Installing MatplotLib in mac osx lion

Question

I was trying to install matplotlib in Mac OSX Lion. Tried to used the binary that is in the sourcefourge site, but I got this error: "matplotlib requires System Python 2.7 to install".

I went to the Terminal and typed python --version and its check the requirements.

After this I tried to used the pip, and while doing so é got the following error:

"src/_image.cpp:908: error: invalid use of incomplete type ‘struct png_info_def’"

Can you give me clues in how to install it?

Many thanks.

EDIT: I found a way, without having to install a new version of python:

http://the.taoofmac.com/space/blog/2011/07/24/2222

Answer 1

This is because of a change in the API for libpng v1.5 (which is included with Mac OSX Lion). The changes has already been pushed upstream, so you will need to compile from the upstream repository until the next release.

You can follow the instructions on http://jholewinski.wordpress.com/2011/07/21/installing-matplotlib-on-os-x-10-7-with-homebrew/

Answer 2

I followed this page's instructions. I got stuck at

pip install -e git+https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib#egg=matplotlib-dev

Then I did:

git clone https://github.com/matplotlib/matplotlib.git
cd matplotlib
python setup.py build
python setup.py install

Checked my installation by typing in terminal:

python
import matplotlib
print matplotlib.__version__
print matplotlib.__file__

I got version 0.10.0 dev (as of this writing) and path /usr/local/Cellar/...