Develop Reference

Issues installing quickfix library for Windows on Python2.6

Couldn’t find a compiled quickfix library for Python2.6 on Internet.
That’s why the running of build was necessary.
I downloaded package quickfix-1.15.1 from https://pypi.org/project/quickfix/ which contains setup.py
And started building with command:
C:\Python26\python.exe setup.py build
The process interrupted after some error messages about missing include file tr1/memory and wrong compiler option /Wno-deprecated.
I use Visual Studio 2019 compiler.
Seek an advice on how to get on.

Python, error (error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat) installing a module (docx) [duplicate]

Using pip install zipline on Windows 8 with Python 2.7 gives me the error:
Downloading/unpacking six (from python-dateutil==2.1->delorean->zipline[all])
Running setup.py egg_info for package six
Installing collected packages: blist, pytz, requests, python-dateutil, six
Running setup.py install for blist
building '_blist' extension
error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat
Complete output from command C:\Python27\python.exe -c "import setuptools;__
file__='c:\\users\\ThatsMe\\appdata\\local\\temp\\pip-build-ThatsMe\\blist\\setup.py';ex
ec(compile(open(__file__).read().replace('\r\n', '\n'), __file__, 'exec'))" inst
all --record c:\users\ThatsMe\appdata\local\temp\pip-xvoky2-record\install-record.tx
t --single-version-externally-managed:
running install
running build
running build_py
running build_ext
building '_blist' extension
error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat
Question: How can the error be resolved? Running pip install zipline[all] gives the same error...

The problem here is the line 292 (Using Python 3.4.3 here) in $python_install_prefix/Lib/distutils/msvc9compiler.py which says:
VERSION = get_build_version()
This only checks for the MSVC version that your python was built with. Just replacing this line with your actual Visual Studio version, eg. 12.0 for MSVC2013
VERSION = 12.0
will fix the issue.
UPDATE: Turns out that there is a good reason why this version is hardcoded. MSVC C runtime is not required to be compatible between major versions. Hence when you use a different VS version you might run into runtime problems. So I advise to use VS 2008 (for Python 2.6 up to 3.2) and VS2010 for (Python 3.3 and later) until this issue is sorted out.
Binary compatibility will arrive with VS 2015 (see here) along with Python 3.5 .
For Python 2.7 users Microsoft released a special Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7 which can be used without installing the whole VS 2008.

You could use ol' good easy_install zipline instead.
easy_install isn't pip but one good aspect of it is the ability to download and install binary packages too, which would free you for the need having VC++ ready. This of course relies of the assumption that the binaries were prepared for your Python version.
UPDATE:
Yes, Pip can install binaries now!
There's a new binary Python archive format (wheel) that is supposed to replace "eggs". Wheels are already supported by pip. This means you'll be able to install zipline with pip without compiling it as soon as someone builds the wheel for your platform and uploads it to PyPI.

If you are getting this error on Python 2.7 you can now get the Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7 as a stand alone download.
If you are on 3.3 or later you need to install Visual Studio 2010 express which is available for free here: https://www.visualstudio.com/downloads/download-visual-studio-vs#d-2010-express
If you are 3.3 or later and using a 64 bit version of python you need to install the Microsoft SDK 7.1 that ships a 64 bit compiler and follow the directions here Python PIP has issues with path for MS Visual Studio 2010 Express for 64-bit install on Windows 7

First, you should look for the file vcvarsall.bat in your system.
If it does not exist, I recommend you to install Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7. This will create the vcvarsall.bat in "C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft\Visual C++ for Python\9.0" if you install it for all users.
The problem now is in the function find_vcvarsall(version) in the C:/Python27/Lib/distutils/msvc9compiler.py module, which is looking for the vcvarsall.bat file.
Following the function calls you will see it is looking for an entry in the registry containing the path to the vcvarsall.bat file. It will never find it because this function is looking in other directories different from where the above-mentioned installation placed it, and in my case, the registry didn't exist.
The easiest way to solve this problem is to manually return the path of the vcvarsall.bat file. To do so, modify the function find_vcvarsall(version) in the msvc9compiler.py file with the absolute path to the vcvarsall.bat file like this:
def find_vcvarsall(version):
return r"C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\Microsoft\Visual C++ for Python\9.0\vcvarsall.bat"
This solution worked for me.
If you already have the vcvarsall.bat file you should check if you have the key productdir in the registry:
(HKEY_USERS, HKEY_CURRENT_USERS, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE or HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT)\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\version\Setup\VC
Where version = msvc9compiler.get_build_version()
If you don't have the key just do:
def find_vcvarsall(version):
return <path>\vcvarsall.bat
To understand the exact behavior check msvc9compiler.py module starting in the find_vcvarsall(version) function.

