[XML-SIG] Problem Installing PyXML

[Matt Gushee]

On Tue, Aug 27, 2002 at 03:10:10PM -0700, landauer@got.net wrote:

> Craig Dillabaugh reported a problem installing PyXML.
> 
> I have run into the exact same problem (on Solaris "SunOS 5.8",
> for what it's worth).
> 
> The only response to Craig's message so far,
>   http://mail.python.org/pipermail/xml-sig/2002-August/008276.html
> was not very helpful.  In contrast to what Dieter suggests, the
> README file for PyXML says this:
> 
>  The only requirements for installing the package are Python 2.0 or
>  later, and a C compiler. This release has been tested with Python 2.x.

This may be incorrect. You do need to have the Python Makefile installed
to compile C extensions with DistUtils; I don't know about Solaris, but
on Linux at least you have to build Python from source or install a
development package to have the Makefile. I think most PyXML users up to
now have been pretty serious Python developers, who have all that stuff
anyway; that would explain its being overlooked in the documentation.

> Does anyone know what is broken here?

Actually, I responded to Craig yesterday, but accidentally sent my
message to him rather than the list. Perhaps he'd like to forward it to
the list, since I think it might be helpful for people new to DistUtils.

It could be that he didn't have the Makefile installed, but one thing
that caught my eye was a number of lines in the stack trace like this:

   File "/genesis1/cdillaba/Python-2.2.1/Lib/distutils/sysconfig.py", line

That refers to an existing source file on his system. Note that 'Lib' is
capitalized, which of course is unusual for a UNIX system. Contrast that
with:

> distutils.errors.DistutilsPlatformError: invalid Python installation: unable
> to open /genesis1/cdillaba/Python-2.2.1/lib/python2.2/config/Makefile (No
> such file or directory)

DistUtils expects to find the Makefile under .../lib/... . It appears
that Craig has a directory called 'Lib' instead of 'lib' in his Python
installation. Don't know if that's a bug in the Python package he
installed, or if he manually created that directory, but either way the
case mismatch would probably account for the error.

-- 
Matt Gushee
Englewood, Colorado, USA
mgushee@havenrock.com
http://www.havenrock.com/