Virtual Environments

They’re like worlds in which you can run and test code. In such a world, you can have specific versions of different packages installed, to ensure compatibility, and so you can keep your global environment clean.

Basically it isolates your development/testing environment.

How do I make one?

python3 -m venv env

with “env” being the name of your environment.

How do I start using it?

source env/bin/activate

and to get out of the environment:

deactivate

How does it work?

Running the first command will create a folder called env. In this folder are a few important items, namely “bin” and “lib”

bin

The bin folder contains lots of executables which tell your environment what to do when you run certain commands. pip3, easy_install, and python3 are some of these executables you will get by default.

lib

The lib folder contains all the packages you install inside the environment. Find them in lib/python3.x/site-packages/.