Of all of the criticisms leveled at Python, some of the legitimate—and sadly long-lived—is the chaotic state of its packaging ecosystem. It is much less of a large number than it was, as so memorably illustrated by XKCD, however it’s nonetheless hardly supreme. Third events comparable to poetry and pipenv have crammed the gaps by providing instruments which are constructed atop Python’s present requirements however designed round extra elegant workflows.
Now we’ve uv, the most recent addition to the Python bundle installer ecosystem. Created by Astral, the identical staff sustaining the ruff Python linting software, uv goals to be an all-in-one alternative for pip, venv, and lots of different command-line venture administration instruments for Python. Not like different Python venture managers, uv is written primarily in Rust, which is meant to make it quicker than different instruments in its class, doubtlessly by orders of magnitude.
Establishing uv and dealing with venvs
There are just a few alternative ways to put in uv. A standard and simple option to get began is to make use of pip to put in uv into an underlying Python set up. If that Python set up is within the system PATH, you’ll be able to invoke uv by simply typing uv on the command line.
After you have uv put in, you’ll be able to create a digital atmosphere in a given listing with the command uv venv. For those who do not provide a listing title your self, the venv will likely be created within the listing .venv.
The venv uv creates will behave precisely like an everyday digital atmosphere, with a few minor modifications. You activate the venv the identical manner you’ll an everyday one—e.g., supply .venv/bin/activate on Linux/macOS, or .venvScriptsactivate on Microsoft Home windows.
Nonetheless, the venv uv creates will not have pip or setuptools put in by defaut. For a uv-managed venture, you’re anticipated to make use of uv‘s administration instruments each time attainable.
Utilizing pip with uv
uv maintains its personal model of pip, which you entry explicitly via uv. The instructions are the identical:
uv pip set up flask
uv helps the overwhelming majority of frequent pip behaviors, like editable installs, optionally available part choice (e.g., uv pip set up "flask[dotenv]"), or putting in from a git supply.
A number of behaviors aren’t supported but, however these shouldn’t intervene together with your day-to-day work. Some issues are notably completely different, nevertheless.
Utilizing ‘uv pip’ with git
If you wish to set up a requirement from a git repository or GitHub, word that you’re going to want to make use of a barely completely different syntax than you’ll with pip alone. You’ll need to specify the title of the bundle to put in, @, after which the supply:
uv pip set up "<package_name> @ https://github.com/<person>/<repo>"
Word the quotes, that are wanted to flee the @ correctly. You additionally might want to cross particular syntax to make use of authentication with git hyperlinks.
Utilizing ‘uv pip freeze’ as a substitute of ‘pip record’
To record what’s put in in a given venv, use uv pip freeze as a substitute of uv pip record. The outcomes will be redirected to a file as one usually would with pip freeze.
Locking, compiling, and syncing dependencies
uv supplies a number of options for locking and synchronizing dependencies with a venture’s necessities record.
While you use uv pip freeze, the ensuing record can have express model necessities for every bundle, which means will probably be “locked” to the particular variations in query.
If you wish to take an present pyproject.toml or necessities.in file and generate a locked dependency set as requirement.txt, use:
uv pip compile pyproject.toml -o necessities.txt
# or ...
uv pip compile necessities.in -o necessities.txt
Utilizing pip-compile and pip-sync with uv
uv‘s long-term aim is to offer alternate options for a number of Python instruments. Two of the instruments uv can at the moment change, though in a primordial manner, are pip-compile and pip-sync.
pip-sync takes a venture’s digital atmosphere and synchronizes its bundle set with a offered record of packages, sometimes a necessities.txt file. With uv, to carry a venture’s put in dependencies in sync with a listing of locked dependencies, in the identical method as pip-sync software, use:
uv pip sync necessities.txt
The pip-compile software generates a necessities.in file, which lists “locked” dependencies, from an present pyproject.toml or necessities.txt file:
uv pip compile .pyproject.toml -o necessities.in
This protects a version-locked record of dependencies listed in pyproject.toml into necessities.in, which may then be used to revive necessities that match a selected configuration.
The constraints of uv
The uv venture remains to be in its early levels, so it does not but assist the complete vary of supposed performance. Many options are incomplete (though they’re documented as such), and lots of extra are slated to be added later.
One other concern for uv is being written in Rust—which is in fact additionally one in every of its strengths. Being written in Rust makes uv quick and environment friendly, however may additionally make contributing again to it tough for Python customers. A Python developer who desires to contribute to Python instruments wants largely to study the actual course of for contributing to the venture. However a Python developer who desires to contribute again to uv, or some other Python software written in Rust, must study Rust as properly.
As a result of writing Python instruments in Rust remains to be a comparatively new phenomenon, it is not clear how a lot affect it can have on how Python builders contribute to such tasks. Nevertheless it’s clear Rust is turning into a sound selection for writing Python instruments, if just for the sake of placing efficiency first.
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