Install pycairo in virtualenv

Question

I've tried to install pycairo in a virtualenv to use in a Django project. I've ran the pip install pycairo==1.10.0 command which finds the package and downloads it unlike other commands like pip install pycairo, etc. but when starting to install the package it throws an error.

Here's the log:

Downloading/unpacking pycairo==1.10.0   Running setup.py egg_info for package pycairo     Traceback (most recent call last):       File "<string>", line 14, in <module>     IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/radu/Desktop/djangos/workout/venv/build/pycairo/setup.py' Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info: Traceback (most recent call last):  File "<string>", line 14, in <module>  IOError: [Errno 2] No such file or directory: '/home/radu/Desktop/djangos/workout/venv/build/pycairo/setup.py'  ---------------------------------------- Command python setup.py egg_info failed with error code 1 in  /home/radu/Desktop/djangos/workout/venv/build/pycairo Storing complete log in /home/radu/.pip/pip.log 

Could you please give me any hints about what to do? Should I try and write a setup.py file for the package and then try to install it? (i'm not sure it's even a solution, i still am trying to figure out what I can do).

Thanks in advance!

Answer 1

Good news, everyone!

I just released cairocffi: http://packages.python.org/cairocffi/

It’s a replacement for pycairo that installs with pip in a virtualenv, runs on Python 2 and 3, as well as PyPy.

pip install cairocffi 

In your code:

import cairocffi as cairo # Enjoy the same API as Pycairo. 

Feedback welcome. (Although the issue tracker might be a better channel than here.)

Answer 2

Although py2cairo doesn't install nicely using pip, you can still install py2cairo into the virtual environment using the build instructions in the INSTALL file from the distribution.

You will need the cairo-dev/cairo-devel package for you os installed in order to build the package.

Do the following to install into your virtual environment:

1. download, unpack, and cd into the the py2cairo directory
2. Activate your virtual environment
3. Follow the standard build procedure

./waf configure --prefix=$VIRTUAL_ENV

./waf build

./waf install