Simply because you don't have c++ compiler installed there in your machine, check the following
Download Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 from this page. That is a generally useful page anyway, so you should probably bookmark it. For Python 3.3+ use MS Visual C++ 2010.
Install it.
Open Windows explorer (the file browser) and search for the location of ‘vcvarsall.bat’ and cut it to your clipboard.
run regedit from the Windows start key. You will need admin privilges.
Add a registry entry to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\Setup\VC\ProductDir (64 bit Windows) or
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\VisualStudio\9.0\Setup\VC\ProductDir (32 bit)
as described here.
Hint: 0.9 in the registery directory is the currently installed version of your visual studio, if you running VS 2013, you have to find the path HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\VisualStudio\12.0....
At the Windows start key, type cmd to get a command shell. If you need to, go to your virtual environment and run activate.bat.
pip install or whatever you use to install it.

You need to have Visual Studio's bin dir in your path. Pip install is trying to compile some C code.

I spent hours researching this vcvarsall.bat as well. Most answers on SO focus on Python 2.7 and / or creating workarounds by modifying system paths. None worked for me. This solution worked out of the box for Python 3.5 and (I think) is the "correct" way of doing it.
See this link -- it describes the Windows Compilers to use for different versions of Python: https://wiki.python.org/moin/WindowsCompilers#Microsoft_Visual_C.2B-.2B-_14.0_standalone:_Visual_C.2B-.2B-_Build_Tools_2015_.28x86.2C_x64.2C_ARM.29
For Python 3.5, download this: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=49983
For me, I had to run C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual C++ Build Tools\Visual C++ x64 Native Build Tools Command Prompt for it to work. From that command prompt, I ran "pip install django_compressor" which was the particular package that was causing me an issue, and it worked perfectly.
Hope this saves someone some time!

Thanks to "msoliman" for his hint, however his answer doesn't give clear solution for those who doesn't have VS2010
For example I have VS2012 and VS2013 and there are no such KEYs in system registry.
Solution:
Edit file: "[Python_install_loc]/Lib/distutils/msvc9compiler.py"
Change on line 224:
productdir = Reg.get_value(r"%s\Setup\VC" % vsbase,
"productdir")
to:
productdir = "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio [your_vs_version(11/12...)]\VC"
and that should work

If you are trying to install matplotlib in order to work with graphs on python. Try this link.
https://github.com/jbmohler/matplotlib-winbuild.
This is a set of scripts to build matplotlib from source on the MS Windows platform.
To build & install matplotlib in your Python, do:
git clone https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib
git clone https://github.com/jbmohler/matplotlib-winbuild
$ python matplotlib-winbuild\buildall.py
The build script will auto-detect Python version & 32/64 bit automatically.

I appreciate this might not be the answer to resolving on 3.4 but I tried a huge variety of things to fix this on 3.4 and thought this might be useful if someone is time pressed or doesn't have the know-how to correct it (in my case, work demands).
With exactly the same setup, I found that my installation problems only happened with Python 3.4. When I changed to 2.7, all my issues seemed to be resolved.
We have a rather overzealous security setup though so I'm going to try the same on my home version (still 3.4) and see if I have any more joy. My inclination is that my VS version has somehow been restricted and the answers above should help. If I find anything more tonight I'll add further detail.
This is my first reply, not the most technical I'm afraid!

3D Harmonics library on windows - pyshtools failed building wheel + fatal error with fftw3.lib

We need a tool to work with 3D-Harmonics and we've come across https://github.com/SHTOOLS/SHTOOLS - which fits all of our needs, but could not be installed properly on our windows computers (as it's intended for linux\osx).
When we tried to run pip install . in the directory SHTOOLS-3.3 (we use anaconda for managing packages and it includes pip), we at first got an error saying that we need a Fortran compiler (gfortran) - which we fixed by installing gcc with conda install -c r gcc. Afterwards, we got an error saying we need to install visual C++ compiler - which we downloaded as suggested from https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=44266.
Alas, running the command again, this time from the visual C++ 2008 command prompt, we still get a fatal error and are still stuck with installing the library.
Some of the errors we get:
could not find library 'fftw3' in directories ['build\\temp.win-amd64-2.7']
could not find library 'm' in directories ['build\\temp.win-amd64-2.7']
could not find library 'lapack' in directories ['build\\temp.win-amd64-2.7']
could not find library 'blas' in directories ['build\\temp.win-amd64-2.7']
Followed by
LINK: fatal error LNK1181: cannot open input file 'fftw3.lib'
and
Failed building wheel for pyshtools
The full output of the installation attempt can be found here and here.
We've tried to download the lib files of the FFTW3, LAPACK and BLAS libraries but couldn't build them properly.
We would appreciate any help (suggesting a similar library that is compatible with windows \ helping with the install of SHTOOlS).

It's a shame when you find something ready to go but very time consuming to make it work on windows. My advice would be avoid the hazzle of installing that non-ready-to-go-on-windows library and just looking for another alternative, there are few ones dealing with spherical harmonics. What about this one? pyspharm
Also, posting an issue in the library's github issues could speed it up things.

Python does not consider distutils.cfg

I have tried everything given and the tutorials all point in the same direction about using mingw as a compiler in python instead of visual c++.
I do have visual c++ and mingw both. Problem started coming when I wanted to install using pip. It always gave Unable to find vcvarsall.bat
So as per suggestions I created a file distutils.cfg under the following path c:/python27/Lib/distutils/ and added the following two lines:
[build]
compiler=mingw32
However, this file has no effect whatsoever. The same error still exists while using pip. I am trying to install numpy by the way currently although the error came earlier also.

