Calling IPython from a virtualenv

Question

I understand that IPython is not virtualenv-aware and that the most logical solution to this is to install ipython in each virtualenv seperately using

pip i         


        

Answer 1

(Debian/Ubuntu) assuming some version (x) of Python3 is installed, then:

$ sudo apt-get install -y ipython
$ virtualenv --python=python3.x .venv
$ source .venv/bin/activate
$ pip3 install ipython
$ ipython3

will launch ipython running your version of Python3.

Answer 2

If you're trying to open a notebook, even ipython 5 won't help - ipython will disregard the virtualenv (at least on my machine/setup). You'll need to use rgtk's script, but please make sure to modify the optional filter part and the sys.path.insert as below:

import os
import sys

if 'VIRTUAL_ENV' in os.environ:
    py_version = sys.version_info[:2] # formatted as X.Y 
    py_infix = os.path.join('lib', ('python%d.%d' % py_version))
    virtual_site = os.path.join(os.environ.get('VIRTUAL_ENV'), py_infix, 'site-packages')
    dist_site = os.path.join('/usr', py_infix, 'dist-packages')

    # OPTIONAL: exclude debian-based system distributions sites
    # ADD1: sys.path must be a list
    sys.path = list(filter(lambda p: not p.startswith(dist_site), sys.path))

    # add virtualenv site
    # ADD2: insert(0 is wrong and breaks conformance of sys.path
    sys.path.insert(1, virtual_site)

• ADD1: in the original script we get back a filter object, we would break sys.path and insert below would fail
• ADD2: see this question and python documentation