[Windows] User site-packages is not added to python path when running test with sitepackages = true

[niander]

In Windows, the default user site-packages location is %APPDATA%\Python\PythonXY\site-package. If %APPDATA% doesn't exist, python won't find the user site-packages folder and won't add it to the python path.

When using tox with the sitepackages = true option, even though a normal virtual environment would have the user site-packages in the python path, it seems that because tox doesn't add %APPDATA% to the subprocess environment, python can't find whatever packages are expected to exist in the user site-packages folder when it is being executed in a toxenv.

This is about the user site-packages folder, not the system one.

[jugmac00]

Hey @niander,

Thanks for the bug report.

Could you please add the output of tox -rvv as requested in the issue template?

Could you please also test whether this bug still exists in tox 4 beta? https://pypi.org/project/tox/4.0.0b2/

FWIW there is no issue on Linux - sitepackages = true works as expected - I tried this with pygments which is available in my site-packages but not in the project.

from setuptools import setup, find_packages

setup(
    name='MyPackageName',
    version='1.0.0',
    author='Author Name',
    author_email='author@example.net',
    description='Description of my package',
    packages=find_packages(),
)

[tox]

[testenv]
commands = python -c "import pygments; print(dir(pygments))"
;sitepackages = true

That said I have no access to a Windows box, so let's wait for the output of tox -rvv and the results when you use tox 4.

[niander]

I updated the issue.

Using your setup.py and the following tox.ini:

[tox]

[testenv]
sitepackages = true
commands = python -c "import attr; print(attr)"

Notice that the package attr is installed in the user site-packages (not system site-packages):

python -c "import att; print(attr)":

<module 'attr' from 'C:\\Users\\niassis\\AppData\\Roaming\\Python\\Python37\\site-packages\\attr\\__init__.py'>

• Python 3.7.9 and tox==3.25.0

tox -rvv: output-tox3.txt

• Python 3.7.9 and tox==4.0.0b2

tox -rvv: output-tox4.txt

[niander]

I don't think this issue exists outside Windows specifically because of the special treatment that Windows receives when looking for user site-packages. Check this code in site.py.
That being said, this issue makes using the plugin tox-conda impossible since conda environments don't include pyenv.cfg in their environments making python add user site-packages to the path. And, because %APPDATA% seems to still exists in the environment of the subprocess during the install-deps step but not when it is just running commands. I think this is something that the tox-conda plugin modify.

[niander]

I verified that with passenv = APPDATA the test above works. I will make a PR with the proposed change.

[jugmac00]

Thanks for your contribution. While I had a hunch it is about env variables, as I have no access to a Windows box, I asked a colleague to take a look at this issue/PR.