get errors when import lxml.etree to python

Question

i have installed an lxml on my mac, when i type in python like this

localhost:lxml-3.0.1 apple$ python
Python 2.7.3 (v2.7.3:70274d53c1dd, Apr  9 2012, 20:52:43) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from lxml import etree
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "", line 1, in 
ImportError: dlopen(/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lxml-3.0.1-py2.7-macosx-10.6-intel.egg/lxml/etree.so, 2): Symbol not found: ___xmlStructuredErrorContext
  Referenced from: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lxml-3.0.1-py2.7-macosx-10.6-intel.egg/lxml/etree.so
  Expected in: flat namespace
 in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages/lxml-3.0.1-py2.7-macosx-10.6-intel.egg/lxml/etree.so

Answer 1

I had the same problem. If you have installed it with pip as follows: pip install lxml

Instead, try to use

STATIC_DEPS=true pip install lxml

This solved the problem for me.

Found at this website

Answer 2

If you've installed libxml2, then it's possible that it's just not picking up the right version (there's a version installed with OS X by default). In particular, suppose you've installed libxml2 to /usr/local. You can check what shared libraries etree.so references:

$> otool -L /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/lxml-3.2.1-py2.7-macosx-10.7-intel.egg/lxml/etree.so 
/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/lxml-3.2.1-py2.7-macosx-10.7-intel.egg/lxml/etree.so:
    /usr/lib/libxslt.1.dylib (compatibility version 3.0.0, current version 3.24.0)
    /usr/local/lib/libexslt.0.dylib (compatibility version 9.0.0, current version 9.17.0)
    /usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib (compatibility version 10.0.0, current version 10.3.0)
    /usr/lib/libz.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1.2.5)
    /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 159.1.0)

Checking for that symbol in the system-installed version:

$> nm /usr/lib/libxml2.2.dylib | grep ___xmlStructuredErrorContext

For me, it's not present in the system-installed library. In the version I installed, however:

$> nm /usr/local/lib/libxml2.2.dylib | grep ___xmlStructuredErrorContext
000000000007dec0 T ___xmlStructuredErrorContext

To solve this, make sure your install path appears first in DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH:

$> export DYLD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib
$> python
>>> from lxml import etree
# Success!