28.3. "venv" — Creation of virtual environments
***********************************************

New in version 3.3.

**Source code:** Lib/venv/

======================================================================

The "venv" module provides support for creating lightweight “virtual
environments” with their own site directories, optionally isolated
from system site directories.  Each virtual environment has its own
Python binary (allowing creation of environments with various Python
versions) and can have its own independent set of installed Python
packages in its site directories.

See **PEP 405** for more information about Python virtual
environments.

Note:

  The "pyvenv" script has been deprecated as of Python 3.6 in favor of
  using "python3 -m venv" to help prevent any potential confusion as
  to which Python interpreter a virtual environment will be based on.


28.3.1. Creating virtual environments
=====================================

Creation of virtual environments is done by executing the command
"venv":

   python3 -m venv /path/to/new/virtual/environment

Running this command creates the target directory (creating any parent
directories that don’t exist already) and places a "pyvenv.cfg" file
in it with a "home" key pointing to the Python installation from which
the command was run.  It also creates a "bin" (or "Scripts" on
Windows) subdirectory containing a copy/symlink of the Python
binary/binaries (as appropriate for the platform or arguments used at
environment creation time). It also creates an (initially empty)
"lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages" subdirectory (on Windows, this is "Lib
\site-packages"). If an existing directory is specified, it will be
re-used.

Deprecated since version 3.6: "pyvenv" was the recommended tool for
creating virtual environments for Python 3.3 and 3.4, and is
deprecated in Python 3.6.

Changed in version 3.5: The use of "venv" is now recommended for
creating virtual environments.

See also:

  Python Packaging User Guide: Creating and using virtual environments

On Windows, invoke the "venv" command as follows:

   c:\>c:\Python35\python -m venv c:\path\to\myenv

Alternatively, if you configured the "PATH" and "PATHEXT" variables
for your Python installation:

   c:\>python -m venv c:\path\to\myenv

The command, if run with "-h", will show the available options:

   usage: venv [-h] [--system-site-packages] [--symlinks | --copies] [--clear]
               [--upgrade] [--without-pip]
               ENV_DIR [ENV_DIR ...]

   Creates virtual Python environments in one or more target directories.

   positional arguments:
     ENV_DIR               A directory to create the environment in.

   optional arguments:
     -h, --help            show this help message and exit
     --system-site-packages
                           Give the virtual environment access to the system
                           site-packages dir.
     --symlinks            Try to use symlinks rather than copies, when symlinks
                           are not the default for the platform.
     --copies              Try to use copies rather than symlinks, even when
                           symlinks are the default for the platform.
     --clear               Delete the contents of the environment directory if it
                           already exists, before environment creation.
     --upgrade             Upgrade the environment directory to use this version
                           of Python, assuming Python has been upgraded in-place.
     --without-pip         Skips installing or upgrading pip in the virtual
                           environment (pip is bootstrapped by default)

   Once an environment has been created, you may wish to activate it, e.g. by
   sourcing an activate script in its bin directory.

Changed in version 3.4: Installs pip by default, added the "--without-
pip"  and "--copies" options

Changed in version 3.4: In earlier versions, if the target directory
already existed, an error was raised, unless the "--clear" or "--
upgrade" option was provided.

The created "pyvenv.cfg" file also includes the "include-system-site-
packages" key, set to "true" if "venv" is run with the "--system-site-
packages" option, "false" otherwise.

Unless the "--without-pip" option is given, "ensurepip" will be
invoked to bootstrap "pip" into the virtual environment.

Multiple paths can be given to "venv", in which case an identical
virtual environment will be created, according to the given options,
at each provided path.

Once a virtual environment has been created, it can be “activated”
using a script in the virtual environment’s binary directory. The
invocation of the script is platform-specific (*<venv>* must be
replaced by the path of the directory containing the virtual
environment):

+---------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Platform      | Shell             | Command to activate virtual environment   |
|===============|===================|===========================================|
| Posix         | bash/zsh          | $ source <venv>/bin/activate              |
+---------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------+
|               | fish              | $ . <venv>/bin/activate.fish              |
+---------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------+
|               | csh/tcsh          | $ source <venv>/bin/activate.csh          |
+---------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------+
| Windows       | cmd.exe           | C:\> <venv>\Scripts\activate.bat          |
+---------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------+
|               | PowerShell        | PS C:\> <venv>\Scripts\Activate.ps1       |
+---------------+-------------------+-------------------------------------------+

You don’t specifically *need* to activate an environment; activation
just prepends the virtual environment’s binary directory to your path,
so that “python” invokes the virtual environment’s Python interpreter
and you can run installed scripts without having to use their full
path. However, all scripts installed in a virtual environment should
be runnable without activating it, and run with the virtual
environment’s Python automatically.

