How to leave/exit/deactivate a Python virtualenv

Question

I'm using virtualenv and the virtualenvwrapper. I can switch between virtualenv's just fine using the workon command.

me@mymachine:~$ workon env1
(env1)me@mymachine:~$ workon env2
(env2)me@mymachine:~$ workon env1
(env1)me@mymachine:~$ 

However, how do I exit all virtual machines and workon my real machine again? Right now, the only way I have of getting back to

me@mymachine:~$ 

is to exit the shell and start a new one. That's kind of annoying. Is there a command to workon "nothing", and if so, what is it? If such a command does not exist, how would I go about creating it?

Answer 1

Usually, activating a virtualenv gives you a shell function named:

$ deactivate

which puts things back to normal.

I have just looked specifically again at the code for virtualenvwrapper, and, yes, it too supports deactivate as the way to escape from all virtualenvs.

If you are trying to leave an Anaconda environment, the procedure is a bit different: run the two-word command source deactivate since they implement deactivation using a stand-alone script.

bash-4.3$ deactivate
pyenv-virtualenv: deactivate must be sourced. Run 'source deactivate' instead of 'deactivate'
bash-4.3$ source deactivate
pyenv-virtualenv: no virtualenv has been activated.

Answer 2

I defined an alias workoff as the opposite of workon:

alias workoff='deactivate'

Easy to remember:

[bobstein@host ~]$ workon django_project
(django_project)[bobstein@host ~]$ workoff
[bobstein@host ~]$

Answer 3

$ deactivate 

If this doesn't work , try

$ source deactivate

Anyone who knows how bash source works will think that's odd, but some wrappers/workflows around virtualenv implement as a compliment/counterpart to source activate. YMMV

Answer 4

to activate python virtual environment:

$cd ~/python-venv/
$./bin/activate

to deactivate:

$deactivate

Answer 5

I found that when within a Miniconda3 environment I had to run:

conda deactivate

Neither deactivate nor source deactivate worked for me.

Answer 6

You can use virtualenvwrapper in order to ease the way you work with virtualenv

Installing virtualenvwrapper

pip install virtualenvwrapper

If you are using standard shell, open your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc if you use oh-my-zsh. Add this two lines:

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

To activate an existing virtualenv, use command workon:

$ workon myenv
(myenv)$

In order to deactivate your virtualenv:

(myenv)$ deactivate

Here is my tutorial, step by step in how to install virtualenv and virtualenvwrapper

Answer 7

Use deactivate.

(my_env) user@user:~/my_env$ deactivate
user@user-Lenovo-E40-80:~/my_env$ 

Note, (my_env) is gone.

Answer 8

I use zsh-autoenv which is based off autoenv.

zsh-autoenv automatically sources (known/whitelisted) .autoenv.zsh files, typically used in project root directories. It handles "enter" and leave" events, nesting, and stashing of variables (overwriting and restoring).

Here is an example:

; cd dtree 
Switching to virtual environment: Development tree utiles
;dtree(feature/task24|✓); cat .autoenv.zsh       
# Autoenv.
echo -n "Switching to virtual environment: "
printf "\e[38;5;93m%s\e[0m\n" "Development tree utiles"
workon dtree
# eof
dtree(feature/task24|✓); cat .autoenv_leave.zsh 
deactivate

So when I leave the dtree directory, the virtual environment is automatically exited.

Answer 9

Since the deactivate function created by sourcing ~/bin/activate cannot be discovered by the usual means of looking for such a command in ~/bin, you may wish to create one that just executes the function deactivate.

The problem is that a script named deactivate containing a single command deactivate will cause an endless loop if accidentally executed while not in the venv. A common mistake.

This can be avoided by only executing deactivate if the function exists (i.e. has been created by sourcing activate).

#!/bin/bash

declare -Ff deactivate  && deactivate

Answer 10

Had the same problem myself while working on an installer script, I took a look at what the bin/activate_this.py did and reversed it.

Example:

#! /usr/bin/python
# -*- coding: utf-8 -*-
import os
import sys

# path to virtualenv
venv_path = os.path.join('/home', 'sixdays', '.virtualenvs', 'test32')

# Save old values
old_os_path = os.environ['PATH']
old_sys_path = list(sys.path)
old_sys_prefix = sys.prefix


def deactivate():
    # Change back by setting values to starting values
    os.environ['PATH'] = old_os_path
    sys.prefix = old_sys_prefix
    sys.path[:0] = old_sys_path


# Activate the virtualenvironment
activate_this = os.path.join(venv_path, 'bin/activate_this.py')
execfile(activate_this, dict(__file__=activate_this))


# Print list of pip packages for virtualenv for example purpose
import pip
print str(pip.get_installed_distributions())
# Unload pip module
del pip

# deactive/switch back to initial interpreter
deactivate()

# print list of initial environment pip packages for example purpose
import pip
print str(pip.get_installed_distributions())

Not 100% sure if it works as intended, I may have missed something completely.