.. _installation: Installation ============ Flask depends on some external libraries, like `Werkzeug `_ and `Jinja2 `_. Werkzeug is a toolkit for WSGI, the standard Python interface between web applications and a variety of servers for both development and deployment. Jinja2 renders templates. So how do you get all that on your computer quickly? There are many ways you could do that, but the most kick-ass method is virtualenv, so let's have a look at that first. You will need Python 2.6 or newer to get started, so be sure to have an up-to-date Python 2.x installation. For using Flask with Python 3 have a look at :ref:`python3-support`. .. _virtualenv: virtualenv ---------- Virtualenv is probably what you want to use during development, and if you have shell access to your production machines, you'll probably want to use it there, too. What problem does virtualenv solve? If you like Python as much as I do, chances are you want to use it for other projects besides Flask-based web applications. But the more projects you have, the more likely it is that you will be working with different versions of Python itself, or at least different versions of Python libraries. Let's face it: quite often libraries break backwards compatibility, and it's unlikely that any serious application will have zero dependencies. So what do you do if two or more of your projects have conflicting dependencies? Virtualenv to the rescue! Virtualenv enables multiple side-by-side installations of Python, one for each project. It doesn't actually install separate copies of Python, but it does provide a clever way to keep different project environments isolated. Let's see how virtualenv works. If you are on Mac OS X or Linux, chances are that one of the following two commands will work for you:: $ sudo easy_install virtualenv or even better:: $ sudo pip install virtualenv One of these will probably install virtualenv on your system. Maybe it's even in your package manager. If you use Ubuntu, try:: $ sudo apt-get install python-virtualenv If you are on Windows and don't have the `easy_install` command, you must install it first. Check the :ref:`windows-easy-install` section for more information about how to do that. Once you have it installed, run the same commands as above, but without the `sudo` prefix. Once you have virtualenv installed, just fire up a shell and create your own environment. I usually create a project folder and a `venv` folder within:: $ mkdir myproject $ cd myproject $ virtualenv venv New python executable in venv/bin/python Installing setuptools, pip............done. Now, whenever you want to work on a project, you only have to activate the corresponding environment. On OS X and Linux, do the following:: $ . venv/bin/activate If you are a Windows user, the following command is for you:: $ venv\scripts\activate Either way, you should now be using your virtualenv (notice how the prompt of your shell has changed to show the active environment). And if you want to go back to the real world, use the following command:: $ deactivate After doing this, the prompt of your shell should be as familar as before. Now, let's move on. Enter the following command to get Flask activated in your virtualenv:: $ pip install Flask A few seconds later and you are good to go. System-Wide Installation ------------------------ This is possible as well, though I do not recommend it. Just run `pip` with root privileges:: $ sudo pip install Flask (On Windows systems, run it in a command-prompt window with administrator privileges, and leave out `sudo`.) Living on the Edge ------------------ If you want to work with the latest version of Flask, there are two ways: you can either let `pip` pull in the development version, or you can tell it to operate on a git checkout. Either way, virtualenv is recommended. Get the git checkout in a new virtualenv and run in development mode:: $ git clone http://github.com/mitsuhiko/flask.git Initialized empty Git repository in ~/dev/flask/.git/ $ cd flask $ virtualenv venv New python executable in venv/bin/python Installing setuptools, pip............done. $ . venv/bin/activate $ python setup.py develop ... Finished processing dependencies for Flask This will pull in the dependencies and activate the git head as the current version inside the virtualenv. Then all you have to do is run ``git pull origin`` to update to the latest version. To just get the development version without git, do this instead:: $ mkdir flask $ cd flask $ virtualenv venv $ . venv/bin/activate New python executable in venv/bin/python Installing setuptools, pip............done. $ pip install Flask==dev ... Finished processing dependencies for Flask==dev .. _windows-easy-install: `pip` and `setuptools` on Windows --------------------------------- Sometimes getting the standard "Python packaging tools" like *pip*, *setuptools* and *virtualenv* can be a little trickier, but nothing very hard. The two crucial packages you will need are setuptools and pip - these will let you install anything else (like virtualenv). Fortunately there are two "bootstrap scripts" you can run to install either. If you don't currently have either, then `get-pip.py` will install both for you (you won't need to run ez_setup.py). `get-pip.py`_ To install the latest setuptools, you can use its bootstrap file: `ez_setup.py`_ Either should be double-clickable once you download them. If you already have pip, you can upgrade them by running:: > pip install --upgrade pip setuptools Most often, once you pull up a command prompt you want to be able to type ``pip`` and ``python`` which will run those things, but this might not automatically happen on Windows, because it doesn't know where those executables are (give either a try!). To fix this, you should be able to navigate to your Python install directory (e.g ``C:\Python27``), then go to ``Tools``, then ``Scripts``; then find the ``win_add2path.py`` file and run that. Open a **new** Command Prompt and check that you can now just type ``python`` to bring up the interpreter. Finally, to install `virtualenv`_, you can simply run:: > pip install virtualenv Then you can be off on your way following the installation instructions above. .. _get-pip.py: https://raw.github.com/pypa/pip/master/contrib/get-pip.py .. _ez_setup.py: https://bitbucket.org/pypa/setuptools/raw/bootstrap/ez_setup.py