How can I run a virtualenv python script as a git pre-commit hook

Question

This is my pre-commit script:

#!/bin/bash
for f in .git/hooks/pre-commit.d/*; do
    if [ -x "$f" ]; then
        if ! "$f"; then
            echo "DID NOT COMMIT YOUR CHANGES!";
            exit 1
        fi
    fi
done

One of the executables in pre-commit.d is a python script (pre-commit-pylint.py) that starts with:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import pylint

pylint is installed on my virtualenv. My problem is that git runs pre-commit prepending /usr/libexec/git-core:/usr/bin to $PATH , so even if my virtualenv is activated the pre-commit.d/pre-commit-pylint.py script runs with the system /usr/bin/python (instead of running with the virtualenv python).

I want to have hooks that are compatible for developers that are not using virtualenv. Is there any way to run my python script with virtualenv transparently (ie, staying compatible with developers that are using their system python)?

Answer 1

You can check in your pre-commit script for the $VIRTUAL_ENV variable and prepend it to $PATH accordingly:

#!/bin/bash

if [ -n $VIRTUAL_ENV ]; then
    PATH=$VIRTUAL_ENV/bin:$PATH
fi

for f in .git/hooks/pre-commit.d/*; do
    if [ -x "$f" ]; then
        if ! "$f"; then
            echo "DID NOT COMMIT YOUR CHANGES!";
            exit 1
        fi
    fi
done

Answer 2

What I ended up doing is: the .git file structure:

• .git/hooks/pre-commit
• .git/hooks/pre-commit-main.py

.git/hooks/pre-commit:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
export PATH="$THE_GOOD_PATH"
python "$GIT_DIR/hooks/pre-commit-main.py"

.git/hooks/pre-commit-main.py:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import sys
print sys.version_info

Then, when you call git commit , make sure that THE_GOOD_PATH , is defined:

export THE_GOOD_PATH="$PATH"
git commit

You could also export THE_GOOD_PATH="$PATH" from your .profile or the toplevel of your application and symlink all hooks to a single file.

This method has the advantage of being virtualenv agnostic: it also works with Ruby RVM rbenv.

I wrote to the Git developers at: http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.comp.version-control.git/258454 asking them to leave our PATH alone, but the initial reply was WONTFIX.