How to install pycairo on osx?

Question

I am trying to install the pycairo (Python bindings for the cairo graphics library) under OSX.

I started with

easy_install pycairo

Answer 1

On Mac OS you can have multiple Python versions installed. You can have even more if you decide to install Python via Fink or MacPorts. When you compile libraries from the source, you should make sure they point to the correct installation.

I currently have Python 2.5.1 and Python 2.6.4 installed on my machine, which I can call via python2.5 and python respectively. They live in two different folders: /System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.5and /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6

I was running into a similar problem when compiling pycairo 1.8.8 from the tarball. The INSTALL file in this case is your friend, as it contains the correct instructions to avoid potential version conflicts. You basically need to specify the correct prefix so that the package will be installed in the correct folder.

$ python -c "import sys; print sys.prefix"
  # make a note of the python prefix
$ ./configure --prefix=[python_prefix]
$ make
$ make install       # may require superuser access

Running these instructions with python2.5 and python you will be able to correctly install pycairo for both versions (or for any version installed via MacPorts / Fink).

Answer 2

It appears you are mixing various install options here. The MacPorts package system port install command should automatically pull in all the dependencies needed for a particular package so the trick is to start with the right top-level project. For python packages, MacPorts has a general convention currently: packages that start with py- are for python 2.4, those with py25- are for 2.5, and py26- for 2.6. There are currently py-cairo, py25-cairo, and py26-cairo packages available in MacPorts.

By choosing py-cairo you picked the python2.4 version and you'll probably find that MacPorts built and installed a python2.4 for you (linked at /opt/local/bin/python2.4) and, if you launch it, you'll probably find that you can import cairo there. Now that may be OK for your needs but Python 2.4 is quite old and no longer supported so, if you're just starting, it might be better to start with Python 2.6, one of the two current versions of Python. To do so, all you should need to do is:

sudo port install py26-cairo

That should bring in any missing dependencies, mainly the MacPorts python2.6, which you can run from /opt/local/bin/python2.6. You may want to change your $PATH in your shell startup script, probably .bash_profile, to put /opt/local/bin early on the search path.

Because installing Cairo and its python bindings seems to be fairly complex, it should be easier and better to stick to using a complete MacPorts solution for this. That does mean you've needlessly (and harmlessly) installed a couple of Python instances that you won't need. But if you do want to clean things up a bit, you can easily remove the MacPorts python24 with:

sudo port uninstall py-cairo python24

Completely removing the python.org installed python is more complicated. I've explained the process here. But there's no pressing need to remove either as long as you keep your paths straight.

Answer 3

If you already have homebrew, these two commands should be helpful:

$ brew install cairo --use-clang 
$ brew install py2cairo

For a non-Homebrew installed Python, set the PYTHONPATH to find pycairo. You can set your PYTHONPATH in your .bashrc/.profile/.whatever to the following:

PYTHONPATH=/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages:$PYTHONPATH.

I personally didn't need to use this last part but it might help you.

Answer 4

The port command installs the library for the darwinports python installation, which is different to the framework build (so steps 2 and 3 shouldn't work). Try sudo easy_install pycairo instead (although your step 4 should be equivalent to this).

Look at which python too, to check that you are in fact running the python you think you are.

Answer 5

Step 1: Run this from terminal ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)" < /dev/null 2> /dev/null

Step 2: brew install cairo

Step 3: pip install pycairo

Answer 6

Ok. I solved it. Putting solution here for future reference, it might help someone.

Basically, the whole ports/fink system is a bit messed up, and osx doesn't really play nice with the linux-y world.

So, the steps I needed to install pycairo on OSX were:

• download the latest source versions of pixman, cairo, pycairo

• extract everything. Then:

  cd PIXMAN_DIR ; ./configure ; make ; sudo make install 
  cd CAIRO_DIR ; cp PIXMAN_DIR/pixman/*.h . ; ./configure ; make ; sudo make install
  cd PYCAYRO_DIR; locate cairo.pc 
  

  hopefully, several locations are returned. choose the most likely one (one with newest cairo). For me it was "/opt/local/lib/pkgconfig/cairo.pc" and do:

  export PKG_CONFIG_PATH=/opt/local/lib/pkgconfig/
  

  after this, still in PYCAIRO_DIR, do:

  python setup.py install
  

This should do it...