tl.buildout_virtual_python 0.2

Use cases

Using a virtual Python gives you a Python environment which is writable for other parts of the buildout without the need to compile Python from source. It is isolated from other buildouts as well as from its parent Python installation while it may still share the parent Python’s installed libraries. Depending on your situation, these features may be considered helpful or harmful. The recipe provides mechanism and leaves choosing policy up to you.

Another aspect is that of providing a real Python executable which has access to libraries installed by the buildout. Normally, zc.buildout makes installed Python libraries accessible by creating the Python scripts in bin/ as wrappers that set up an appropriate sys.path and then call one of the console_script entry points of some installed egg. Sometimes this isn’t a workable approach, for example:

• when one of the programs calls sys.executable and expects it to have the same libraries installed that the calling code can import

• when the code being installed is intended to be run by an embedded Python interpreter, such as when setting up a mod_python application

In those cases, install the required libraries into a virtual Python environment and use that as another buildout part’s Python installation.

Options

A buildout part created by this recipe exports an executable option so it may be used as a part defining a Python installation in a buildout, i.e. a buildout section’s python option may reference it.

Configuration options:

executable-name:

Basename of the virtual Python installation’s interpreter executable.

interpreter:

Basename of a Python interpreter in the buildout’s bin directory that uses the virtual Python installation. No such interpreter is created if the option is not set.

real-python:

Filesystem path to the interpreter executable of the Python installation that should be used as the parent Python.

site-packages:

Boolean switch, whether to make the parent Python’s site-packages library directory available to the virtual Python.

eggs:

Specifications of eggs to be available to the virtual Python.

extra-paths:

Extra library paths to make available to the virtual Python.

Exported options:

location:

Location of the buildout part containing the virtual Python installation. This is the same as the virtual Python’s sys.prefix.

executable:

Filesystem path to the interpreter executable of the virtual Python installation.