Tag: git

Install pip packages from git repo

Pip supports installing a python package using a link to a git repository directly. You can specify such a direct link to the package source from the pip command line or a requirements.txt file. The following article gives an overview how.

It can be handy to use pip to install a project dependency directly from a git repository instead of from a Python package index. I’ll show you why you might want to do that and how to do it.

How to pip install from a git repository

Instead of a package name, give pip a git repository URL as parameter:

# general form: pip install git+<repository_url>
# example:
pip install git+https://github.com/arwedus/some-example.git

If this repo does not yet contain a python package struture, you’ll need to add a setup.py at least, so that pip can carry out the install (c.f. cookie-cutter).

You can explicitly call out the package name that you’re installing with #egg=

# general form: pip install git+<repository_url>#egg=<package_name>
# example:
pip install git+https://github.com/arwedus/some-example.git#egg=example-package

There are also a number of different ways to specify a version of the repository that you want to fetch:

# Use a commit SHA
pip install git+https://github.com/arwedus/some-example.git@4045597
# Use a tag
pip install git+https://github.com/arwedus/[email protected]
# Use a branch
pip install git+https://github.com/arwedus/some-example.git@feature/fix-readme

How to include the dependency in a requirements.txt

If you want to share a git repository dependency with other developers, you’ll likely want to add it to your requirements.txt, like so:

# Just put the pip install argument straight into your requirements.txt
package-a==1.2.3
git+https://github.com/arwedus/[email protected]
package-b==4.5.6

# Or you can use the preferred PEP 440 direct URL syntax
package-a==1.2.3
some-example @ git+https://github.com/arwedus/some-example.git@deadbeef123

How to re-add tracked binary files using git LFS

Using git lfs migrate rewrites history, which is not always acceptable, especially in distributed projects. You can add files to git LFS by either renaming them (which deletes and re-adds the file, with the new file tracked by git LFS), or by modifying them. The following command chain uses the second approach to re-add binary files using git LFS, without a modification of the file itself:

touch binary_image.png
git add binary_image.png
git commit -m "Re-add binary_image tracked by git LFS"

Done!