This module provides a simple way to reduce the number of requirements listed in a Python project's requirements.txt file when using PIP. This can be a useful tool for identifying the main requirements of our Python project that call upon other dependencies.

First, it's necessary to install the library pipdeptree in the project that needs to reduce its requirements.txt file. This module extracts all dependencies of the project and generates a tree structure to visualize them.

pip install pipdeptree

This package generate a tree of dependencies with the following command:

pipdeptree -fl > tree.txt

The tree.txt file contains a dependencies tree:

root1
 child1_1
 child1_2
  subchild1_2_1
  subchild1_2_2
 child1_3
root2
 child2_1

The object is to get all the root dependencies instead any child dependency.

Execute the following command:

python reduce-req.py path/to/project/

This command creates a requirements.txt file with the root dependencies.