How to create a virtual environment in Python?

The venv module allows us to create a virtual environment within a site’s directory. Each virtual environment has its own Python library and can have its own independent set of installed Python packages. In this tutorial, I am going to use Python 3.8.2 and Command Prompt to create a virtual environment.

Create a virtual environment

First, we have to move to the directory within which we want to create a virtual environment. Use the command venv to create a virtual environment. For instance, let’s create a directory called environment, and create a virtual environment inside that directory as shown below.

python -m venv environment

Alternatively, we can directly mention the path of the directory within which we want to create a virtual environment there. For instance, the below command will create a directory called environment and creates a virtual environment inside the directory as per the mentioned path.

python -m venv /directory/site/environment

Activate a virtual environment

Once a virtual environment has been created, we need to activate it using a platform-specific script in the virtual environment’s directory. The following commands can be used to activate a virtual environment.

Note: Replace venv with the path of the directory containing the virtual environment.

For instance, in this tutorial, we have created a virtual environment inside a directory called environment. To activate it, we can use the Command Prompt specific activation script as follows.

environment\Scripts\activate.bat

Our virtual environment is now active as it shows the name (environment) in the command line.

Source: venv — Creation of virtual environments

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