QA/Execution/Web Testing/Automation/Virtual Environments

Virtual environments are isolated Python environments. They allow freedom to install specific versions of dependencies without affecting the global site-packages. They also make it easy to throw away a 'broken' environment and start again. If you need further information regarding virtual environments, please see the virtualenvwrapper documentation.

Install virtualenvwrapper

1. Install virtualenvwrapper:
sudo pip install virtualenvwrapper
2. Add the following to your ~/.bash_profile:
export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

Create a virtual environment for WebQA

   mkvirtualenv webqa

Switch to the WebQA virtual environment

   workon webqa

Installation on Windows

Exception: use 32-bit version of the setuptools even if your operating system is 64-bit otherwise it fails to find the Python installation.

1. Install the 32-bit version of SetupTools using the provided .exe installer.
2. Download the last pip version from here and uncompress it.
3. In your cmd prompt, go to the uncompressed pip directory and run python setup.py install
4. Add C:\Python26\Scripts to your System Variables path.
5. Now you can use the command pip install package on Win.

Virtualenvwrapper Installation and Usage

1. From the cmd prompt install pip:
pip install virtualenvwrapper-win
2. Set your environment variable:
WORKON_HOME = C:\Python27\Scripts:
3. You can now create virtualenvs:
mkvirtualenv <name of the environment