virtualenv-activator
The default activate script for Python's virtualenv had some problems that bugged me:
- It doesn't work with
virtualenv --relocatable
so you can't move or rename your virtual environment directory. - I wanted an easy way to modify the shell environment (manually or automatically) inside a virtual environment and have it restored when I deactivate it.
- Some other stuff I can't remember.
This package provides a replacement activate script that automatically...
- makes your virtual environment relocatable and keeps it that way even when you install new stuff (caveat: don't move or rename your virtual environment while it's activated).
- sources an optional
etc/environment.sh
file where you can modify your shell environment every time your virtual environment is activated. - restores your shell environment upon deactivation to the state it was in before you activated.
Example
Create a new virtual environment, install virtualenv-activator
inside it, and then activate it
using the etc/activate.sh
script.
$ cd /path/to/my_code $ virtualenv venv $ venv/bin/pip install virtualenv-activator $ . venv/etc/activate.sh (my_code) $
Deactivate as normal...
(my_code) $ deactivate
Well, it's not as normal as it looks. There's some magic happening under the hood. Try setting an
environment variable in the etc/environment.sh
file (this file doesn't exist by default) in your
virtual environment, but also set the same variable to a different value while you're outside the
virtual environment, and then watch what happens the variable as you activate and deactivate the
environment.
$ echo 'export MY_VAR="inside venv"' > venv/etc/environment.sh $ export MY_VAR="outside venv" $ echo $MY_VAR outside venv $ . venv/etc/activate.sh (my_code) $ echo $MY_VAR inside venv (my_code) $ export MY_VAR="manually set" (my_code) $ echo $MY_VAR manually set (my_code) $ deactivate $ echo $MY_VAR outside venv $ . venv/etc/activate.sh (my_code) $ echo $MY_VAR inside venv
Basically, you can put pretty much anything bash related (variables, aliases, functions, etc.) in
the etc/environment.sh
script and it will only exist when your virtual environment is activated.
NOTE: You may have noticed in the example above that the parent directory's basename was used in
my prompt instead of the basename of the virtual environment directory itself. It does this when you
name your virtual environment something generic like venv
, in which case it wouldn't really be
very informative to have that in your prompt. It uses this regular expression to decide if the name
is "generic": ^\.?v(irtual)?env$
Simple Mode
Simple mode is enabled via the VIRTUALENV_ACTIVATOR_SIMPLE
environment variable. When this
variable is set, the activator doesn't try to restore your environment to its previous state. It
doesn't even provide a deactivate
function. This is sometimes more desirable when running a
daemon for instance. Here's an example of a bash script you might write to wrap a daemon written in
Python so that the virtual environment is automatically activated for the daemon:
#!/bin/bash export VIRTUALENV_ACTIVATOR_SIMPLE=1 . /path/to/venv/etc/activate.sh my_daemon "$@"