package is installed via pip in wrong (src) directory instead of site packages

Question

I'm installing this package into a virtualenv using virtualenvwrapper and pip with this command:

pip install -e git+git://github.com/mr-stateradio/django-exchange.git#egg=django_exchange-master

Interestingly the package is then placed into a src folder, and not into the site-packages folder which I would have expected. The package is placed into this folder:

<path-to-my-virtual-env>/testenv/src/django-exchange-master/exchange

Instead of this:

<path-to-my-virtual-env>/testenv/lib/python2.7/site-packages

I assume something is wrong with the pip install command I'm using or with the setup.py of the package.

Mealie

LoL. Stackoverflow is really an amazing place. The details in your question help me solved the same problem that troubled me for hours. – Entomology

Answer 1

The -e option tells pip to install packages in “editable” mode. If you remove the -e option, pip will install the package into <venv path>/lib/Python_version/site-packages. Don't forget to remove the packages inside <venv path>/src, because python looks for the packages inside <venv path>/src first.

pip supports installing from Git, Mercurial, Subversion and Bazaar, and detects the type of VCS using url prefixes: “git+”, “hg+”, “bzr+”, “svn+”.

e.g

$ pip install -e git+https://git.repo/some_pkg.git#egg=SomePackage          # from git
$ pip install -e hg+https://hg.repo/some_pkg.git#egg=SomePackage            # from mercurial
$ pip install -e svn+svn://svn.repo/some_pkg/trunk/#egg=SomePackage         # from svn
$ pip install -e git+https://git.repo/some_pkg.git@feature#egg=SomePackage  # from 'feature' branch

VCS projects can be installed in editable mode (using the –editable option) or not.

• For editable installs, the clone location by default is <venv path>/src/SomeProject in virtual environments, and <cwd>/src/SomeProject for global installs. The –src option can be used to modify this location.
• For non-editable installs, the project is built locally in a temp dir and then installed normally. `

Entomology

Should be --src in pip I think? pip install -r ./requirements.txt --no-cache --src ~/.virtualenvs/PROJECTNAME/src – Marcellamarcelle

This is right, but when installing the package from a requirements.txt file, if you remove the -e option and the URL is like git://github.com/ORG/PACKAGE.git@TAG#egg=PACKAGE it will fail with ERROR: Invalid requirement log, and prepending the -e argument in the requirements.txt solves the problem but with the inconvenience of having the package in the src/ folder. Solution: instead of prefixing the URL with just git://, it has to be git+git://. – Featheredge