Cannot install psycopg2 on OSX 10.6.7 with XCode4

Question

Trying to install psycopg2 on OSX results in the following:

building 'psycopg2._psycopg' extension

creating build/temp.macosx-10.6-universal-2.6

creating build/temp.macosx-10.6-universal-2.6/psycopg

gcc-4.2 -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -Os -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -DENABLE_DTRACE -arch i386 -arch ppc -arch x86_64 -pipe -DPSYCOPG_DEFAULT_PYDATETIME=1 -DPSYCOPG_VERSION="2.4 (dt dec pq3 ext)" -DPG_VERSION_HEX=0x090003 -DPSYCOPG_EXTENSIONS=1 -DPSYCOPG_NEW_BOOLEAN=1 -DHAVE_PQFREEMEM=1 -I/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.6/include/python2.6 -I. -I/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.0.3/include -I/usr/local/Cellar/postgresql/9.0.3/include/server -c psycopg/psycopgmodule.c -o build/temp.macosx-10.6-universal-2.6/psycopg/psycopgmodule.o

/usr/libexec/gcc/powerpc-apple-darwin10/4.2.1/as: assembler (/usr/bin/../libexec/gcc/darwin/ppc/as or /usr/bin/../local/libexec/gcc/darwin/ppc/as) for architecture ppc not installed

Installed assemblers are:

/usr/bin/../libexec/gcc/darwin/x86_64/as for architecture x86_64

/usr/bin/../libexec/gcc/darwin/i386/as for architecture i386

psycopg/psycopgmodule.c:1009: fatal error: error writing to -: Broken pipe

compilation terminated.

lipo: can't open input file: /var/folders/zf/zfsYTD29GwSWm+UDcF6VxE+++TM/-Tmp-//ccd8ckcV.out (No such file or directory)

error: command 'gcc-4.2' failed with exit status 1

Does anyone have any idea what can I do to get it installed? I have Postgres installed and it seems to work fine.

I’ve tried both easy_install and pip install, but both end up with a similar message.

Answer 1

It seems that there was something wrong with the ARCHFLAGS actually sticking, so finally using:

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386 -arch x86_64" pip install psycopg2

actually worked.

Answer 2

The problem is that the Python 2.6 included with OS X 10.6 was built for three supported architectures (i386, x86_64, and ppc for compatibility with earlier releases of OS X) and Python's Distutils tries to ensure that all C extension modules are built with the same archs as the Python interpreter and library. But Xcode 4 has apparently removed support for PPC. Until an official patch is available, you can either:

• override the archs when running the setup.py script for pyscopg2 (as Adam points out, the Distutils ARCHFLAGS is the way to do that)
• go back to using Xcode 3 (or try some unsupported hacks for installing Xcode 3 along side of Xcode 4)
• try using a different Python. For instance, for Python 2.7, python.org provides an installer for an i386/x86_64 Python here

• or you could build and install everything you need using a third-party package manager, like MacPorts.

  sudo port install py27-psycopg2 # installs Python2.7, portgresql, and pysycopg2