Installing lxml with python on a mac

Question

First, I installed lxml without using pip (Python 2.7.2 on Mac OS 10.6.8). Then, I read this post and I installed it again using pip ( sudo pip install lxml ). I still had a problem:

I can import lxml ( import lxml ) but I cannot use from lxml import etree . I have this error message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
ImportError: dlopen(/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lxml-2.3.3-py2.7-macosx-10.6-intel.egg/lxml/etree.so, 2): Symbol not found: _htmlParseChunk
  Referenced from: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lxml-2.3.3-py2.7-macosx-10.6-intel.egg/lxml/etree.so
  Expected in: flat namespace
 in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lxml-2.3.3-py2.7-macosx-10.6-intel.egg/lxml/etree.so

Then, I tried to install lxml from source following these instructions , and I have this error message:

checking whether we are cross compiling... configure: error: in `/Users/my_name/Applications/lxml/lxml-2.2.2/build/tmp/libxml2-2.7.8':
configure: error: cannot run C compiled programs.
If you meant to cross compile, use `--host'.
See `config.log' for more details
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "setup.py", line 115, in <module>
    STATIC_CFLAGS, STATIC_BINARIES),
  File "/Users/my_name/Applications/lxml/lxml-2.2.2/setupinfo.py", line 50, in ext_modules
    libxslt_version=OPTION_LIBXSLT_VERSION)
  File "/Users/my_name/Applications/lxml/lxml-2.2.2/buildlibxml.py", line 198, in build_libxml2xslt
    call_subprocess(configure_cmd, cwd=libxml2_dir, **call_setup)
  File "/Users/my_name/Applications/lxml/lxml-2.2.2/buildlibxml.py", line 158, in call_subprocess
    raise Exception('Command "%s" returned code %s' % (cmd_desc, returncode))
Exception: Command "./configure --without-python --disable-dependency-tracking --disable-shared --prefix=/Users/my_name/Applications/lxml/lxml-2.2.2/build/tmp/libxml2" returned code 1

Finally, I followed the second advise of this answer and I used the command line sudo STATIC_DEPS=true /usr/bin/easy_install-2.7 lxml . It installed lxml on the Apple-supplied system Python 2.7, and not on the version I'm currently using. The positive point: if I run the Apple-Python, I can from lxml import etree .

Negative point: I still don't know how to install lxml on another version of python. Any idea?

I'm currently using /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python .

Answer 1

You need to install a separate easy_install for the version of Python you are using. See the answer here for more details. Then you can run the easy_install command using it:

STATIC_DEPS=true easy_install-2.7 lxml

UPDATE: From your comments, you now are reporting a permission error showing yet another Python path, one that appears to be a MacPorts-installed Python: /opt/local/Library/Frameworks . You need to figure out which Python you want to use. If, in fact, you want to use the MacPorts one, then simply install the MacPorts-provided lxml port. That's the easiest solution.

$ sudo port selfupdate
$ sudo port install py27-lxml

Otherwise, you need to install easy_install with the other (python.org?) Python 2.7.2. I would recommend to use Distribute , the more modern fork of `setuptools' and you need to ensure you are using the right Python:

$ curl -O http://python-distribute.org/distribute_setup.py
$ export PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:${PATH}"
$ which python2.7   # should be in the path above
$ python2.7 distribute_setup.py
$ STATIC_DEPS=true easy_install-2.7 lxml