Using virtualenv with spaces in a path
Question:
I set up a virtualenv environment on my Mac, but cannot get Pip to install packages. It fails with the following error:
/Volumes/Macintosh: bad interpreter: No such file or directory
I tracked the problem down to there being a space in the path, as is answered here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10873611/126564
(the path being /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Python/my_project)
But that’s a bit of a problem. The proposed solution is to:
“just put your virtualenv environment in a path without a space,”
but the part with the space is the volume itself. All of my paths would have a space, unless I stored them in a directory of /. And I don’t think “store your stuff outside of user space” is a good solution.
Is there a better solution to this?
Answers:
Trying this:
- editing
bin/activate, change VIRTUAL_ENV='/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Python/my_project', and change PATH="$VIRTUAL_ENV/bin:$PATH", to make it work in your environment. using echo $PATH to check if it works.
-
editing bin/pip and bin/easy_install, change first line in the two files to
#!/usr/bin/env python
After above 2 steps, you’ll make your virtualenv works(also pip/easy_install).
Note that you don’t have to use your project folder for virtualenv. For example, you can place your virtualenv into /tmp folder or any other folder without spaces:
virtualenv /tmp/temporary_virtualenv
virtualenv /home/my_envs/env_for_projectname
Unless you have an atypical drive setup on your Mac, the path /Volumes/Macintosh HD should be a symlink to /. In other words, instead of
$ virtualenv /Volumes/Macintosh HD/venvpath
you can just do
$ virtualenv /venvpath
Not that I’m trying to condone software not handling spaces in file names. I agree with Hugo’s comment above: keep an eye on the relevant GitHub issue.
Editing the bin/activate file and escaping the spaces worked for me.
Edit and save the file, then run source bin/activate.
I have yet another workaround – you just need to use pip package instead of pip script. For example:
python -m pip install .
or even:
python -m pip install -U pip
For me works like a charm and doesn’t require changes in files.
As of end of 2018 the latest versions of pip and virtualenv deal with spaces in venv dir correctly.
See https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/53#issuecomment-434461292 .
I set up a virtualenv environment on my Mac, but cannot get Pip to install packages. It fails with the following error:
/Volumes/Macintosh: bad interpreter: No such file or directory
I tracked the problem down to there being a space in the path, as is answered here: https://stackoverflow.com/a/10873611/126564
(the path being /Volumes/Macintosh HD/Python/my_project)
But that’s a bit of a problem. The proposed solution is to:
“just put your virtualenv environment in a path without a space,”
but the part with the space is the volume itself. All of my paths would have a space, unless I stored them in a directory of /. And I don’t think “store your stuff outside of user space” is a good solution.
Is there a better solution to this?
Trying this:
- editing
bin/activate, changeVIRTUAL_ENV='/Volumes/Macintosh HD/Python/my_project', and changePATH="$VIRTUAL_ENV/bin:$PATH", to make it work in your environment. usingecho $PATHto check if it works. -
editing
bin/pipandbin/easy_install, change first line in the two files to#!/usr/bin/env python
After above 2 steps, you’ll make your virtualenv works(also pip/easy_install).
Note that you don’t have to use your project folder for virtualenv. For example, you can place your virtualenv into /tmp folder or any other folder without spaces:
virtualenv /tmp/temporary_virtualenv
virtualenv /home/my_envs/env_for_projectname
Unless you have an atypical drive setup on your Mac, the path /Volumes/Macintosh HD should be a symlink to /. In other words, instead of
$ virtualenv /Volumes/Macintosh HD/venvpath
you can just do
$ virtualenv /venvpath
Not that I’m trying to condone software not handling spaces in file names. I agree with Hugo’s comment above: keep an eye on the relevant GitHub issue.
Editing the bin/activate file and escaping the spaces worked for me.
Edit and save the file, then run source bin/activate.
I have yet another workaround – you just need to use pip package instead of pip script. For example:
python -m pip install .
or even:
python -m pip install -U pip
For me works like a charm and doesn’t require changes in files.
As of end of 2018 the latest versions of pip and virtualenv deal with spaces in venv dir correctly.
See https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/issues/53#issuecomment-434461292 .