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+---
+layout: post
+title: Virtualenv and checkouts
+summary: In which I share a trick for virtualenv
+---
+
+I've started to do some Clojure in my spare time.  The default tool adopted by the community to manage projects is [leiningen](http://leiningen.org).  For those of you who don't know what **lein** is, it's a tool to automate your Clojure project: it will boostrap a new project, install the dependencies, and there's a plugin mechanism to extend the default possibilities of the tool.
+
+One of the nice feature of the tool is the **checkouts/** directory.  From the [FAQ](https://github.com/technomancy/leiningen/blob/preview/doc/FAQ.md):
+
+> If you create a directory named checkouts in your project root and symlink some other project roots into it, Leiningen will allow you to hack on them in parallel.
+
+For Python projects at [$work](http://www.saymedia.com/careers) I use [virtualenvwrapper](http://virtualenvwrapper.readthedocs.org/en/latest/) to easily work on them without having to deal with conflicting dependencies.  When I need to change a library that is used by one of the project, usually I go to the virtualenv directory and create a symlink so it  uses the one I'm editing.
+
+What I really want is a mechanism similar to **lein**, where I can have a **checkouts/** directory inside the main project, where I can clone a library or create a symlink. Since **virtualenvwrapper** provides a hook mechanism, I wrote a small hook inside **~/.virtualenvs/postactivate**:
+
+```sh
+#!/bin/bash
+
+# move to the directory of the project
+proj_name=$(echo $VIRTUAL_ENV|awk -F'/' '{print $NF}')
+proj_path=/home/vagrant/src/$proj_name
+
+cd $proj_path
+
+if [ -d checkouts ]; then
+    for ext in $(ls checkouts); do
+        export PYTHONPATH=proj_path/checkouts/$ext:$PYTHONPATH
+    done
+fi
+```
+
+Then, when I type `workon $project_name` in my shell, the environment is activated, I'm moved to the right directory, and the library inside the **checkouts/** directory are added to my **PYTHONPATH**.