Creation of virtual environments is done by executing the pyvenv script:
pyvenv /path/to/new/virtual/environment
Running this command creates the target directory (creating any parent directories that don’t exist already) and places a pyvenv.cfg file in it with a home key pointing to the Python installation the command was run from. It also creates a bin (or Scripts on Windows) subdirectory containing a copy of the python binary (or binaries, in the case of Windows). It also creates an (initially empty) lib/pythonX.Y/site-packages subdirectory (on Windows, this is Lib\site-packages).
On Windows, you may have to invoke the pyvenv script as follows, if you don’t have the relevant PATH and PATHEXT settings:
c:\Temp>c:\Python33\python c:\Python33\Tools\Scripts\pyvenv.py myenv
or equivalently:
c:\Temp>c:\Python33\python -m venv myenv
The command, if run with -h, will show the available options:
usage: pyvenv [-h] [--system-site-packages] [--symlink] [--clear]
[--upgrade] ENV_DIR [ENV_DIR ...]
Creates virtual Python environments in one or more target directories.
positional arguments:
ENV_DIR A directory to create the environment in.
optional arguments:
-h, --help show this help message and exit
--system-site-packages Give access to the global site-packages dir to the
virtual environment.
--symlink Attempt to symlink rather than copy.
--clear Delete the environment directory if it already exists.
If not specified and the directory exists, an error is
raised.
--upgrade Upgrade the environment directory to use this version
of Python, assuming Python has been upgraded in-place.
If the target directory already exists an error will be raised, unless the --clear or --upgrade option was provided.
The created pyvenv.cfg file also includes the include-system-site-packages key, set to true if venv is run with the --system-site-packages option, false otherwise.
Multiple paths can be given to pyvenv, in which case an identical virtualenv will be created, according to the given options, at each provided path.