python-poetry / python-poetry/poetry
`poetry env delete` and `poetry env list` should be able to deal with broken envs after a Python upgrade
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Description
Issue Kind
Change in current behaviour
Description
I ran into https://github.com/python-poetry/poetry/issues/6841, and it is difficult to recover from. I believe the cause of the problem was that the python symlink inside the virtual env pointed to a binary that no longer existed on my system
I wish that:
poetry env delete --allworked in that situation. It currently fails with[Errno 2] No such file or directory: 'python'. Ideally,poetry debug infowould also work. It currently prints some information, but fails in the same way before printing the useful information of where the virtualenvs are.- the error messages suggested I use
poetry env delete.
Impact
See above
Workarounds
One can check that poetry config virtualenvs.path is set to a sensible value (DO NOT SKIP THIS PART) and then run rm -r $(poetry config virtualenvs.path)/*.
This is taken from https://github.com/python-poetry/poetry/issues/6841#issuecomment-1284590137, which suggested running the above with rm -rf, but judging by the rest of the thread, many people did not check that poetry config virtualenvs.path is set to a reasonable value and nuked large parts of their system. 😬
Contributor guide
First steps
- Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
- Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
- Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
- Open a pull request that references the issue number.
Research direction
Start with the poetry env delete --all, poetry env list, and poetry debug info entry points and reproduce a virtual environment whose python symlink targets a missing binary. Trace how each command discovers, reports, and removes environments, including the related error paths. Done means these commands handle the broken environment safely and error messages point users toward poetry env delete.
Written by the indexing model from the issue text.
Assessment
- Tech stack
- python
- Domain
- cli
- Issue type
- Bug
- Difficulty
- 3/5
- Estimated time
- 1-2 days
- Activity status
- Stale
- Clarity
- Mostly clear
- Newbie friendliness
- 42/100