About a week ago, I installed Homebrew on my OSX, mostly because I wanted to use Unix's wget command (It's like Unix's accio! wget horcrux. wget firebolt.)
Unfortunately, doing so installed a new version of python on my machine and switched the PATH and PYTHONPATH away from my Anaconda version of python (which is the version I use and that houses all of my beloved installed packages). After hours of
struggle, I figured out how to solve this problem.
First, to see if you have this problem, type in the terminal:
$ type -a python
Which will give you output looking something like this:
$ type -a python
python is /usr/local/bin/python
python is //anaconda/bin/python
python is /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python
python is //anaconda/bin/python
python is //anaconda/bin/python
python is /usr/bin/python
python is /usr/local/bin/python
This is a hierarchical list of the pythons installed on your machine.
The python that you actually want executed when you type python into
the terminal should be at the top of the list. In my situation,
//anaconda/bin/python is my preferred python. To get this version to
the top of the list, you need to edit your PATH, which tells your
machine the directory to find python when you type it in the terminal.
Similarly, you'll probably need to update your PYTHONPATH, which tells
python where to look for modules to import. To see where python is
currently looking for modules, run python in your terminal and type the
following commands:
>>> import sys
>>> sys.path
As output, python will print out a list of the directories where it looks for modules:
>>> import sys
>>> sys.path
['',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools-1.3-py2.7.egg',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.4.1-py2.7.egg',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages', '/Users/amyhanlon',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python27.zip',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/plat-darwin',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/plat-mac',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/plat-mac/lib-scriptpackages',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/lib-tk',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/lib-old',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload',
'/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages',
'/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages']
To fix this problem, open the hidden file called ~/.bash_profile which exists in your home directory (the ~ symbolizes your home directory).
$ subl ~/.bash_profile
Here I'm using the subl command which opens files in Sublime.
The file contents should look something like this:
# Setting `PATH` for Python 2.7
# The original version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:${PATH}"
export `PATH`
# added by Anaconda 1.7.0 installer
export PATH="//anaconda/bin:$PATH"
export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
export PYTHONPATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH"
The last PATH= and PYTHONPATH= lines should be directed to the Anaconda location of python, and in this case they aren't. To fix this, comment out or delete lines that incorrectly assign the PATH and PYTHONPATH variables, and
add lines that assign the correct variables. After making edits, my file looks like this:
# Setting PATH for Python 2.7
# The original version is saved in .bash_profile.pysave
#
PATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin:${PATH}"
PATH="//anaconda/bin:${PATH}"
export `PATH`
# added by Anaconda 1.7.0 installer
export PATH="//anaconda/bin:$PATH"
# export PATH=/usr/local/bin:$PATH
# export
PYTHONPATH="/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH"
export PYTHONPATH="//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH"
Save the file. Then, in the terminal (after exiting python), source the
file, and see if you've fixed the PATH and PYTHONPATH:
$ source ~/.bash_profile
$ type -a python
python is //anaconda/bin/python
python is //anaconda/bin/python
python is /usr/local/bin/python
python is //anaconda/bin/python
python is /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/bin/python
python is //anaconda/bin/python
python is //anaconda/bin/python
python is /usr/bin/python
python is /usr/local/bin/python
Now you should see the Anaconda python (or your preferable python) at the top of the list in the output.
Check your PYTHONPATH in the python interpreter by using the same method as before:
>>> import sys
>>> sys.path
['', '//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gspread-0.1.0-py2.7.egg',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/fuzzywuzzy-0.2-py2.7.egg',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/inflect-0.2.4-py2.7.egg',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/beautifulsoup4-4.3.2-py2.7.egg',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pyicloud-0.3.0-py2.7.egg',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/foursquare-20130707-py2.7.egg',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/poster-0.8.1-py2.7.egg',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages', '/Users/amyhanlon',
'//anaconda/lib/python27.zip', '//anaconda/lib/python2.7',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/plat-darwin',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/plat-mac',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/plat-mac/lib-scriptpackages',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/lib-tk', '//anaconda/lib/python2.7/lib-old',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/PIL',
'//anaconda/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg-info']
Now the terminal is using my Anaconda version of python and is looking in the Anaconda library for my packages! Viola!
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