You can deactivate a virtual environment by typing “deactivate” in
your shell. The exact mechanism is platform-specific: for example, the
Bash activation script defines a “deactivate” function, whereas on
Windows there are separate scripts called "deactivate.bat" and
"Deactivate.ps1" which are installed when the virtual environment is
created.

New in version 3.4: "fish" and "csh" activation scripts.

Note:

  A virtual environment is a Python environment such that the Python
  interpreter, libraries and scripts installed into it are isolated
  from those installed in other virtual environments, and (by default)
  any libraries installed in a “system” Python, i.e., one which is
  installed as part of your operating system.A virtual environment is
  a directory tree which contains Python executable files and other
  files which indicate that it is a virtual environment.Common
  installation tools such as "Setuptools" and "pip" work as expected
  with virtual environments. In other words, when a virtual
  environment is active, they install Python packages into the virtual
  environment without needing to be told to do so explicitly.When a
  virtual environment is active (i.e., the virtual environment’s
  Python interpreter is running), the attributes "sys.prefix" and
  "sys.exec_prefix" point to the base directory of the virtual
  environment, whereas "sys.base_prefix" and "sys.base_exec_prefix"
  point to the non-virtual environment Python installation which was
  used to create the virtual environment. If a virtual environment is
  not active, then "sys.prefix" is the same as "sys.base_prefix" and
  "sys.exec_prefix" is the same as "sys.base_exec_prefix" (they all
  point to a non-virtual environment Python installation).When a
  virtual environment is active, any options that change the
  installation path will be ignored from all distutils configuration
  files to prevent projects being inadvertently installed outside of
  the virtual environment.When working in a command shell, users can
  make a virtual environment active by running an "activate" script in
  the virtual environment’s executables directory (the precise
  filename is shell-dependent), which prepends the virtual
  environment’s directory for executables to the "PATH" environment
  variable for the running shell. There should be no need in other
  circumstances to activate a virtual environment—scripts installed
  into virtual environments have a “shebang” line which points to the
  virtual environment’s Python interpreter. This means that the script
  will run with that interpreter regardless of the value of "PATH". On
  Windows, “shebang” line processing is supported if you have the
  Python Launcher for Windows installed (this was added to Python in
  3.3 - see **PEP 397** for more details). Thus, double-clicking an
  installed script in a Windows Explorer window should run the script
  with the correct interpreter without there needing to be any
  reference to its virtual environment in "PATH".


28.3.2. API
===========

The high-level method described above makes use of a simple API which
provides mechanisms for third-party virtual environment creators to
customize environment creation according to their needs, the
"EnvBuilder" class.

class venv.EnvBuilder(system_site_packages=False, clear=False, symlinks=False, upgrade=False, with_pip=False, prompt=None)

   The "EnvBuilder" class accepts the following keyword arguments on
   instantiation:

   * "system_site_packages" – a Boolean value indicating that the
     system Python site-packages should be available to the
     environment (defaults to "False").

   * "clear" – a Boolean value which, if true, will delete the
     contents of any existing target directory, before creating the
     environment.

   * "symlinks" – a Boolean value indicating whether to attempt to
     symlink the Python binary (and any necessary DLLs or other
     binaries, e.g. "pythonw.exe"), rather than copying.

   * "upgrade" – a Boolean value which, if true, will upgrade an
     existing environment with the running Python - for use when that
     Python has been upgraded in-place (defaults to "False").

   * "with_pip" – a Boolean value which, if true, ensures pip is
     installed in the virtual environment. This uses "ensurepip" with
     the "--default-pip" option.

   * "prompt" – a String to be used after virtual environment is
     activated (defaults to "None" which means directory name of the
     environment would be used).

   Changed in version 3.4: Added the "with_pip" parameter

   New in version 3.6: Added the "prompt" parameter

   Creators of third-party virtual environment tools will be free to
   use the provided "EnvBuilder" class as a base class.

   The returned env-builder is an object which has a method, "create":

   create(env_dir)

      This method takes as required argument the path (absolute or
      relative to the current directory) of the target directory which
      is to contain the virtual environment.  The "create" method will
      either create the environment in the specified directory, or
      raise an appropriate exception.

