Setup virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper on Mountain Lion

In the previous part I went through how you can have multiple versions of python and how you can easily switch between these versions. Here I will go through setting up virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper. This will help in keeping all the different versions of python pristine!

First step is to switch to whatever version of python you want to do this in. Use the bash switch function we created in part 1.

Next we will install the python package installer pip using the easy_install command.

$ sudo easy_install pip

Next install virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper using the pip command

$ sudo pip install virtualenv
$ sudo pip install virtualenvwrapper

Now add the following variables in your .bash_profile before activating virtualenvwrapper

export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs
export PIP_VIRTUALENV_BASE=$WORKON_HOME
export PIP_RESPECT_VIRTUALENV=true

. /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

Yes, there is a dot in front of /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh
Next go ahead and create the directory .virtualenvs in your home directory.
Now that all the ground work is done, go ahead and source your .bash_profile file. You should see virtualenvwrapper initialise some files and folders under .virtualenvs. It will also add some more bash functions to make your life easy.

Now lets go ahead and create a virtual environment for our python 2.7.3 environment.

$ mkvirtualenv python273
Installing setuptools...........
  Complete output from command /Users/username/.v...python273/bin/python -c "#!python
\"\"\"Bootstra...sys.argv[1:])

" /Library/Python/2.7/...ols-0.6c11-py2.7.egg:
  Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 279, in <module>
  File "<string>", line 207, in main
  File "build/bdist.linux-i686/egg/setuptools/__init__.py", line 2, in <module>
  File "build/bdist.linux-i686/egg/setuptools/extension.py", line 1, in <module>
  File "/Users/username/.virtualenvs/python273/lib/python2.7/distutils/__init__.py", line 16, in <module>
    exec(open(os.path.join(distutils_path, '__init__.py')).read())
IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/distutils/__init__.py'
----------------------------------------
...Installing setuptools...done.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/virtualenv", line 8, in <module>
    load_entry_point('virtualenv==1.7.2', 'console_scripts', 'virtualenv')()
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py", line 942, in main
    never_download=options.never_download)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py", line 1052, in create_environment
    search_dirs=search_dirs, never_download=never_download)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py", line 598, in install_setuptools
    search_dirs=search_dirs, never_download=never_download)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py", line 570, in _install_req
    cwd=cwd)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py", line 1020, in call_subprocess
    % (cmd_desc, proc.returncode))
OSError: Command /Users/username/.v...python273/bin/python -c "#!python
\"\"\"Bootstra...sys.argv[1:])

" /Library/Python/2.7/...ols-0.6c11-py2.7.egg failed with error code 1

Turns out this error came up because Xcode which was installed from the App Store on my new Mountain Lion install did not come with the command line tools. Go to the preference pane in Xcode, and then go to the downloads section and install the command line tools. Once done, go ahead and try the mkvirtualenv command again.

$ mkvirtualenv python273
New python executable in python273/bin/python
Installing setuptools............done.
Installing pip...............done.
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/username/.virtualenvs/python273/bin/predeactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/username/.virtualenvs/python273/bin/postdeactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/username/.virtualenvs/python273/bin/preactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/username/.virtualenvs/python273/bin/postactivate
virtualenvwrapper.user_scripts creating /Users/username/.virtualenvs/python273/bin/get_env_details
(python273) $ which python
/Users/username/.virtualenvs/python273/bin/python

Notice how my prompt changed to show me which environment I am in. What mkvirtualenv did was create a copy of python under your .virtualenv directory and made it your default python.

There is a slight problem now. I checked to see the version of python in the virtualenv I just created and found that the version was 2.7.2. This was the version of python which came with the new install of Mountain Lion. After reading the docs on mkvirtualenv I found that mkvirtualenv used the python version which was used to install virtualenv.. but I thought I had switched my version of python to use python 2.7.3.. Grr.. ok.. whatever!! I deleted my newly created virtualenv and recreated a new one again, but this time define the version of python I want to use.

$ rmvirutalenv python 273
Removing python273...
$ mkvirtualenv python273 -p /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python2.7
Running virtualenv with interpreter /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python2.7
New python executable in python273/bin/python
Installing setuptools............done.
Installing pip...............done.

This confirms my python

Here are some commands you will using -

• deactivate – command will disable the virtual environment.
• workon – command by itself will show you a list of virtual environments. To activate a particular environment, run ‘workon env_name’
• rmvirtualenv – run this command with the name of virtualenv to delete that environment

The best part is that now you don’t need the sudo command to install any new python modules as python is now under your home directory. You are now free to use the pip command to install any module you want.

In the next part I will show you how to setup eclipse to use a virtual python environment…