how to copy modules from one virtualenv to another

Question

Is it possibe to copy python modules from one virtualenv to another.If so how is this done?

Solution 1

As long as you're moving them from one virtualenv to another on the same machine, you could easily just do:

$ cp -r [env1]/lib/pythonX.X/site-packages/* [env2]/lib/pythonX.X/site-packages/

However, if the environments are on different machines or utilizing different versions of python or some other major difference, it's probably not a good idea. In general it's much safer to generate a requirements.txt, and then use that to load up all the same modules in the other environment. You can create the file manually if you like, but it's easier to just use pip.

$ pip freeze -E [env1] > requirements.txt

Or, if your virtualenv is activated already, you can simply do:

$ pip freeze > requirements.txt

Then, in your other environment, you can do:

$ pip install -E [env2] -r /path/to/requirements.txt

Solution 2

I am working on a 64bit machine with Ubuntu-14.04-64. I compiled and installed python-3.4.3 to /opt/python3.4/ and created a vitualenv based on this python.

mkvirtualenv -p /opt/python3.4/bin/python venv1

Also for ease:

sudo apt-get install virtualenvwrapper

With the venv installed and working with PyQt5 successfully (the hard bit) plus numpy, scipy, ipython etc. I installed virtualenv-clone:

workon myvenv
pip install virtual-clone
deactivate

and then ran:

virtualenv-clone venv1 venv2

PyQt5 works this way. The command-line prompt still names venv1 as active but within ~/.virtualenv/venv2

cat activate* | grep "venv1"

shows 3 entries within the three files activate, activate.csh, and activate.fish

In activate, change

if [ "x(myvenv1) " != x ] ; then
        PS1="(myvenv1) $PS1"
else

to

...
        PS1="(myvenv2) $PS1"
...

In activate.csh change

if ("venv1" != "") then
        set env_name = "venv1"
else

to

...
    set env_name = "venv2"
...

In activate.fish change

if test -n "(venv1) "
        printf "%s%s%s" "(venv1) " (set_color normal) (_old_fish_prompt)
        return
end

to

...
    printf "%s%s%s" "(venv2) " (set_color normal) (_old_fish_prompt)
...

Now when you source ~/.virtualenv/venv2/bin/activate or workon venv2 the command prompt will correctly display your environment (the cloned copy of venv1).

Edit: this doesn't answer the question "How to copy modules from one virtualenv to another" but I'm pretty sure the result is in many cases the desired one, namely the creation of a new venv based on a previously created one which includes (all of) the previously installed modules.

Solution 3

Usually you are able to copy the .egg-info from the lib/site-packages folder of the virtualenv to the lib/site-packages of the other environment.

Solution 4

seems like we can't just copy one virtualenv as another one. even you chnage the $VIRTUAL_ENV in the activate file, it still act as in origin virtualenv and pip will install all the packages to origin site-packages/

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