virtualenvwrapper-win

This is a port of Doug Hellmann's virtualenvwrapper to Windows batch scripts. The idea behind virtualenvwrapper is to ease usage of Ian Bicking's virtualenv, a tool for creating isolated Python virtual environments, each with their own libraries and site-packages.

These scripts should work on any version of Windows (Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7/8/10).

However, they only work in the regular command prompt. They will not work in Powershell. There are other virtualenvwrapper projects out there for Powershell.

Installation

For Windows only

To use these scripts from any directory, make sure the Scripts subdirectory of Python is in your PATH. For example, if python is installed in C:\Python27\, you should make sure C:\Python27\Scripts is in your PATH.

To install, run one of the following:

# using pip
pip install virtualenvwrapper-win

# using easy_install
easy_install virtualenvwrapper-win

# from source
git clone git://github.com/davidmarble/virtualenvwrapper-win.git
cd virtualenvwrapper-win
python setup.py install   # or pip install .

WORKON_HOME (Optional)

Add an environment variable WORKON_HOME to specify the path to store environments. By default, this is %USERPROFILE%\Envs.

pywin (Optional)

pywin python version switcher (not included)

If you use several versions of python, you can switch between them using a separate project pywin. It's a lightweight python 2.5-3.3 launcher and switcher I wrote for the Windows command line and MSYS/MINGW32. It's similar to the py.exe launcher/switcher available in python 3.3, but written with basic Windows batch scripts and a shell script for MSYS/MINGW32 support. I use bash and command line shell tools from msysgit, based on MSYS/MINGW32, to do most of my python development on Windows.

Main Commands

mkvirtualenv [mkvirtualenv-options] [virtualenv-options] <name>

Create a new virtualenv environment named <name>. The environment will be created in WORKON_HOME.

mkvirtualenv options:

-h	Print help text.
-a project_path
	Associate existing path as project directory
-i package	Install package in new environment. This option can be repeated to install more than one package.
-r requirements_file
	requirements_file is passed to pip install -r requirements_file

any other options are passed on to the virtualenv command. For recent versions of virtualenv, the -p / --python can take version numbers instead of the full path to the interpreter, e.g. mkvirtualenv -p3.5 <name> (assuming you have a Python 3.5.x interpreter installed).

lsvirtualenv

List all of the enviornments stored in WORKON_HOME.

rmvirtualenv <name>

Remove the environment <name>.

workon [<name>]

If <name> is specified, activate the environment named <name> (change the working virtualenv to <name>). If a project directory has been defined, we will change into it. If no argument is specified, list the available environments. One can pass additional option -c after virtualenv name to cd to virtualenv directory if no projectdir is set.

deactivate

Deactivate the working virtualenv and switch back to the default system Python.

add2virtualenv <full or relative path>

If a virtualenv environment is active, appends <path> to virtualenv_path_extensions.pth inside the environment's site-packages, which effectively adds <path> to the environment's PYTHONPATH. If a virtualenv environment is not active, appends <path> to virtualenv_path_extensions.pth inside the default Python's site-packages. If <path> doesn't exist, it will be created.

Convenience Commands

cdproject

If a virtualenv environment is active and a projectdir has been defined, change the current working directory to active virtualenv's project directory. cd- will return you to the last directory you were in before calling cdproject.

cdsitepackages

If a virtualenv environment is active, change the current working directory to the active virtualenv's site-packages directory. If a virtualenv environment is not active, change the current working directory to the default Python's site-packages directory. cd- will return you to the last directory you were in before calling cdsitepackages.

cdvirtualenv

If a virtualenv environment is active, change the current working directory to the active virtualenv base directory. If a virtualenv environment is not active, change the current working directory to the base directory of the default Python. cd- will return you to the last directory you were in before calling cdvirtualenv.

lssitepackages

If a virtualenv environment is active, list that environment's site-packages. If a virtualenv environment is not active, list the default Python's site-packages. Output includes a basic listing of the site-packages directory, the contents of easy-install.pth, and the contents of virtualenv_path_extensions.pth (used by add2virtualenv).

mkproject

If the environment variable PROJECT_HOME is set, create a new project directory in PROJECT_HOME and a virtualenv in WORKON_HOME. The project path will automatically be associated with the virtualenv on creation.

setprojectdir <full or relative path>

If a virtualenv environment is active, define <path> as project directory containing the source code. This allows the use of cdproject to change the working directory. In addition, the directory will be added to the environment using add2virtualenv. If <path> doesn't exist, it will be created.

toggleglobalsitepackages

If a virtualenv environment is active, toggle between having the global site-packages in the PYTHONPATH or just the virtualenv's site-packages.

whereis <file>

A script included for convenience. Returns the locations (on %PATH%) that contain an executable file. You can call whereis python to find all executables starting with python or whereis python.exe for an exact match.

virtualenvwrapper

Print a list of commands and their descriptions as basic help output. (added in v.1.2.4)

Hooks

To run some commands after mkvirtualenv you can use hooks. First you need to define VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_HOOK_DIR variable. If it is set mkvirtualenv will run postmkvirtualenv.bat script from that directory.