2 Why pyenv?

Alexander Studnitskiy edited this page 2014-03-05 18:24:20 -08:00

Table of Contents

• pyenv does...
• In contrast with pythonbrew and pythonz, pyenv does not...

pyenv does...

• Let you change the global Python version on a per-user basis.
• Provide support for per-project Python versions.
• Allow you to override the Python version with an environment variable.
• Search commands from multiple versions of Python at a time. This may be helpful to test across Python versions with tox.

In contrast with pythonbrew and pythonz, pyenv does not...

• Depend on Python itself. pyenv was made from pure shell scripts. There is no bootstrap problem of Python.
• Need to be loaded into your shell. Instead, pyenv's shim approach works by adding a directory to your $PATH.
• Manage virtualenv. Of course, you can create virtualenv yourself, or pyenv-virtualenv to automate the process.

(See the "Pages" link above for a full list of wiki pages.)

• FAQ
• Common build problems
• pyenv plugins
• Deploying with pyenv
• Understanding binstubs
• Unix shell initialization
• Alternate Installation Methods

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
# Summary: One line, short description of a command
#
# Usage: pyenv COMMAND [--optional-flag] <required-argument>
#
# More thorough help text wrapped at 70 characters that spans
# multiple lines until the end of the comment block.

set -e
[ -n "$PYENV_DEBUG" ] && set -x

# Optional: Abort with usage line when called with invalid arguments
# (replace COMMAND with the name of this command)
if [ -z "$1" ]; then
  pyenv-help --usage COMMAND >&2
  exit 1
fi