The requirements file format

The requirements file is what pip uses to install packages. This document describes that format.

Each line of the requirements file indicates something to be installed. For example:

MyPackage==3.0

tells pip to install the 3.0 version of MyPackage.

You can also install a package in an “editable” form. This puts the source code into src/distname (making the name lower case) and runs python setup.py develop on the package. To indicate editable, use -e, like:

-e svn+http://svn.myproject.org/svn/MyProject/trunk#egg=MyProject

The #egg=MyProject part is important, because while you can install simply given the svn location, the project name is useful in other places.

If you need to give pip (and by association easy_install) hints about where to find a package, you can use the -f (--find-links) option, like:

-f http://someserver.org/MyPackage-3.0.tar.gz

If the package is named like PackageName-Version.tar.gz (or a zip) then you don’t need #egg=.... Note that you cannot provide multiple -f arguments to easy_install, but you can in a requirements file (they all get concatenated into a single -f for easy_install).

Version Control

Right now pip knows of the following major version control systems:

Subversion

Pip supports the URL schemes svn, svn+http, svn+https You can also give specific revisions to an SVN URL, like:

-e svn+http://svn.myproject.org/svn/MyProject/trunk@2019#egg=MyProject

which will check out revision 2019. @{20080101} would also check out the revision from 2008-01-01. You can only check out specific revisions using -e svn+....

Git

Pip currently supports cloning over git, git+http and git+ssh:

-e git://git.myproject.org/MyProject.git#egg=MyProject
-e git+http://git.myproject.org/MyProject/#egg=MyProject
-e git+ssh://git@myproject.org/MyProject/#egg=MyProject

Passing branch names, a commit hash or a tag name is also possible:

-e git://git.myproject.org/MyProject.git@master#egg=MyProject
-e git://git.myproject.org/MyProject.git@v1.0#egg=MyProject
-e git://git.myproject.org/MyProject.git@da39a3ee5e6b4b0d3255bfef95601890afd80709#egg=MyProject

Mercurial

The supported schemes are: hg+http and hg+ssh:

-e hg+http://hg.myproject.org/MyProject/#egg=MyProject
-e hg+ssh://hg@myproject.org/MyProject/#egg=MyProject

You can also specify a revision number, a revision hash, a tag name or a local branch name:

-e hg+http://hg.myproject.org/MyProject/@da39a3ee5e6b#egg=MyProject
-e hg+http://hg.myproject.org/MyProject/@2019#egg=MyProject
-e hg+http://hg.myproject.org/MyProject/@v1.0#egg=MyProject
-e hg+http://hg.myproject.org/MyProject/@special_feature#egg=MyProject

Bazaar

Pip supports Bazaar using the bzr+http, bzr+https, bzr+ssh and bzr+sftp schemes:

-e bzr+http://bzr.myproject.org/MyProject/trunk/#egg=MyProject
-e bzr+sftp://user@myproject.org/MyProject/trunk/#egg=MyProject
-e bzr+ssh://user@myproject.org/MyProject/trunk/#egg=MyProject

Tags or revisions can be installed like this:

-e bzr+https://bzr.myproject.org/MyProject/trunk/@2019#egg=MyProject
-e bzr+http://bzr.myproject.org/MyProject/trunk/@v1.0#egg=MyProject