Python Adventures

Problem
Django 1.7 came out ten days ago. If you look at the updated poll tutorial, you will notice that it’s written for Python 3! So far I’ve used Python 2 only, so I thought I would redo this tutorial for two reasons: (1) learn about migrations, and (2) start using Python 3.

For my Django projects I use virtualenvwrapper to manage my virtual environments, so the first question was: how to create a Python 3 virt. env. with virtualenvwrapper?

Well, maybe my installation got corrupted somehow, but I ran into this problem:

$ mkvirtualenv -p `which python3` tmpenv
Running virtualenv with interpreter /usr/bin/python3
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 8, in <module>
    import base64
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/base64.py", line 9, in <module>
    import re
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/re.py", line 324, in <module>
    import copyreg
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/copyreg.py", line 3, in <module>
    from copy_reg import *
ImportError: No module named 'copy_reg'
Error in sys.excepthook:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 53, in apport_excepthook
    if not enabled():
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/apport_python_hook.py", line 24, in enabled
    import re
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/re.py", line 324, in <module>
    import copyreg
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/copyreg.py", line 3, in <module>
    from copy_reg import *
ImportError: No module named 'copy_reg'

Original exception was:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/virtualenv.py", line 8, in <module>
    import base64
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/base64.py", line 9, in <module>
    import re
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/re.py", line 324, in <module>
    import copyreg
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/copyreg.py", line 3, in <module>
    from copy_reg import *
ImportError: No module named 'copy_reg'

Solution
I posted this question to reddit (see here) and I found the following solution:

First, install pip3:

sudo apt-get install python3-pip
sudo pip3 install virtualenvwrapper

Then, add the following lines to your .bashrc:

export WORKON_HOME=$HOME/.virtualenvs
export PROJECT_HOME=$HOME/workspace    # customize if needed
export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_PYTHON=/usr/bin/python3
export VIRTUALENVWRAPPER_VIRTUALENV=/usr/local/bin/virtualenv
source /usr/local/bin/virtualenvwrapper.sh

Try if it works for you. In my case, I had to edit the file “/usr/local/bin/virtualenv“. I changed its first line to

#!/usr/bin/env python3

The consequence of changing the first line was that creating Python 3 environments became the default, but at least it works now.

Create a Python 3 virt. env.:

mktmpenv

Create a Python 2 virt. env.:

mktmpenv -p `which python2`

If you use the command “virtualenv“, it will also create Python 3 environments by default. Thus, “virtualenv myproject3” will be a Python 3 env., while “virtualenv -p python2 myproject2” will be a Python 2 env.