DataSpell 2024.3 Help

Configure a virtualenv environment

DataSpell makes it possible to use the virtualenv tool to create a project-specific isolated virtual environment. The main purpose of virtual environments is to manage settings and dependencies of a particular project regardless of other Python projects. virtualenv tool comes bundled with DataSpell, so the user doesn't need to install it.

Create a virtualenv environment

  1. Do one of the following:

    • Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open Settings and go to Project: workspace | Python Interpreter. Click the Add Interpreter link next to the list of the available interpreters.

    • Click the Python Interpreter selector and choose Interpreter Settings. Click the Add Interpreter link next to the list of the available interpreters.

    • In the context menu of an attached directory, select Interpreter.

  2. Select Add Local Interpreter.

  3. The following actions depend on whether you want to generate a new virtual environment or to use an existing one.

    New virtualenv environment
    1. Select Virtualenv from the list of environment types.

    2. Select the base interpreter from the list, or click Choose the base interpreter and find the Python executable in your file system.

    3. Specify the location of the new virtual environment in the Location field, or click Virtual environment location and browse for the location in your file system. The directory for the new virtual environment should be empty.

    4. Select the Inherit global site-packages checkbox if you want all packages installed in the global Python on your machine to be added to the virtual environment you're going to create. This checkbox corresponds to the --system-site-packages option of the virtualenv tool.

    5. Select the Make available to all projects checkbox if you want to reuse this environment when creating Python interpreters in DataSpell.

    Existing virtualenv environment

    Select the required interpreter from the list.

    If the required interpreter is not on the list, click , and then browse for the required Python executable (for example, venv/bin/python on macOS or venv\Scripts\python.exe on Windows).

    The selected virtual environment will be reused for the current project.

  4. Click OK to complete the task.

You can create as many virtual environments as required. To easily tell them from each other, use different names.

Use an existing interpreter

  1. Press Ctrl+Alt+S to open settings and then select Project <project name> | Python Interpreter.

  2. Expand the list of the available interpreters and click the Show All link. Alternatively, click the The Configure project interpreter icon and select Show All.

    Show all available interpreters

    Virtual environments are marked with Virtual environment.

  3. Select the target environment from the list and click OK to confirm your choice.

    Select a virtual environment

This approach is particularly helpful when you want to upgrade a version of Python your environment is based on, for example, from 3.5 to 3.9. You can specify a new base interpreter and use requirements.txt to ensure all the needed packages are installed.

Last modified: 13 November 2024