How do you install lxml on OS X Leopard without using MacPorts or Fink?

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I've tried this and run in to problems a bunch of times in the past. Does anyone have a recipe for installing lxml on OS X without MacPorts or Fink that definitely works?

Preferably with complete 1-2-3 steps for downloading and building each of the dependencies.

Patrick answered 14/8, 2009 at 10:22 Comment(0)

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Thanks to @jessenoller on Twitter I have an answer that fits my needs - you can compile lxml with static dependencies, hence avoiding messing with the libxml2 that ships with OS X. Here's what worked for me:

cd /tmp
curl -O http://lxml.de/files/lxml-3.6.0.tgz
tar -xzvf lxml-3.6.0.tgz 
cd lxml-3.6.0
python setup.py build --static-deps --libxml2-version=2.7.3  --libxslt-version=1.1.24 
sudo python setup.py install

Patrick answered 14/8, 2009 at 11:40 Comment(9)

The 'cd libs/' step fails for me, but it along with the following two wgets seem to be unnecessary as they happen as a side-effect of the 'setup.py build...' step anyway. – Tenderloin 14/8, 2009 at 17:31

Hmm... it's possible that libs/ directory was created for me the first time I ran "python setup.py build --static-deps" and it failed (because my firewall didn't allow FTP) - I actually pulled the .tar.gz files down via an intermediary server to work around that problem. – Patrick 15/8, 2009 at 7:19

AFAIK, wget doesn't come stock w/ OS X. Use curl -O instead. – Cachet 17/8, 2009 at 18:54

This seems to be failing on Snow Leopard with the error: from SAX.c:15: /Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.4u.sdk/usr/include/stdarg.h:4:25: error: stdarg.h: No such file or directory – Aves 30/1, 2010 at 22:48

Ahh found the Snow Leopard solution here: blog.coredumped.org/2009/09/snow-leopard-and-lxml.html - must temporarily change /usr/bin/gcc to point to /usr/bin/gcc-4.0 – Aves 30/1, 2010 at 23:5

As of 04/06/2010, this solution fails when using the most recent versions of all 3 (lxml 2.2.6, libxml 2.7.7, libxslt 1.1.26). I get an error that starts with: Undefined symbols for architecture i386: "_gzdirect", referenced from: ___xmlParserInputBufferCreateFilename in libxml2.a(xmlIO.o) – Kowal 7/4, 2010 at 14:1

This problem has a very simple solution: #1277624 – Roster 4/7, 2011 at 11:5

The ftp doesn't work for me but I found the two dependent libraries here: libxml2-2.7.3.tar.gz at code.google.com/p/autosetup1/downloads/… , libxslt-1.1.24.tar.gz code.google.com/p/savory/downloads/… – Augustineaugustinian 23/7, 2011 at 19:22

If you want to install lxml inside in virtualenv, activate virtualenv and run "pip install -e ." instead of "sudo python setup.py install" from last line. – Blatant 12/6, 2012 at 10:53

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This worked for me (10.6.8):

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch x86_64" easy_install lxml

Roster answered 1/7, 2011 at 8:38 Comment(9)

I don't remember - but things to the effect of dylibs being of wrong architecture – Augustineaugustinian 26/7, 2011 at 2:59

Hi, I ran this on 10.6.8 and it appears to have installed, but now when I try to import lxml in a script it still fails...any thoughts? If this is more approriate to move to it's own question I can do that. This is the end of the output after running the code above:

Installed /Library/Python/2.6/site-packages/lxml-2.3.3-py2.6-macosx-10.6-universal.egg Processing dependencies for lxml Finished processing dependencies for lxml

and this is what happens when I try to import: ImportError: No module named lxml – Perretta 24/3, 2012 at 19:36

I put up a better formatted question here – Perretta 24/3, 2012 at 19:50

@Jay have you tried what chuckles suggests: https://mcmap.net/q/83067/-how-do-you-install-lxml-on-os-x-leopard-without-using-macports-or-fink ? – Roster 10/8, 2012 at 9:42

For me on OS X 10.6.8 it worked to install, but then the installation was broken. import lxml works, but import lxml.etree does not. Related: #19557804 and https://mcmap.net/q/81888/-how-to-re-install-lxml/… – Lardner 27/10, 2013 at 1:21

