How do I install the yaml package for Python?

Question

I have a Python program that uses YAML. I attempted to install it on a new server using pip install yaml and it returns the following:

$ sudo pip install yaml Downloading/unpacking yaml   Could not find any downloads that satisfy the requirement yaml No distributions at all found for yaml Storing complete log in /home/pa/.pip/pip.log 

How do I install the yaml package for Python? I'm running Python 2.7. (OS: Debian Wheezy)

Answer 1

You could try the search feature in pip,

$ pip search yaml 

which looks for packages in PyPI with yaml in the short description. That reveals various packages, including PyYaml, yamltools, and PySyck, among others (Note that PySyck docs recommend using PyYaml, since syck is out of date). Now you know a specific package name, you can install it:

$ pip install pyyaml 

If you want to install python yaml system-wide in linux, you can also use a package manager, like aptitude or yum:

$ sudo apt-get install python-yaml $ sudo yum install python-yaml 

Answer 2

pip install pyyaml

If you don't have pip, run easy_install pip to install pip, which is the go-to package installer - Why use pip over easy_install?. If you prefer to stick with easy_install, then easy_install pyyaml