Venv Tutorial

TL;DR

Virtual environments create isolated Python installations to prevent package conflicts between projects using python -m venv.

Interesting!

Virtual environments solve the “dependency hell” problem - you can have different versions of the same library for different projects without conflicts!

Creating a Virtual Environment

# Create a new virtual environment
python -m venv myproject-env

# Activate it (Unix/MacOS)
source myproject-env/bin/activate

# Activate it (Windows)
myproject-env\Scripts\activate

When activated, your prompt shows the environment name: (myproject-env) $

Managing Packages

# Install packages
python -m pip install requests
python -m pip install numpy==1.21.0

# List installed packages
python -m pip list

# Save requirements
python -m pip freeze > requirements.txt

# Install from requirements
python -m pip install -r requirements.txt

Common Workflow

# Create and activate environment
python -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

# Install project dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt

# Work on your project...

# Deactivate when done
deactivate

Best Practices

• Use .venv as your environment directory name (it’s gitignored by default)
• Always activate before installing packages
• Use requirements.txt to track dependencies
• Deactivate when switching projects

Virtual environments keep your projects clean and your global Python installation uncluttered! Use venv with module organization and command-line tools . Essential for database projects and works seamlessly with path management for project structure.

Reference: Virtual Environments and Packages