virtual environments in python

In python there is the concept of virtual environments which encapsulates all the dependencies locally to that project so that you don't get dependency mismatch or using the wrong versions from another projects dependencies.

To setup virtual environments you first need to have the venv python package Install it with the following: pip install venv

you can then create a virtual environment with the following: python3 -m venv myenv, however, this looks tacky when you run ls or are looking from the file browser, to fix this add a . so that it is a hidden folder

to activate the virtual environment run source myenv/bin/activate

once it is activated you will then have to install all the requirements with pip install -r requirements.txt

to deactivate the virtual environment run deactivate

Complete venv setup

python3 -m venv .venv --prompt 'custom name of venv'
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

possible aliases and functions for managing this

alias pysrc='source .venv/bin/activate'

function pysrc_create() {
    if [[ -n "$1" ]]; then
        python3 -m venv .venv --prompt "$1"
    else
        python3 -m venv .venv
    fi

    source .venv/bin/activate
}

# I like the colon delimiter in most of my other commands to namespace them
alias pysrc:create='pysrc_create'

Remember to add .venv to your .gitignore as well as __pycache__

Deactivate the venv

deactivate