README.md

pip-wrapper

a trivial wrapper around pip on Windows that lets you overwrite the path to python.exe that gets hardcoded in launcher Scripts\<script>.exe files that pip creates via distlib.

⚠️ status: experimental

installation

• (optional: rebuild the wrapper pip.exe: make)
• place the pip_wrapper dir somewhere on disk
• prepend the path to pip_wrapper\bin to the PATH env var (ensure it's positioned prior of any python installation path so it takes precedence over any other pip.exe on the system)

usage

set env var MAKER_EXECUTABLE with the desired path to python.exe and run the wrapper pip.exe to install packages.

example

Example: Installing a relocatable* pip-sync.exe via pip:

(* relocatable = runs with whatever python.exe the PATH env var points to)

in a cmd.exe shell:

$ where pip
C:\pip_wrapper\bin\pip.exe
$ where python
c:\py3-7\python.exe
$ set MAKER_EXECUTABLE=python.exe
$ set destdir=c:\destdir
$ mkdir %destdir%
$ pip install pip-tools --prefix=%destdir%

to run the generated pip-sync.exe:

$ set PYTHONPATH=%destdir%\Lib\site-packages
$ %destdir%\Scripts\pip-sync.exe --version
pip-sync, version 6.0.1

it uses the python.exe found via the PATH env var. If we remove any Python install path from PATH it will stop working:

$ set PATH=c:\windows\system32;c:\windows
$ where python
INFO: Could not find files for the given pattern(s).
$ %destdir%\Scripts\pip-sync.exe --version
Fatal error in launcher: Unable to create process using '"python.exe"  "C:\destdir\Scripts\pip-sync.exe" --version': The system cannot find the file specified.

which means we could also run pip-sync.exe with any other python installation:

$ set PATH=c:\py3-9;%PATH%
$ where python
c:\py3-9\python.exe
$ %destdir%\pip-sync.exe --version
pip-sync, version 6.0.1

(Without this wrapper the pip-sync.exe would have to get rebuilt, i.e. by reinstalling the entire package, for this to work)