Installing pydataportability.xrd

Before You Install

You will need Python version 2.4 or better to use pydataportability.xrd.

You will also need to have :term:’setuptools’ installed in order to run the easy_install command. Alternatively you can install pydataportability.xrd via buildout.

Installing pydataportability on a UNIX System via setuptools

It is advisable to install your project using pydataportability.xrd into a virtualenv in order to obtain isolation from any “system” packages you’ve gotinstalled in your Python version (and likewise, to prevent pydataportability.xrd or your project from globally installing versions of packages that are not compatible with your system Python).

To set up a virtualenv, first ensure that setuptools is installed. Invoke import setuptools within the Python interpreter you’d like to run repoze.bfg under:

$ python
Python 2.4.5 (#1, Aug 29 2008, 12:27:37)
[GCC 4.0.1 (Apple Inc. build 5465)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import setuptools

If import setuptools does not raise an ImportError, it means that setuptools is already installed into your Python interpreter. If import setuptools fails, you will need to install setuptools manually.

If you are using a “system” Python (one installed by your OS distributor or a 3rd-party packager such as Fink or MacPorts), you can usually install a setuptools package using your system’s package manager. If you cannot do this, or if you’re using a self-installed version of Python, you will need to install setuptools “by hand”. Installing setuptools “by hand” is always a reasonable thing to do, even if your package manager already has a pre-chewed version of setuptools for installation.

To install setuptools by hand, first download ez_setup.py then invoke it using the Python interpreter you want to install setuptools into.

$ sudo python ez_setup.py

Once this command is invoked, setuptools should be installed on your system. If the command fails due to permission errors, you may need to be the administrative user on your system to successfully invoke the script. To remediate this, you may need to do:

$ sudo python ez_setup.py

Installing the virtualenv Package

Once you’ve got setuptools installed, you should install the virtualenv package. To install the virtualenv package into your setuptools-enabled Python interpreter, use the easy_install command.

$ easy_install virtualenv

This command should succeed, and tell you that the virtualenv package is now installed. If it fails due to permission errors, you may need to install it as your system’s administrative user. For example:

$ sudo easy_install virtualenv

Creating the Virtual Python Environment

Once the virtualenv package is installed in your Python, you can actually create a virtual environment. To do so, invoke the following:

$ virtualenv --no-site-packages myenv
New python executable in bfgenv/bin/python
Installing setuptools.............done.

Warning

Using --no-site-packages when generating your virtualenv is very important. This flag provides the necessary isolation for running the set of packages required by your project. For instance sometimes a pre-installed package in the system Python installation will prevent your project from running properly. Using -no-site-packages will prevent this and will tell your environment to ignore any site wide packages.

Warning

If you’re on UNIX, do not use sudo to run the virtualenv script. It’s perfectly acceptable (and desirable) to create a virtualenv as a normal user.

You should perform any following commands that mention a “bin” directory from within the myenv virtualenv dir. Of course you can also use any other name than myenv as the name for your virtualenv environment.

Installing pydataportability.xrd into the Virtual Python Environment

After you’ve got your myenv virtualenv installed, you may install pydataportability.xrd itself using the following commands from within the virtualenv (myenv) directory:

$ bin/easy_install -U pydataportabilty.xrd

Warning

Note carefully the -U flag. This tells setuptools to update an maybe already installed version. If you are installing this for the first time into your virtualenv then you of course can omit this flag.

This command will take longer than the previous ones to complete, as it downloads and installs a number of dependencies.

Installing pydataportability.xrd on a Windows System

1. Install, or find Python 2.5 for your system.

2. Install the Python for Windows extensions. Make sure to pick the right download for Python 2.5 and install it using the same Python installation from the previous step.

3. Install latest setuptools into the Python you obtained/installed/found in the step above: download ez_setup.py and run it using the python interpreter of your Python 2.5 installation using a command prompt:

   c:\> c:\Python25\python ez_setup.py
   

4. Use that Python’s bin/easy_install to install virtualenv:

   c:\> c:\Python25\Scripts\easy_install virtualenv
   

5. Use that Python’s virtualenv to make a workspace:

   c:\> c:\Python25\Scripts\virtualenv --no-site-packages myenv
   

6. Switch to the myenv directory:

   c:\> cd myenv
   

7. (Optional) Consider using bin\activate.bat to make your shell environment wired to use the virtualenv.

8. Use easy_install to install pydataportability.xrd:

   c:\myenv> Scripts\easy_install -U pydataportability.xrd
   

What Gets Installed

When you easy_install pydataportability.xrd, various Zope libraries, elementtree and other pydataportability components are installed.