Alteryx Designer Knowledge Base
Definitive answers from Designer experts.How To: Use Alteryx.installPackages() in Python tool
Alteryx.installPackages(package, install_type=None, debug=None, **kwargs)
In reality, Alteryx.installPackages() is nothing more than a wrapper for the pip (Python Package Manager) command.
This means that following command:
Alteryx.installPackage(package="logger")
is interpreted as:
up to 2019.2:
%ALTERYXDIR%\bin\miniconda3\pythontool_venv\scripts\python.exe -m pip install logger
for 2019.3+:
%ALTERYXDIR%\bin\miniconda3\envs\jupytertool_venv\python.exe -m pip install logger
This can be seen using debug parameter:
Alteryx.installPackage(package="logger",debug=True)
Output (duplicates due to debug mode):
Executing subprocess: install logger [Executing subprocess: c:\users\xxxx\appdata\local\alteryx\bin\miniconda3\pythontool_venv\scripts\python.exe -m pip install logger ] [Subprocess success!] Collecting logger Installing collected packages: logger Successfully installed logger-1.4 Collecting logger Installing collected packages: logger Successfully installed logger-1.4
Procedure: Standard Installation
In this case, only the package argument is specified.
Examples:
# With one package
Alteryx.installPackage("logger")
Alteryx.installPackage(package="logger")
# With multiple packages
Alteryx.installPackage(["logger","wordcloud"])
Alteryx.installPackage(package=["logger","wordcloud"])
# With a specific version
Alteryx.installPackage("logger==1.3")
# Without cache enable to ensure that package is downloaded before installation
Alteryx.installPackage(package="logger",install_type="install --no-cache-dir")
Procedure: Installation from GitHub
Git must be installed on the machine to use this method. It could be downloaded from https://git-scm.com/downloads.
Instead of the package name, specify git URL prefixed with git+.
Example:
Alteryx.installPackages(package="git+https://github.com/alteryx/promote-python.git")
Procedure: Installation of a Module in the User Folder
This method uses parameter --user to specify that package must be installed in user folder (%APPDATA%/Python/Python36 as per https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0370/#windows-notes).
Example:
Alteryx.installPackages(package="logger",
install_type="install --user")
Now, in order to use it, package location must be added to default path: %APPDATA%\Python\Python36\site-packages
Example:
import os,sys
sys.path.insert(1,os.path.join(os.environ['APPDATA'],"Python",f"Python{sys.version_info.major}{sys.version_info.minor}","site-packages"))
import logger
Procedure: Installation of a Module in a Different Folder
This method uses parameter --target to specify the destination and creates it if needed.
Example:
Alteryx.installPackages(package="logger",
install_type="install --target=C:\\ProgramData\\PythonLibs")
Now, in order to use it, the package needs to be imported using Alteryx.importPythonModule(%MODULE_PATH%) [2018.4 and above]
Example:
logger = Alteryx.importPythonModule("C:\\ProgramData\\PythonLibs\\logger")
logger.logging.info("Logger installed successfully")
Remark: With this method, a module does not appear as installed in PythonTool environment
Procedure: Installation from local directory or tar.gz
The package must exist in a place accessible by the machine (such as C:\Users\<YOUR USERNAME>\Documents\Personal\PythonPckg).
Example:
Alteryx.installPackages(package="file: <your directory\filetoinstall.tar.gz>")
Alteryx.installPackages(package="file:C:\tsmithers\downloads\nlptoolkit-dictionary-1.0.4.tar.gz")
Procedure: Installation with a proxy in place
This allows the option of adding a proxy and proxy credentials to the installation argument. Credentials can be left off or included depending on the environment.
Example:
#No password and username
Alteryx.installPackages(package="<mypackage>",install_type="install --proxy proxy.server:port")
#With password and username
Alteryx.installPackages(package="<mypackage>",install_type="install --proxy [user:passwd@]proxy.server:port")
Procedure: Installation from Wheels
In this case, we use --no-index and --find-links with the local repository to ensure that package is not going to be downloaded.
Example:
Here, C:\ProgramData\PythonWheels contains following files (numpy and Pillow are dependencies of wordcloud):
numpy-1.16.3-cp36-cp36m-win_amd64.whl
Pillow-6.0.0-cp36-cp36m-win_amd64.whl
wordcloud-1.5.0-cp36-cp36m-win_amd64.whl
Alteryx.installPackages(package="wordcloud",
install_type="install --no-index --find-links=C:\\ProgramData\\PythonWheels")
Procedure: Uninstall Package(s)
Specify uninstall as the install_type parameter and either a string with the package name or a list of strings with package names.
Example:
# For a single package
Alteryx.installPackages(package="wordcloud", install_type="uninstall")
# For multiple packages
Alteryx.installPackages(package=["wordcloud","pillow"], install_type="uninstall")
Procedure: Download Wheels or Archive Files
In this case, the command to use is download instead of the default install. One may also specify a destination folder with parameter --dest
Example:
Alteryx.installPackages(package="wordcloud",install_type="download --dest=C:\\ProgramData\\PythonWheels")
Procedure: List the Currently Installed Modules
The following procedure provides a basic way to list the module names and versions installed along with Python tool.
from ayx import Alteryx
import re
from pandas import DataFrame
import io
from contextlib import redirect_stdout
with io.StringIO() as current_output, redirect_stdout(current_output):
Alteryx.installPackages(package='',install_type='freeze')
packages = ( (item for item in out_row.split("=") if item)
for out_row in re.split(string=current_output.getvalue(),pattern=r"\r*\n") if out_row)
output_df = DataFrame(packages ,columns=["package","version"])
Alteryx.write(output_df,1)
Example of result:
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