How to add virtualenv to path

Question

I am trying to find out why my virtualenv and/or virtualenv wrapper - installed using pip using homebrew - cannot be found. I think it's because it's not added to my PATH:

$ which virtualenv
$ 

and:

$ virtualenv someDir
$ -bash: virtualenv: command not found

I installed pip using homebrew, and virtualenv using pip, without problems. I tried reinstalling virtualenv, but that did not work either. How do I know what path to add to PATH? Just the path that virtualenv.py seems to be installed into? That seems to be:

/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/virtualenv.py

I also found this guide, which suggests this:

$ ln -s ../Cellar/python/2.7/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/virtualenv virtualenv

However, it does not help me run virtualenv. I am on Mac OSX 10.7.5 (Lion).

Solution 1

It seems that I myself am the exception to the rule for almost all 'simple' installation procedures. For some reason, it WAS a path related issue:

I ran brew info python, which outputted a lot of information. At the bottom I found this:

Executable python scripts will be put in:
/usr/local/share/python
so you may want to put "/usr/local/share/python" in your PATH, too.

I added that to my PATH in /etc/launchd.conf and ~/.bashrc and lo and behold:

$ which virtualenv 

tells me:

"/usr/local/share/python/virtualenv"

I still don't know why I couldn't find any pointers in the right direction, online, anywhere? Is pip install virtualenv supposed to add to the PATH itself? If so, why not on my system? Why did @bibhas tell me explicitly it was not a path issue?

Solution 2

Had the same issue after pip install virtualenv

When I inspected python ls -la /usr/local/bin/python I found it was symbolically linked to /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python

When I cd in that directory I also found the virtualenv executable and

Fixed it by

1. cd /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin
2. ln virtualenv /usr/local/bin/virtualenv

Sidenote: I also happen to have a python installation in /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin

I believe that's the one that came with OSX

Solution 3

In your .bashrc you need to have:

export WORKON_HOME=~/.virtualenvs
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

Solution 4

I solved it by: At first, I found out it is located at /usr/local/python3 and then I fixed it by the command:

ln virtualenv /usr/local/bin/virtualenv

Solution 5

(Mac / Linux specific) So I got an error message when I did a pip3 install --user --upgrade virtualenv telling me that I did not have Users/home/Library/Python/3.7/bin in my PATH. So I simply added it.

If this is on the Mac, the following did it for me

vi ~/.bash_profile



PATH="/Users/home/Library/Python/3.7/bin:/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.7/bin:${PATH}"

restart your terminal and type virtualenv env and that should do it.

View more solutions

Comments

[Bibhas Debnath]

It's not a path issue. Pip puts an executable file named virtualenv in /usr/local/bin/ when successfully installed. Try pip uninstall virtualenv and then reinstall sudo pip install virtualenv. sudo because you'll need to install it in global scope.

[Michael Trouw]

@Bibhas but if i load launchd.conf, i have /usr/local/bin added to my path so then i should be able to just use virtualenv in bash right? or pip only put it there when using sudo? where could i have found this information?

[Michael Trouw]

@Bibhas i tried what you suggested, i did: + $ pip uninstall virtualenv + $ pip uninstall virtualenvwrapper + $ sudo pip install virtualenv + $ cd /usr/local/bin/ + $ find virtualenv + find: virtualenv: No such file or directory`` So something is going wrong here? that would make sense... but why??

[Bibhas Debnath]

how did you install pip? which package did you install with brew? can you check the pip version with pip -V? when you install virtualenv with pip, does it give any error? can you post the install log?

[Michael Trouw]

See this screenshot d.pr/i/paQQ for the first 3 questions, and this one for installing virtualenv: d.pr/i/c4pE and virtualenvwrapper: d.pr/i/L7E0 Also, i had no errors installing virtualenv at any time, i did have warnings..

[Scott Stensland]

my solution was : sudo -H pip install virtualenv

[Michael Trouw]

i'm sorry, but my pip/bash fu is not nearly good enough to understand your solution, could you please elaborate?

[Michael Trouw]

When i try this (i've put it in both .bashrc which i had to create, and .bash_profile) it tells me this: -bash: /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh: No such file or directory

[Michael Trouw]

I think this is nice if it works out of the box, but 1) it's a workaround for my problem, and 2) i cannot install it using homebrew, which i came to like as a package manager since a few months :)

[Michael Trouw]

this i could have expected: if i download pythonbrewm which relies on virtualenv, and i try to use it, guess what: futuremaggel:~ supermaggel$ pythonbrew -bash: pythonbrew: command not found futuremaggel:~ supermaggel$ which pythonbrew futuremaggel:~ supermaggel$ it doesn't know the command or cannot find it.. same problem as i have with virtualenv.

[Claudiu]

funny cause brew just told me to remove that from my path because it works differently now, yet then i could no longer use virtualenv..

[aendra]

Thanks for a well-written solution, totally solved my problem.

[northben]

and then open a new bash shell: bash or close and reopen your terminal

[fearless_fool]

Worked for me. I'm curious what caused it to end up in this state.

[Kevin Smith]

Worked for me, although my virtualenv executable was at a different location. Also turns out the pip install virtualenv, outcome, has a waring message indicating that /usr/local/bin/virtualenv should be added to PATH.