see Python 2.7.10.

This seems to be an issue because when I follow the next page to install a virtual environment using pip install --user pipenv, I get the following warning after installation completes:

The scripts pewtwo, pipenv and pipenv-resolver are installed in '/Users/charliesneath/Library/Python/2.7/bin' which is not on PATH.

It seems like my system is not properly prioritizing Homebrew's installation of Python 3.

How can I fix this?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 2135

Answers (2)

hcheung
hcheung

Reputation: 4014

For Mac, when you install python3, it is installed in a different path as those examples you are citing. To find out where the python3 is installed, type the command line:

which python3

It will return /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin/python3.

Add the following lines to .bash_profile:

PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.6/bin:${PATH}"
export PATH

Upvotes: 2

charliesneath
charliesneath

Reputation: 2039

I solved this once I eventually understood the following instructions:

If pipenv isn’t available in your shell after installation, you’ll need to add the user base‘s binary directory to your PATH.

On Linux and macOS you can find the user base binary directory by running python -m site --user-base and adding bin to the end. For example, this will typically print ~/.local (with ~ expanded to the absolute path to your home directory) so you’ll need to add ~/.local/bin to your PATH. You can set your PATH permanently by modifying ~/.profile.

My system outputs /Users/charliesneath/Library/Python/3.6 when running the command, so I added the following to ~/.profile:

export PATH="~/Library/Python/3.6/bin"

Does anyone know why my system is not outputting ~/.local as suggested by the instructions above?

EDIT: It seems like version of Python I've installed is considered "framework build," and according to the Python documentation, the path I added to ~/.profile is the default "user base directory" for this framework:

site.USER_BASE: Default value is ~/.local for UNIX and Mac OS X non-framework builds, ~/Library/Python/X.Y for Mac framework builds, and %APPDATA%\Python for Windows.

Upvotes: 0

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