      The "create" method of the "EnvBuilder" class illustrates the
      hooks available for subclass customization:

         def create(self, env_dir):
             """
             Create a virtualized Python environment in a directory.
             env_dir is the target directory to create an environment in.
             """
             env_dir = os.path.abspath(env_dir)
             context = self.ensure_directories(env_dir)
             self.create_configuration(context)
             self.setup_python(context)
             self.setup_scripts(context)
             self.post_setup(context)

      Each of the methods "ensure_directories()",
      "create_configuration()", "setup_python()", "setup_scripts()"
      and "post_setup()" can be overridden.

   ensure_directories(env_dir)

      Creates the environment directory and all necessary directories,
      and returns a context object.  This is just a holder for
      attributes (such as paths), for use by the other methods. The
      directories are allowed to exist already, as long as either
      "clear" or "upgrade" were specified to allow operating on an
      existing environment directory.

   create_configuration(context)

      Creates the "pyvenv.cfg" configuration file in the environment.

   setup_python(context)

      Creates a copy of the Python executable (and, under Windows,
      DLLs) in the environment. On a POSIX system, if a specific
      executable "python3.x" was used, symlinks to "python" and
      "python3" will be created pointing to that executable, unless
      files with those names already exist.

   setup_scripts(context)

      Installs activation scripts appropriate to the platform into the
      virtual environment.

   post_setup(context)

      A placeholder method which can be overridden in third party
      implementations to pre-install packages in the virtual
      environment or perform other post-creation steps.

   In addition, "EnvBuilder" provides this utility method that can be
   called from "setup_scripts()" or "post_setup()" in subclasses to
   assist in installing custom scripts into the virtual environment.

   install_scripts(context, path)

      *path* is the path to a directory that should contain
      subdirectories “common”, “posix”, “nt”, each containing scripts
      destined for the bin directory in the environment.  The contents
      of “common” and the directory corresponding to "os.name" are
      copied after some text replacement of placeholders:

      * "__VENV_DIR__" is replaced with the absolute path of the
        environment directory.

      * "__VENV_NAME__" is replaced with the environment name (final
        path segment of environment directory).

      * "__VENV_PROMPT__" is replaced with the prompt (the environment
        name surrounded by parentheses and with a following space)

      * "__VENV_BIN_NAME__" is replaced with the name of the bin
        directory (either "bin" or "Scripts").

      * "__VENV_PYTHON__" is replaced with the absolute path of the
        environment’s executable.

      The directories are allowed to exist (for when an existing
      environment is being upgraded).

There is also a module-level convenience function:

venv.create(env_dir, system_site_packages=False, clear=False, symlinks=False, with_pip=False)

   Create an "EnvBuilder" with the given keyword arguments, and call
   its "create()" method with the *env_dir* argument.

   Changed in version 3.4: Added the "with_pip" parameter


28.3.3. An example of extending "EnvBuilder"
============================================

The following script shows how to extend "EnvBuilder" by implementing
a subclass which installs setuptools and pip into a created virtual
environment:

   import os
   import os.path
   from subprocess import Popen, PIPE
   import sys
   from threading import Thread
   from urllib.parse import urlparse
   from urllib.request import urlretrieve
   import venv

   class ExtendedEnvBuilder(venv.EnvBuilder):
       """
       This builder installs setuptools and pip so that you can pip or
       easy_install other packages into the created virtual environment.

       :param nodist: If True, setuptools and pip are not installed into the
                      created virtual environment.
       :param nopip: If True, pip is not installed into the created
                     virtual environment.
       :param progress: If setuptools or pip are installed, the progress of the
                        installation can be monitored by passing a progress
                        callable. If specified, it is called with two
                        arguments: a string indicating some progress, and a
                        context indicating where the string is coming from.
                        The context argument can have one of three values:
                        'main', indicating that it is called from virtualize()
                        itself, and 'stdout' and 'stderr', which are obtained
                        by reading lines from the output streams of a subprocess
                        which is used to install the app.

                        If a callable is not specified, default progress
                        information is output to sys.stderr.
       """

       def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
           self.nodist = kwargs.pop('nodist', False)
           self.nopip = kwargs.pop('nopip', False)
           self.progress = kwargs.pop('progress', None)
           self.verbose = kwargs.pop('verbose', False)
           super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)

       def post_setup(self, context):
           """
           Set up any packages which need to be pre-installed into the
           virtual environment being created.

           :param context: The information for the virtual environment
                           creation request being processed.
           """
           os.environ['VIRTUAL_ENV'] = context.env_dir
           if not self.nodist:
               self.install_setuptools(context)
           # Can't install pip without setuptools
           if not self.nopip and not self.nodist:
               self.install_pip(context)

       def reader(self, stream, context):
           """
           Read lines from a subprocess' output stream and either pass to a progress
           callable (if specified) or write progress information to sys.stderr.
           """
           progress = self.progress
           while True:
               s = stream.readline()
               if not s:
                   break
               if progress is not None:
                   progress(s, context)
               else:
                   if not self.verbose:
                       sys.stderr.write('.')
                   else:
                       sys.stderr.write(s.decode('utf-8'))
                   sys.stderr.flush()
           stream.close()

