"enchant C library not found" while installing pyenchant using pip on OSX

Question

I typed in pip install pyenchant into my shell, but it raised two Traceback errors:

1:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 16, in <module>
  File "/private/var/folders/q4/l70hdqjd5db2n2bdj69qrwz40000gq/T/pip_build_prernauppal/pyenchant/setup.py", line 195, in <module>
    import enchant
  File "enchant/__init__.py", line 90, in <module>
    from enchant import _enchant as _e
  File "enchant/_enchant.py", line 133, in <module>
    raise ImportError("enchant C library not found")
ImportError: enchant C library not found

2:

Traceback (most recent call last):

    File "<string>", line 16, in <module>

    File "/private/var/folders/q4/l70hdqjd5db2n2bdj69qrwz40000gq/T/pip_build_prernauppal/pyenchant/setup.py", line 195, in <module>

        import enchant

    File "enchant/__init__.py", line 90, in <module>

        from enchant import _enchant as _e

     File "enchant/_enchant.py", line 133, in <module>

        raise ImportError("enchant C library not found")

ImportError: enchant C library not found

----------------------------------------
Cleaning up...
Command python setup.py egg_info failed with error code 1 in /private/var/folders/q4/l70hdqjd5db2n2bdj69qrwz40000gq/T/pip_build_prernauppal/pyenchant

I have python 2.7 default installed on my mac, but it still isn't working. I have already looked at Unable to install pyenchant-1.6.5 for python 2.7 on Mac OSX Lion but it doesn't answer my question, as easy_install pyenchant raises even more errors.

Economize

Answer 1

You need to install enchant, which is a C library. You can use Homebrew, to do this kind of package management. Just enter:

brew install enchant

Before trying to pip install pyenchant and you should be fine.

Wivinah

It still didn't work... the brew was successful, but the pip install pyenchant raised the same errors. – Economize

@aj8uppal sounds like you've got some permissions messed up (pretty common on mac). I would suggest trying both with and without sudo for both of the commands: brew install enchant, and pip install pyenchant – Wivinah

Answer 2

Try this - It worked for me on Ubuntu.

sudo apt-get install libenchant1c2a

Prom

Although the question was about OSX, this helped me with a docker build. tnx. – Beauharnais

Answer 3

Try either sudo pip install or sudo easy install.

Commissionaire

Answer 4

[nltk_data] Error loading enchant: Package 'enchant' not found in

No. if you get this problem, you are supposed to install it like this:

$ sudo easy_install pyenchant

it is not an nltk package, it is a package on its own.

Freeforall

Answer 5

sudo easy_install

sudo because MAC permissions are usually messed up

Cerise

Answer 6

Try a pip install, an easy_install, and a brew.

Nutty

Answer 7

You have to download the NLTK package. That is how you get Pyenchant running. But if your building a grammar checker, pyenchant is not advisable because it only grammar checks two words. You should consider building a grammar checker on your own by starting with an autocomplete word completion from here: How to code autocompletion in python?

Freeforall

Answer 8

For windows: download the required .exe file based on version from https://pypi.python.org/simple/pyenchant/ and pip install pyenchant

Ferrule