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch x86_64" easy_install-2.7 lxml worked on Mac OS 10.9. Make sure to qualify the version of easy_install you are using. – Diandrous 1/7, 2014 at 19:3

@SergeyOrshanskiy did you ever find a working solution around the lxml.etree extension? – Burn 2/7, 2014 at 22:45

@ganicus, no, I concluded that if you want to use Apple's products, you have to prepare to always upgrade everything to the newest hardware and software. Happily using Ubuntu... – Lardner 4/7, 2014 at 7:37

This is sadly true. I did however have success with home brew and some doctored up installs as documented below. I'm working on a dated snow leopard server trying to automate some things with Python. Hopefully it will help anyone who was in our same spot. – Burn 4/7, 2014 at 17:10

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I've had excellent luck with Homebrew to install the libxml2 dependency:

brew install libxml2

Homebrew doesn't seem to have libxslt available, but I've not yet had a need for XSLT. YMMV.

Once you have the dependency(s), then the usual methods work just fine:

pip install lxml

or

easy_install lxml

Cachet answered 26/4, 2011 at 1:32 Comment(4)

Doesn't work for me. I end up with error: command 'gcc-4.2' failed with exit status 1. The solution above does work, however. – Cultism 26/4, 2011 at 4:10

Didn't work for me on 10.6, but I managed to install with #1277624 – Roster 1/7, 2011 at 8:41

on 10.11: error: command 'clang' failed with exit status 1; solution was: xcode-select --install – Lenoralenore 14/10, 2015 at 15:25

Just leaving this here: I needed to run: brew install libxml2 followed by easy_install lxml followed by easy_install scour for saving Inkscape files. – Tawny 19/7, 2017 at 5:7

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Easy_install can work using this:

STATIC_DEPS=true easy_install 'lxml>=2.2beta4'

you may then need to run, depending on permissions;

STATIC_DEPS=true sudo easy_install 'lxml>=2.2beta4'

see http://muffinresearch.co.uk/archives/2009/03/05/install-lxml-on-osx/

Clavius answered 26/8, 2009 at 10:5 Comment(1)

This solution didn't work for me (OSX 10.6.8), but I've found another one: #1277624 – Roster 4/7, 2011 at 11:7

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using homebrew (0.9.5) on el capitan (10.11.1) the following worked for me:

brew install libxml2
LD_FLAGS=-L/usr/local/opt/libxml2/lib CPPFLAGS=-I/usr/local/opt/libxml2/include/libxml2 pip install lxml

Dogfish answered 13/1, 2016 at 21:36 Comment(0)

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This worked for me on 10.8.5

Install Xcode from Mac App Store
Xcode -> Preferences -> Downloads -> Command Line Tools
Install homebrew using
ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go)"
brew install libxml2
sudo easy_install lxml

This comprises suggestions from:

But I wanted to compile it into one answer rather than leave comments everywhere

Liken answered 10/10, 2013 at 18:52 Comment(1)

Thank you, I was missing the part where installing the Xcode Command Line Tools was needed. This can be done via command line: xcode-select --install – Aberrant 3/5, 2016 at 19:39

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On OS X 10.9.1 the suggested answer above errors out during install -- following changes had to be made:

cd /tmp  
curl -o lxml-3.3.0.tgz http://lxml.de/files/lxml-3.3.0.tgz  
tar -xzvf lxml-3.3.0.tgz  
cd lxml-3.3.0  
python setup.py build --static-deps --libxml2-version=2.8.0  --libxslt-version=1.1.24  
sudo python setup.py install

Intisar answered 1/2, 2014 at 17:54 Comment(1)

On 10.9.2, this fails with: clang: error: unknown argument: '-mno-fused-madd' [-Wunused-command-line-argument-hard-error-in-future] – Catron 23/3, 2014 at 17:18

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I had this working fine with Snow Lepoard but after I upgraded to Lion I had to symlink gcc-4.2 to gcc. Running sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch x86_64" easy_install lxml was looking for gcc-4.2 instead of gcc.

Cleghorn answered 21/10, 2011 at 14:6 Comment(0)

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I'm using OSX 10.11 El Capitan and Homebrew. Using pip install lxml would give me "fatal error: 'libxml/xmlversion.h' file not found" and "failed with error code 1" blah blah.

