🎁 Environment Variables inside Python virtualenvs

Working environments is made even better by defining some variables that are only active in that specific environment.

Set Variables

navigate to $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/postactivate

{% highlight bash %} export FIRST_NAME="Sam" export LAST_NAME="Gutentag" {% endhighlight %}

Unset Variables

navigate to $VIRTUAL_ENV/bin/predeactivate

{% highlight bash %} unset FIRST_NAME unset LAST_NAME {% endhighlight %}

Verify Variables are being Set and Unset correctly

In this example, use the command $ printenv | grep _NAME

• Before activating the virtualenv, it should return no results
• After activating the virtualenv, it should return our variables
• After deactivating the virtualenv, it should return no results