venv-new-dir

A Bash script for changing the path of a Python project while preserving its virtual environment and git setup.

Sometimes I want to reorganize my projects and change up the folder names, but that ends up breaking any venvs if I don't regenerate them afterwards. This script automates the task I used to do of renaming or making folders, copying my project's content over, and creating a new venv folder with all the originally installed packages.

Built for using in a UNIX-like system (I used Ubuntu) and for light virtual environemnts in venv (where redownloading the packages doesn't take ages).

How to use

Place the script in a directory above your Python project.

top_level_dir/
├─ venv-new-dir.sh
├─ dev/
│  ├─ python/
│  │  ├─ project/
│  │  │  ├─ .venv/
│  │  │  ├─ python_stuff.py

Add user execution permissions: chmod u+x venv-new-dir.sh

The script accepts three arguments:

./venv-new-dir.sh /abs/path/to/project /new/abs/path/to/project name_of_venv

For example, if my project is located in /home/scott/dev/project and I want to change it to /home/scott/github/python/project and the venv folder is called .venv, then I would run

./venv-new-dir.sh /home/srenegado/dev/project /home/scott/github/python/project .venv

The old directory /home/scott/dev/project will still exist.