How to create Python Virtual Environments

This tutorial is for How to create Python Virtual Environments. A virtual environment is a tool that helps to keep dependencies required by different projects separate by creating. the virtual environment uses specific projects in the required packages installed so it can not affect another project. the virtual environment is one of the most important tools.

You are working on two web-based python projects one uses request 2.7.0 and the other uses request 2.25.1 and so on. In this situation, the virtual environment can be really useful to maintain dependencies of both projects using requires packages.

Check your Python installation has to pip

pip -V

If you see something like this: pip 20.3.3 from /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/pip (python 3.8) text so you have pip installed, otherwise download and install pip.

Installing virtualenv

pip install virtualenv

Check your installation:

virtualenv --version

Output : virtualenv 20.2.2 from /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/virtualenv/__init__.py

Create the virtualenv

To create a virtual environment, you must specify a folder path.

virtualenv devnote

Run this command to create a directory named devnote will be created. Go to devnote directory and activate the python environment by running the following command:

# Linux / Mac OS

source bin/activate

# Windows

devnote\Scripts\activate

The virtual environment is activated, and the name of your virtual environment will appear on the left side of the terminal e.g. (devnote) root@ubuntu:/home/dev/Desktop/devnote#. Now work with your virtual environment.

The requests 2.7.0 package will be placed in devnote folder and will be isolated from the complete system.

pip install requests==2.25.1

Check install packages

Check how many packages are installed in your environment.

pip freeze

Deactivate the virtualenv

Once done with the work, you can deactivate the virtual environment and use your original Python environment by the following command:

deactivate