Cost me several hours to figure this out but now works like a charm.
I am on Windows 64bit and using a scientific Python distribution Enthought Canopy.
Ensure you have installed MinGW and the Compilers you need (C, C++, Fortran..)
Add C:\MingW\bin to your PATH in Environment variables
In C:\Users\MyName\AppData\Local\Enthought\Canopy32\App\appdata\canopy-1.6.2.3262.win-x86\Lib\distutils, create with notepad++ or similiar a new file distutils.cfg
Write and save:
[build]
compiler = mingw32
[build_ext]
compiler = mingw32

Difficult Solution (Building using the C/C++ compiler)
Are you on Windows 32bit or 64bit? Are you specifying the build when you're compiling? For example, do the following in your shell or bash:
python setup.py build --compiler==mingw32
python setup.py install
Easier Solution (Use pre-built binaries)
If you don't have to compile the program, you can use the unofficial Windows binaries from here

Do you happen to use virtualenv as well?
Anyway, use Microsoft Visual C++ Compiler for Python 2.7
and a newer setuptools. The one bundled with virtualenv (3.6) does not support this compiler.
pip install "setuptools>=6.0"
Credits: http://blog.ionelmc.ro/2014/12/21/compiling-python-extensions-on-windows/

Using pip in windows

I installed distribute and pip using the links I have just given. I also installed the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 redistributable package. However when I try to use pip.exe I get
error: Unable to find vcvarsall.bat
How can I fix this?

Installing the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008 Redistributable Package is not sufficient to compile packages. You need to install a compiler, not just the support files.
There are three ways to do this:
Install Visual C++.
Use mingw's port of gcc instead of Visual C++.
Use cygwin's port of gcc instead of either, and a cygwin build on Python instead of the native one.
If you want to go with option 1, you need to install Visual C++ itself. The free version should work just as well as the paid version, as long as you're not going to build binary packages to redistribute to others. Unfortunately, I'm not sure where to find the 2008 version anymore. As of May 2013, the download page only has 2010 and 2012.
When you install this, it will create a batch file called vcvarsall.bat (not vcvarshall.bat!), and give you the option of putting that batch file in your PATH. Running that batch file sets up a DOS prompt for building with that version of Visual C++. (This is handy if you have multiple versions of Visual C++, or other compilers, around.) If you skip that option, you will have to do it manually.
This question shows how to use a newer Visual Studio with older Python, and also shows how to point distutils at a vcvarsall.bat that's not on your PATH, and has links to a whole lot of other relevant questions and blog posts.
Many people find option 2 simpler. Install mingw, modify your PATH in the environment to include C:\MinGW\bin (or wherever you choose to install it), and pass -c mingw32 whenever you run a setup.py script.
The problem is that it's not as clearly documented how to tell easy_install and pip to use mingw instead of VC++. To do that, you need to find or create a distutils.cfg file, find or create a [build] section within it, and add compiler=mingw32. Not too hard. This blog post looks like it explains things pretty well, or see this answer.
Option 3 is by far the simplest. Install cygwin, tell it to install the Python and gcc packages, and you're done.
The problem is that you don't have native Windows Python, you have a Unix Python running in a fake Unix environment on top of Windows. If you like Cygwin, you'll love this; otherwise, you won't.

You'll receive such error only for packages (or one of package's dependencies) that has CPython extensions. Pip internally:
downloads the source
runs distutils python setup install
install prepares setup files and tries to build CPython extensions in windows environment
windows environment calls MS Visual Studio vcvarsall.bat script which setups DOS environment variables to enable MS Visual Studio's C compiler in the shell
if vcvarsall.bat is not found - you'll get this message
Usual solution
For python libraries which have CPython extensions that are portable on windows, it is usual to have windows binary package, which are downloadable from pypi or library web site.
In such cases it is more suitable (and painless) to install library by downloading and running windows binary package.
There is a feature request for pip to Add support for installation of binary distutils packages on Windows.
New way to do it - wheels
Thanks to comment from #warren-p: That feature request has been superseeded by Wheels support in PIP.
Official description: A wheel is a ZIP-format archive with a specially formatted filename and the .whl extension.
As I have understood, if there is windows binary package with extension .whl then start by installing wheel first:
# Make sure you have the latest pip that supports wheel
pip install --upgrade pip
pip install wheel
and then install .whl like this:
pip install full-path-or-url-to-your-library.whl
References:
pythonwheels.com
https://pypi.python.org/pypi/wheel
http://wheel.readthedocs.org/en/latest/

You can download Visual Studio 2008 Express SP1 from
http://visual-studio-2008.en.malavida.com/
You can deselect the two add to browser options it offers.

I found these links on microsoft.com that still work to Install Visual C++.
http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/B/5/8B5804AD-4990-40D0-A6AA-CE894CBBB3DC/VS2008ExpressENUX1397868.iso
2008 SP1 here
http://download.microsoft.com/download/E/8/E/E8EEB394-7F42-4963-A2D8-29559B738298/VS2008ExpressWithSP1ENUX1504728.iso