Install local dist package into virtualenv

Question

I have a pytest test, let's call it test.py. I used to run this test outside of virtualenv; now I'm trying to run it inside a virtualenv sandbox.

The project is structured like this:

~/project/test # where test.py and all virtualenv files live
~/project/mylibrary

test.py imports from mylibrary. In the past, this worked because I have the code in ~/project/mylibrary installed into /usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/mylibrary.

I can't run virtualenv with the --system-site-packages flag. I also can't move the code from ~/project/mylibrary into the ~/project/test folder. How can I get access to the code in mylibrary inside my virtualenv?

Answer 1

You don't need to do anything special - as long as you are working inside a virtualenv, python setup.py install will automatically install packages into

$VIRTUAL_ENV/lib/python2.7/site-packages

rather than your system-wide

/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages

directory.

In general it's better to use pip install mylibrary/, since this way you can neatly uninstall the package using pip uninstall mylibrary.

If you're installing a working copy of some code that you're developing, it might be a good idea to install it in "editable" mode using pip install -e mylibrary/, which creates a link to your source directory so that your installed module gets updated as you edit the code.