Installing Python Packages

Python cannot and should not install everything on your computer because there are many libraries that serve a niche purpose. It would be wasteful to install them. To go beyond the basics of the last chapter, we are going to need to tell our computer to install external Python packages. Luckily, the tools exist to make this process very very easy.

There is a directory of Python packages called PyPI, which stores the package, package location, documentation (if it exists), authors, and much more.

 To install the package, we use pip in the following way:

pip install xlrd

If we want to remove the package, we would run the uninstall command:

pip uninstall xlrd

Choosing a Python library is an imperfect process. There are different ways to go about your selection. Don’t worry about trying to figure out what is the right library. When you are perfecting your skills and you find a couple of options, use the library that makes sense to you.

The first thing we recommend is using Google.com to see which libraries other people recommend.

The answer is not always obvious though. In [Link to Come], we will learn more about this process when looking into Twitter libraries.

NEWS CONTENTS

• 20140209 : build - How to package Python as RPM for install into -opt ( Stack Overflow )
• 20140209 : Python 2.7 RPMs - Gitorious ( Python 2.7 RPMs - Gitorious, )
• 20140209 : Building and Installing Python 2.7 RPMs on CentOS 5.7 by Nathan Milford ( Building and Installing Python 2.7 RPMs on CentOS 5.7, Feb 09, 2014 )
• 20080623 : freshmeat.net Project details for cfv ( freshmeat.net Project details for cfv, Jun 23, 2008 )

Old News ;-)

[Feb 09, 2014] build - How to package Python as RPM for install into -opt

Stack Overflow

Q: How to create a binary RPM package out of Python 2.7.2 sources for installation into a non-standard prefix such as /opt/python27?

Assume the following builds correctly.

wget http://python.org/ftp/python/2.7.2/Python-2.7.2.tgz
tar zxvf Python-2.7.2.tgz
cd Python-2.7.2
./configure --prefix=/opt/python27 --enable-shared
make
make test
sudo make install

Instead of the last command I'd like to build a binary RPM.

A:

RPMs are built using rpmbuild from a .spec file. As an example, look at python.spec from Fedora.

If you don't need to build from sources then try rpm's --relocate switch on a pre-built RPM for your distribution:

rpm -i --relocate /usr=/opt/python27 python-2.7.rpm

Python 2.7 RPMs - Gitorious

Python 2.7 RPMs

Port of the Fedora 15 Python 2.7 RPM and some of the related stack to build on RHEL 5 & 6 (and derivatives such as CentOS). Can be installed in parallel to the system Python packages.

[Feb 09, 2014] Building and Installing Python 2.7 RPMs on CentOS 5.7 by Nathan Milford

January 4, 2012 blog.milford.io
I was asked today to install Python 2.7 on a CentOS based node and I thought I'd take this oportunity to add a companion article to my Python 2.6 article.

We're all well aware that CentOS is pretty backwards when it comes to having the latest and greatest sotware packages and is particularly finicky when it comes to Python since so much of RHEL depends on it.

As a rule, I refuse to rush in and install anything in production that isn't in a manageable package format such as RPM. I need to be able to predictably reproduce software installs across a large number of nodes.

The following steps will not clobber your default Python 2.4 install and will keep both CentOS and your developers happy.

So, here we go.

Install the dependancies.

sudo yum -y install rpmdevtools tk-devel tcl-devel expat-devel db4-devel \
                    gdbm-devel sqlite-devel bzip2-devel openssl-devel \
                    ncurses-devel readline-devel

Setup you RPM build envirnoment.

rpmdev-setuptree

Grab my spec file.

wget https://raw.github.com/nmilford/specfiles/master/python-2.7/python27-2.7.2.spec \
     -O ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/python27-2.7.2.spec 

wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.2/Python-2.7.2.tar.bz2 \
     -O ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/Python-2.7.2.tar.bz2

Build RPM. (FYI, the QA_RPATHS variable tells the rpmbuild to skip some file path errors).

QA_RPATHS=$[ 0x0001|0x0010 ] rpmbuild -bb ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/python-2.7.2.spec

Install the RPMs.

sudo rpm -Uvh ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/x86_64/python27*.rpm

Now on to the the setuptools.

Grab my spec file.

wget https://raw.github.com/nmilford/specfiles/master/python-2.7/python27-setuptools-0.6c11.spec \
     -O ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/python27-setuptools-0.6c11.spec 

Grab the source.

wget http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/s/setuptools/setuptools-0.6c11.tar.gz \
     -O ~/rpmbuild/SOURCES/setuptools-0.6c11.tar.gz

Build the RPMs.

rpmbuild -bb ~/rpmbuild/SPECS/python27-setuptools-0.6c11.spec

Install the RPMs.

sudo rpm -Uvh ~/rpmbuild/RPMS/noarch/python27-setuptools-0.6c11-milford.noarch.rpm

Now, we'll install MySQL-python as an example.

Grab the mysql-dev package

yum -y install mysql-devel

Grab, build and install the MySQL-python package.

curl http://superb-sea2.dl.sourceforge.net/project/mysql-python/mysql-python/1.2.3/MySQL-python-1.2.3.tar.gz | tar zxv
cd MySQL-python-1.2.3
python2.7 setup.py build
python2.7 setup.py install

Like with the previous Python 2.6 article, note how I called the script explicitly using the following python binary: /usr/bin/python2.7

Now we're good to give it the old test thus:

python2.7 -c "import MySQLdb"

If it doesn't puke out some error message, you're all set.

Happy pythoning.

[Jun 23, 2008] freshmeat.net Project details for cfv

About:
cfv is a utility to both test and create .sfv (Simple File Verify), .csv, .crc, .md5(sfv style), md5sum, BSD md5, sha1sum, and .torrent checksum verification files. It also includes test-only support for .par and .par2 files. These files are commonly used to ensure the correct retrieval or storage of data.

Release focus: Major bugfixes

Changes:
Help output is printed to stdout under non-error conditions. A mmap file descriptor leak in Python 2.4.2 was worked around. The different module layout of BitTorrent 5.x is supported. A "struct integer overflow masking is deprecated" warning was fixed. The --private_torrent flag was added. A bug was worked around in 64-bit Python version 2.5 and later which causes checksums of files larger than 4GB to be incorrectly calculated when using mmap.

Recommended Links

Softpanorama Recommended

Top articles

Sites

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater’s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

The statements, views and opinions presented on this web page are those of the author (or referenced source) and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the Softpanorama society. We do not warrant the correctness of the information provided or its fitness for any purpose. The site uses AdSense so you need to be aware of Google privacy policy. You you do not want to be tracked by Google please disable Javascript for this site. This site is perfectly usable without Javascript.

Last modified: March, 12, 2019