python alias in ~/.zshrc overrides virtual environment source

Question

I've got a couple aliases setup in my terminal session initialization shell script ~/.zshrc

alias python=/opt/homebrew/bin/python3.9
alias pip=/opt/homebrew/bin/pip3.9

These are interfering with my virtual environment workflow:

>>> cd my_project
>>> python -m venv venv
>>> source venv/bin/activate
>>> which python
python: aliased to /opt/homebrew/bin/python3.9

You can see how the virtual environment was not activated. Any suggestions on how I can work with venv while having these aliases setup in my ~/.zshrc?

Answer 1

Create a directory ~/bin. In that directory create two links:

ln -vs /opt/homebrew/bin/python3.9 ~/bin/python
ln -vs /opt/homebrew/bin/pip3.9 ~/bin/pip

Edit your .zshrs to include:

export PATH=~/bin:$PATH

The links will hide the normal executables. When virtualenv will be activated, the links will be hiden by the PATH set up by virtualenv.