How to activate virtual environment?

[gordon.f]

Hello,

I was trying to activate the virtual environment that I've created with python as local user and even as root but in both situations I got this message:

ksh: ./myenv/bin/activate: cannot execute - Permission denied

What seems to be the problem?

[jggimi]

I'll guess:

The file you are attempting to execute is not marked as executable in the file system.

[TronDD]

You don't execute it, you source it.

'. ./myenv/bin/activate' for ksh.

[gordon.f]

Originally Posted by TronDD

You don't execute it, you source it.

'. ./myenv/bin/activate' for ksh.

Thank you very much. It worked.

By the way could you please explain what is the difference between them?

[TronDD]

It executes the commands in the current shell.

Why do that and not create a sub-shell? I'm not sure. I assume there is some practical difference that I don't know about.

[IdOp]

One difference would be that by "sourcing" the commands as in

$ . script

the script can set environment variables that maintain their values in the current shell. Whereas if script is executable and run like

$ script

any environment changes it makes will be lost when the script finishes and you come back to the calling shell.

[TronDD]

Is it not possible to make the resulting shell interactive? I thought I've seen some systems do this. Then when you exit the modified sub-shell, you get you original clean environment back.