Default pip install behavior?

[rasmi]

Currently, pip install outputs You must give at least one requirement to install (see "pip help install"). It would be nice to be able to do just pip install in a directory with a Pipfile.lock and have it recognize and run the installation automatically based on that file. This behavior is identical to pip install -p ("when -p is bare") as described in the README but provides a default for pip install without needing the -p flag, like npm install. If no Pipfile.lock file is found, pip install can output its current error message.

Additionally, perhaps pip install can recognize a Pipfile if there is no Pipfile.lock file, run the install, and generate a corresponding Pipfile.lock file.

Thoughts?

[defnull]

Additionally, perhaps pip install can recognize a Pipfile if there is no Pipfile.lock file, run the install, and generate a corresponding Pipfile.lock file.

This would undermine the concept of Pipfile.lock (#7) and also encourage people to not commit Pipfile.lock to svc and view it as an unimportant build artifact (#9).

Edit: I'm okay with the rest of your proposal.

[rasmi]

@defnull Okay, that makes sense. Thanks for clarifying.

[kennethreitz]

• Bundler automatically writes it to disk at every install. I was convinced by it's ex-maintainer that this is a great idea. That may go.
• In either case, there will be a command to just generate the lockfile.
• The lockfile should almost always go into source control.

[kennethreitz]

-p could possibly be a default in pip, but not until this is added and battle tested first. -p is the minimum implementation that would need to be deployed first.