According to the official website, I should use STATIC_DEPS=true pip install lxml (add sudo before pip if you need that), and that solved my problem.

I ran brew install libxml2 and brew install libxslt to install the dependencies while troubleshooting. I'm not sure if those two commands are necessary.

Mccullers answered 17/10, 2015 at 1:24 Comment(0)

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Try installing Cython and installing from source, easy_install does fail. I haven't tried on my mac yet though.

Failing that the ports version isn't that ancient. You can see the dependencies, some of which had to be updated for my Linux build of lxml.

info py25-lxml py25-lxml @2.1.5 (python, devel)

lxml is a Pythonic binding for the libxml2 and libxslt libraries. It is unique in that it combines the speed and feature completeness of these libraries with the simplicity of a native Python API, mostly compatible but superior to the well-known ElementTree API. Homepage: http://codespeak.net/lxml/

Library Dependencies: python25, libxml2, libxslt, py25-hashlib, py25-setuptools, py25-zlib Platforms: darwin Maintainers: [email protected] [email protected]

Exhort answered 14/8, 2009 at 11:15 Comment(1)

Check out the post from Ross, you need the header files for libxml2 and libxslt. Think that's why GCC was barfing when I tried to compile from the svn trunk. – Exhort 14/8, 2009 at 11:34

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This is quite up to date - march 2009: http://lsimons.wordpress.com/2008/08/31/how-to-install-lxml-python-module-on-mac-os-105-leopard/

Vernavernacular answered 14/8, 2009 at 11:15 Comment(2)

It looks like those instructions clobber OS X's built-in libxml2, which I'd rather not do. – Patrick 14/8, 2009 at 11:41

The Apple one is in /usr/lib the one on the blog is in /usr/local *The parameter to the configure steps) – Mia 1/9, 2009 at 23:19

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lxml is included in the pypm repository:

$ pypm install lxml

Hetaerism answered 9/10, 2009 at 6:27 Comment(0)

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To install with up to date versions of libxml2 and libxslt:

ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch x86_64" STATIC_DEPS=true pip install lxml

To install with specific versions of libraries:

ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch x86_64" STATIC_DEPS=true LIBXML2_VERSION=2.7.3 LIBXSLT_VERSION=1.1.24 pip install lxml

CentOS 64 bit (a bit off question, but hard won):

CFLAGS=-fPIC STATIC_DEPS=true pip install lxml

or

CFLAGS=-fPIC STATIC_DEPS=true LIBXML2_VERSION=2.7.3 LIBXSLT_VERSION=1.1.24 pip install lxml

Straley answered 25/4, 2012 at 21:21 Comment(0)

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A lot of pain went into this for an outdated 10.6.8 os x but here it goes for anyone running Snow Leopard!

First you have to install a different version of libxml2 from homebrew and install --with-python. You can do this by typing in the following commands.

brew update
brew edit libxml2

Then find the line that says "--without-python" and change to "--with-python".

system "./configure", "--disable-dependency-tracking",
                      "--prefix=#{prefix}",
                      "--with-python"

Now you can install libxml2.

brew install libxml2

Next check your new install of libxml2 in the default homebrew location. You want to find the libxml2 config.

YOURS MAY BE DIFFERENT:

"/usr/local/Cellar/libxml2/VERSION_/bin/xml2-config"

Now use the following command to install lxml with pip using the newly installed libxml2 config and not the Mac OS X version.

ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch x86_64" pip install lxml --install-option="--with-xml2-config=/usr/local/Cellar/libxml2/2.9.1/bin/xml2-config"

Worked for me on my 10.6.8 Python 2.6. Thanks.

Credit goes to this page for showing me pip --install-option ...

http://natanyellin.com/page/4/

Burn answered 3/7, 2014 at 0:55 Comment(0)

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I compile it in /usr/local without any issues whatsoever.

Install Python, libxml2, libxslt and then lxml. You might need setuptools installed too.

Tanguay answered 14/8, 2009 at 10:33 Comment(1)

That works on OS X? What prefix commands etc do you use? How do you ensure the libxml2 you are installing doesn't conflict with the one that ships with OS X? – Patrick 14/8, 2009 at 11:1

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