How To Create And Run Requirements.Txt File To Handle Python Dependencies

The aim of this how-to-guide🏁 is to automatically install all dependencies of a python script with a single command

• requirements.txt is a file that makes it easier for other devs to install the correct versions of required packeges

How many times will we have to undergo this tedious back-and-forth? Why do we have to try to run the app just to be told one-at-a-time which packages we’re missing? Why can’t we just install all the packages this run.py script depends on, all at once? Are we even installing the right versions of the packages?

— Robert Boscacci

1. steps

• write your code locally
• run pip freeze > requirements.txt — to automatically create/populate requirements.txt
• clean it up — as the pip freeze outputs all modules not just the imported ones in the project folder
• this is up to 100 modules

GitPython==3.1.14
oyaml==1.0

• within readme.md, instruct users to run the following when initializing the program/script

pip install -r requirements.txt

2. sources

• Why and How to make a Requirements.txt by Robert Boscacci