Note
If you would like to contribute to PlasmaPy, please refer to the instructions on installing PlasmaPy for development
<install-plasmapy-dev>
.
Contents
PlasmaPy requires Python or newer. If you do not have Python installed already, here are the instructions to download Python and install it.
Tip
New versions of Python are released annually in October, and it can take a few months for the scientific Python ecosystem to catch up. If you have trouble installing plasmapy on the most recent Python version between October and ∼December, then try installing it on the second most recent version.
To install the most recent release of plasmapy on PyPI with pip into an existing Python + environment on macOS or Linux, open a terminal and run:
python -m pip install plasmapy
On some systems, it might be necessary to specify the Python version number by using python3
, python3.8
, python3.9
, or python3.10
instead of python
.
To install PlasmaPy on Windows, run:
py -3.10 -m pip install plasmapy
The version of Python may be changed from 3.10
to another supported Python + release that has been installed on your computer.
For more detailed information, please refer to this tutorial on installing packages.
Conda is a package management system and environment manager that is commonly used in the scientific Python ecosystem. Conda lets us create and switch between Python environments that are isolated from each other and the system installation. Conda can also be used for packages written in languages other than Python.
After installing Conda or miniconda, plasmapy can be installed into an activated Conda environment by opening a terminal and running:
conda install -c conda-forge plasmapy
Here -c conda-forge
indicates that plasmapy should be installed from the conda-forge channel.
To install plasmapy into another existing Conda environment, append -n {env_name}
to the previous command, where {env_name}
is replaced with the name of the environment.
To create a new environment with plasmapy installed in it, run:
conda create -n env_name -c conda-forge plasmapy
where {env_name}
is replaced by the name of the environment. This step may take several minutes. To activate this environment, run:
conda activate env_name
To update plasmapy to the most recent version within a currently activated Conda environment, run:
conda update plasmapy
Tip
Creating a Conda environment can sometimes take a few minutes. If it takes longer than that, try updating to the newest version of Conda with conda update conda
or checking out these tips for improving Conda performance.
Note
This section contains instructions on how to install PlasmaPy with Anaconda Navigator at the time of writing. For the most up-to-date information, please go to the official documentation on installing Anaconda Navigator and managing packages.
Anaconda Navigator is a graphical user interface (GUI) for Conda that can be used to install Python packages. It is installed automatically with newer versions of Conda. If you are using Miniconda or a different Conda environment, you can install it with conda install anaconda-navigator
. After that it can be opened by entering anaconda-navigator
in the terminal.
First, go to the Environments
tab and select Channels
. If conda-forge
is not listed, then go to Add
, enter https://conda.anaconda.org/conda-forge
, and click on Update channels
and then Update index
.
Next, while on the Environments
tab, select the environment that you would like to install plasmapy in. The default is generally base (root)
. Optionally, you may select Create
to start a new environment. In the search bar, enter plasmapy
. Click on the checkbox next to plasmapy
, and select Apply
to begin the installation process. It may take several minutes for Anaconda Navigator to solve package specifications.
To test the installation, click on the ▶
icon that should be present next to the activated environment, and select Open terminal
. Enter python
in the terminal, and then import plasmapy
to make sure it works.
A ZIP file containing the source code for official releases of plasmapy can be obtained from PyPI or from Zenodo.
Alternatively, official releases since 0.7.0 can be downloaded from the releases page on PlasmaPy's GitHub repository.
If you have git installed on your computer, you may clone PlasmaPy's GitHub repository and access the source code from the most recent development version by running:
git clone https://github.com/PlasmaPy/PlasmaPy.git
The repository will be cloned inside a new subdirectory called PlasmaPy
.
If you do not have git installed on your computer, then you may download the most recent source code from PlasmaPy's GitHub repository by going to Code
and selecting Download ZIP
. Unzipping the file will create a subdirectory called PlasmaPy
that contains the source code.
To install the downloaded version of plasmapy, enter the PlasmaPy
directory and run:
pip install .
If you expect to occasionally edit the source code, instead run:
pip install -e .[developer]
The -e
flag makes the installation editable and [developer]
indicates that all of the dependencies needed for developing PlasmaPy will be installed.
Note
If you noticed any places where the installation instructions could be improved or have become out of date, please create an issue on PlasmaPy's GitHub repository. It would really help!
Tip
The contributing-to-plasmapy
guide has instructions on how to fork a repository and create branches so that you may make contributions via pull requests.