Using pyenv for Python projects

Table of Contents

Using pyenv to manage your virtual environments makes working on multiple projects, each using a different version of python a breeze.

I do all my development on an Apple Macbook running Yosemite and my production environment is a VPS from Linode running CentOS 7.

Here some simple notes on how I setup and use pyenv :

Installing on Mac OS X

Install using homebrew

brew install pyenv pyenv-virtualenv

Update your shell profile (.bashrc or .zshrc) adding the following to it (and restart your terminal)

if which pyenv > /dev/null; then eval "$(pyenv init -)"; fi
if which pyenv-virtualenv-init > /dev/null; then eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)"; fi

Installing on Linux CentOS 7

Checkout from github

git clone https://github.com/yyuu/pyenv.git ~/.pyenv
git clone https://github.com/yyuu/pyenv-virtualenv.git ~/.pyenv/plugins/pyenv-virtualenv

Update your shell profile (.bashrc or .zshrc) adding the following to it (and restart your terminal)

echo 'export PYENV_ROOT="$HOME/.pyenv"' >> ~/.bash_profile
echo 'export PATH="$PYENV_ROOT/bin:$PATH"' >> ~/.bash_profile
echo 'eval "$(pyenv init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile
echo 'eval "$(pyenv virtualenv-init -)"' >> ~/.bash_profile

Using pyenv

To install a new version of Python

pyenv install <version>
pyenv rehash

To get a list of Python versions available

pyenv install -l

To create a new virtual environment

pyenv virtualenv [pyenv-version] [virtualenv-name]

To use your new virtual environment within your project

  1. Change to your projects root directory
  2. Run:
pyenv local [virtualenv-name]

Note that this is done only the first time you go to your project directory. The wonderful thing about pyenv is in future when you change directory to your project directory, it will be automatically activated your virtualenv for you.