Create a virtual_env¶

Description

A simple tutorial introducing the basics of Plone development.

Now that we have a clean install of Python 2.7 we can move on to the second step in our process, creating the virtual_env.

Use the virtualenv script from the Build Python section above, create our virtual_env directory.:
```
# change your working directory to python_dev
cd ..
./buildout.python/bin/virtualenv-2.7 env-27
```

This creates the env-27 directory.:

                      [michaelc@Cullerton python_dev]$ ll
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  16 michaelc  staff  544 Aug 25 20:27 buildout.python
drwxr-xr-x   5 michaelc  staff  170 Aug 25 20:39 env-27

                    

The virtual_env has its own Python bin, include and lib directories.:

                      [michaelc@Cullerton python_dev]$ ll env-27/
total 0
drwxr-xr-x  12 michaelc  staff  408 Aug 25 20:39 bin
drwxr-xr-x   3 michaelc  staff  102 Aug 25 20:39 include
drwxr-xr-x   3 michaelc  staff  102 Aug 25 20:39 lib

                    

In the bin directory, the virtual_env has 2 copies of Python 2.7; python and python2.7. It also has easy_install and pip, to install Python packages.:

                      [michaelc@Cullerton python_dev]$ ll env-27/bin/
total 8144
-rw-r--r--  1 michaelc  staff     2227 Aug 25 20:39 activate
-rw-r--r--  1 michaelc  staff     1114 Aug 25 20:39 activate.csh
-rw-r--r--  1 michaelc  staff     2422 Aug 25 20:39 activate.fish
-rw-r--r--  1 michaelc  staff     1129 Aug 25 20:39 activate_this.py
-rwxr-xr-x  1 michaelc  staff      368 Aug 25 20:39 easy_install
-rwxr-xr-x  1 michaelc  staff      376 Aug 25 20:39 easy_install-2.7
-rwxr-xr-x  1 michaelc  staff      320 Aug 25 20:39 pip
-rwxr-xr-x  1 michaelc  staff      328 Aug 25 20:39 pip-2.7
-rwxr-xr-x  1 michaelc  staff  2065616 Aug 25 20:39 python
-rwxr-xr-x  1 michaelc  staff  2065616 Aug 25 20:39 python2.7

                    

Note

The bin directory also has an activate script you can use to isolate your commands within your virtual_env. It modifies your $PATH so its first entry is the virtualenv's bin/ directory

Note

Now that we have our virtual_env, we won't use buildout.python again for these examples. However, you can return there later to create new virtual environments for other Python projects.:

                        # from the **python_dev** directory
./buildout.python/bin/virtualenv-2.7 some_other_env-27

You can also build the versions of Python that we skipped in the Build Python section above, and then use them to build new Python virtual_envs.:

                        # from the **python_dev** directory
./buildout.python/bin/virtualenv-3.2 some_env-32

For more information about virtualenv, see the virtualenv documentation .