Cloning and Installing the Python Package

Cloning the repository

First clone the GitHub repository to your PC.

You can clone the repository with the command:

git clone https://github.com/sdrangan/pysilicon.git

Since the repository is frequently updated, you may need to pull the latest changes. To fetch and override any local changes:

git fetch origin
git reset --hard origin/main

Installing the package

First, create a virtual environment. The command below will create an environment named env, but any other name can be used. I usually run this command in the directory just outside pysilicon.

python -m venv env

The command may take several minutes and may not indicate its progress. After completion, the virtual environment files will be in a directory named env. This directory may be large.

Activate the virtual environment:

.\env\Scripts\Activate.ps1  # Windows PowerShell
.\env\Scripts\activate.bat  # Windows Command Prompt
source env/bin/activate     # macOS / Linux

On Windows PowerShell, you may get the error: “…Activate.ps1 is not digitally signed. The script will not execute on the system.” In this case, run:

Set-ExecutionPolicy -Scope Process -ExecutionPolicy Bypass

The first time you activate the environment, install the package requirements:

(env) pip install -r path/to/requirements_loose.txt

This installs the latest version of all packages. If you want the exact versions used when the package was created, run:

(env) pip install -r path/to/requirements.txt

Next, install the pysilicon package in editable mode:

(env) pip install -e /path/to/pysilicon

This step only needs to be done once per virtual environment.

Creating a requirements file

If you update the package dependencies, you may need to regenerate the requirements.txt file:

python -m pip freeze > pysilicon/requirements.txt

The above requirements.txt will contain precise version numbers. To create a version with version constraints stripped (Windows PowerShell):

(Get-Content requirements.txt) -replace "[<>=~!].*","" | Set-Content requirements-loose.txt

On macOS / Linux:

sed 's/[<>=~!].*//' requirements.txt > requirements-loose.txt

After generating requirements.txt, you may want to edit it as follows:

If you see a line like:
```
pywin32==306
```
Delete it — this package is only needed on Windows.
If you see a line like:
```
-e git+https://github.com/sdrangan/pysilicon.git@...#egg=utils
```
Delete it — this line installs the pysilicon package directly from GitHub, but since you already installed it in editable mode, it is not needed.