making a commandline alias to a python file in a pipenv project

Question

I\'ve been making a python project using pipenv, and I want to be able to run it in a terminal from any location on my (linux) system. Specifically, say I have the following

Answer 1

You should use the standard setuptools library to write a setup.py file. In particular you can write an entry_points section that names your main script:

entry_points={
  'console_scripts': [
    'alias_to_my_project = project.main.main'
  ]
}

Once you've done this, you can activate and install your package into your virtual environment

pipenv install -e .

# or without pipenv
. ~/vpy/bin/activate
pip install -e .

This will create a wrapper script in $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/alias_to_my_project that loads the project.main Python module and calls its main function.

The wrapper script knows about the virtual environment and can be called directly without specifically activating the virtual environment. So you can do something like

ln -s $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/alias_to_my_project $HOME/bin/alias_to_my_project
PATH=$HOME/bin:$PATH

and it will always be available.