       def install_script(self, context, name, url):
           _, _, path, _, _, _ = urlparse(url)
           fn = os.path.split(path)[-1]
           binpath = context.bin_path
           distpath = os.path.join(binpath, fn)
           # Download script into the virtual environment's binaries folder
           urlretrieve(url, distpath)
           progress = self.progress
           if self.verbose:
               term = '\n'
           else:
               term = ''
           if progress is not None:
               progress('Installing %s ...%s' % (name, term), 'main')
           else:
               sys.stderr.write('Installing %s ...%s' % (name, term))
               sys.stderr.flush()
           # Install in the virtual environment
           args = [context.env_exe, fn]
           p = Popen(args, stdout=PIPE, stderr=PIPE, cwd=binpath)
           t1 = Thread(target=self.reader, args=(p.stdout, 'stdout'))
           t1.start()
           t2 = Thread(target=self.reader, args=(p.stderr, 'stderr'))
           t2.start()
           p.wait()
           t1.join()
           t2.join()
           if progress is not None:
               progress('done.', 'main')
           else:
               sys.stderr.write('done.\n')
           # Clean up - no longer needed
           os.unlink(distpath)

       def install_setuptools(self, context):
           """
           Install setuptools in the virtual environment.

           :param context: The information for the virtual environment
                           creation request being processed.
           """
           url = 'https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/downloads/ez_setup.py'
           self.install_script(context, 'setuptools', url)
           # clear up the setuptools archive which gets downloaded
           pred = lambda o: o.startswith('setuptools-') and o.endswith('.tar.gz')
           files = filter(pred, os.listdir(context.bin_path))
           for f in files:
               f = os.path.join(context.bin_path, f)
               os.unlink(f)

       def install_pip(self, context):
           """
           Install pip in the virtual environment.

           :param context: The information for the virtual environment
                           creation request being processed.
           """
           url = 'https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py'
           self.install_script(context, 'pip', url)

   def main(args=None):
       compatible = True
       if sys.version_info < (3, 3):
           compatible = False
       elif not hasattr(sys, 'base_prefix'):
           compatible = False
       if not compatible:
           raise ValueError('This script is only for use with '
                            'Python 3.3 or later')
       else:
           import argparse

           parser = argparse.ArgumentParser(prog=__name__,
                                            description='Creates virtual Python '
                                                        'environments in one or '
                                                        'more target '
                                                        'directories.')
           parser.add_argument('dirs', metavar='ENV_DIR', nargs='+',
                               help='A directory in which to create the
                                    'virtual environment.')
           parser.add_argument('--no-setuptools', default=False,
                               action='store_true', dest='nodist',
                               help="Don't install setuptools or pip in the "
                                    "virtual environment.")
           parser.add_argument('--no-pip', default=False,
                               action='store_true', dest='nopip',
                               help="Don't install pip in the virtual "
                                    "environment.")
           parser.add_argument('--system-site-packages', default=False,
                               action='store_true', dest='system_site',
                               help='Give the virtual environment access to the '
                                    'system site-packages dir.')
           if os.name == 'nt':
               use_symlinks = False
           else:
               use_symlinks = True
           parser.add_argument('--symlinks', default=use_symlinks,
                               action='store_true', dest='symlinks',
                               help='Try to use symlinks rather than copies, '
                                    'when symlinks are not the default for '
                                    'the platform.')
           parser.add_argument('--clear', default=False, action='store_true',
                               dest='clear', help='Delete the contents of the '
                                                  'virtual environment '
                                                  'directory if it already '
                                                  'exists, before virtual '
                                                  'environment creation.')
           parser.add_argument('--upgrade', default=False, action='store_true',
                               dest='upgrade', help='Upgrade the virtual '
                                                    'environment directory to '
                                                    'use this version of '
                                                    'Python, assuming Python '
                                                    'has been upgraded '
                                                    'in-place.')
           parser.add_argument('--verbose', default=False, action='store_true',
                               dest='verbose', help='Display the output '
                                                  'from the scripts which '
                                                  'install setuptools and pip.')
           options = parser.parse_args(args)
           if options.upgrade and options.clear:
               raise ValueError('you cannot supply --upgrade and --clear together.')
           builder = ExtendedEnvBuilder(system_site_packages=options.system_site,
                                          clear=options.clear,
                                          symlinks=options.symlinks,
                                          upgrade=options.upgrade,
                                          nodist=options.nodist,
                                          nopip=options.nopip,
                                          verbose=options.verbose)
           for d in options.dirs:
               builder.create(d)

   if __name__ == '__main__':
       rc = 1
       try:
           main()
           rc = 0
       except Exception as e:
           print('Error: %s' % e, file=sys.stderr)
       sys.exit(rc)

This script is also available for download online.
