Our quickstarts are designed to get you working with Twilio in record time. We've used the same Python ingredients time and time again so you only need to go through environmental setup once.
To complete the Twilio Python quickstarts, you'll need to have the following tools installed:
twilio-python
library
If you are on a Mac or Linux machine, you most likely already have Python installed. Windows users can follow this excellent tutorial. There are more advanced configuration instructions at the official Python website.
Flask is a super web server written in Python. We're going to use it for this tutorial. To install it, we are first going to
install two tools: pip and virtualenv.
Many third-party Python libraries, such as the math library numpy, the MySQL connector library MySQL-python, and Flash, are made available as "packages". They are installed using a "package manager". Most Python developers prefer to use a package manager called pip, but easy_install is another.
virtualenv is a tool that lets you create a special sandbox for each of your Python projects, to ensure that you have exactly the right version of every tool you need for that particular project. Furthermore, virtualenv makes sure that you don't accidentally break your app if someone updates your Python packages.
We first need to make sure that we install pip and virtualenv for the correct version of Python on your computer. Open a terminal and run the following command:
_10python --version
It should say something like the following:
_10python --version_10Python 3.9.1
Find the instructions below to install virtualenv for the version of Python reported by your terminal.
Run the following command:
_10easy_install virtualenv
If your Python version is 2.5, 2.6 or 2.7, run easy_install with your Python version number, like this:
_10easy_install-2.7 virtualenv
Replace the version number 2.7 above with 2.5 or 2.6 if you have that version installed.
pip is included in Python 3.4+ installations, so just install virtualenv with:
_10pip install virtualenv
If you get any permission denied errors, try running sudo python instead of python.
If you get an easy_install-2.5: command not found error, you may need to check that Python is installed or add the folder containing
the easy_install program to your $PATH.
If you get an error that looks like this:
_10Installing pip script to /usr/local/bin_10error: /usr/local/bin/pip: Permission denied
Then you need to run the install script as the admin user, like this:
_10sudo easy_install-2.6 virtualenv
Once you have virtualenv installed, switch to the directory you'll use for your tutorial, and create a virtual environment:
_10cd Documents/my_tutorial_folder_10virtualenv --no-site-packages .
Now activate the virtual environment.
_10source bin/activate
On Windows, use .\bin\activate.bat.
You will need to activate your environment before every session with your Python server.
You can tell your virtual environment is running because your terminal will have the name of the enclosing folder listed above it:
_10(quickstart)USER:~ user$
Now we're going to install Flask and the twilio-python library. Create a file called requirements.txt and add the following lines to it:
_10Flask>=0.12_10twilio~=6.0.0
Install these packages with pip:
_10bin/pip install -r requirements.txt
Create a file called run.py and add these lines to it:
_10from flask import Flask_10app = Flask(__name__)_10_10@app.route("/")_10def hello():_10 return "Hello World!"_10_10if __name__ == "__main__":_10 app.run(debug=True)
Now run it. In your terminal, type:
_10python run.py
You should see the output:
_10* Running on http://127.0.0.1:5000/
Navigate to http://localhost:5000 in a browser. You should see a "Hello World" message.
You now have everything you need to start using Twilio and Python! Let's start coding.