Pipenv: Can pipenv install have an option to set an explicit virtualenv directory name?

[aljp]

Motivation

Currently having minor issues using pipenv install as part of a Dockerfile, and being unable to get the virtualenv folder location programatically. ( Well I can but it's a bit meh)

The virtualenv folder name is returned by the virtualenv_name method property at https://github.com/kennethreitz/pipenv/blob/master/pipenv/project.py#L116

Currently I'm using ENV VIRTUALENV_PATH="$(pipenv --venv)" in my Dockerfile, but this seems messy.

Should there be an option to set an explicit virtualenv directory name?

Proposal

I propose a --virtualenv-name command line argument and a PIPENV_VIRTUALENV_NAME environment variable.

[arowla]

I'm also trying pipenv in a Dockerfile. After digging around in the pipenv source, I found PIPENV_VENV_IN_PROJECT. So the solution to this problem can look like this:

ENV PIPENV_VENV_IN_PROJECT 1
WORKDIR /var/lib/app
RUN pipenv install

You'd of course replace WORKDIR with your own.

Step 9/15 : RUN pipenv install
 ---> Running in 48a6f9074568
Creating a virtualenv for this project…
New python executable in /var/lib/app/.venv/bin/python
Installing setuptools, pip, wheel...done.

Virtualenv location: /var/lib/app/.venv

[catalyst-joe-guo]

I also think it will be useful if we can specify the venv name.

[techalchemy]

Alternatively you can do what other tools like Travis do and create your own virtualenv, activate it, and then use pipenv, which will respect the fact it is inside a virtualenv

[nateprewitt]

Please note with the above approach that this will only work when the virtualenv is activated. If you choose to come back later without your previous environment activated, Pipenv will create a new default environment.