Installation

Requirements

• Python 3.12 or greater.

• Git

• A GitHub account

Creating a virtual environment

To keep the OFA TANF Longitudinal Dataset (OTLD) project separate from your other projects and avoid conflicting package installations, it is best to install the project in a virtual environment. With Python installed on your computer (and assuming a Windows environment), the following command can be used to create a virtual environment:

py -m venv <name of virtual environment>

Note

If you find that the above command does not work for you when trying to setup a virtual environment, please try:

python -m venv <name of virtual environment>

Activate the virtual environment before installing any packages. Assuming a virtual environment named .venv:

.venv\Scripts\Activate

See the venv documentation for additional details.

Option 1: Cloning the repository

First, clone the OTLD repository from GitHub. Follow the steps in the GitHub documentation for cloning repositories if you are unsure of how to proceed. Once you have the repository cloned, create a virtual environment in the repository’s directory and activate it. To install the OTLD package, use the following commands:

py -m pip install -U pip # (Optionally) Upgrade your installation of pip
pip install . # Install the OTLD package

Option 2: Installing directly from GitHub

Navigate to the directory in which you would like to install the OTLD package. Create and activate a virtual environment, or ensure a virtual environment is active if one already exists. Run the following commands:

py -m pip install -U pip # (Optionally) Upgrade your installation of pip
pip install git+https://github.com/HHS/acf-ofa-tanf-longitudinal-dataset@main # Install the OTLD package

You may be asked to authenticate your GitHub account. After authentication, installation will begin.