Invalid syntax on importing nltk in python 2.7

Question

when I executed the below code in python 2.7 CLI

import nltk

it is showing the following error

SyntaxError:Invalid Syntax

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
File "/home/nani/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/nltk/__init__.py", line 128, in <module>
from nltk.collocations import *
File "/home/nani/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/nltk/collocations.py", line 35, in <module>
from nltk.probability import FreqDist
File "/home/nani/.local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/nltk/probability.py", line 333
print("%*s" % (width, samples[i]), end=" ")                                      ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

How to fix this?

Answer 1

nltk dropped support to Python2, Try to use older versions of nltk in which it supports python 2 and I found out that nltk 3.0 version supports python 2 [edited - Thanks to user2357112 supports Monica ]

So, Try to download and install previous versions of nltk with the command

pip install nltk==3.0

You can change the version number which is 3.0 in the above mentioned case and can install suitable version whichever you feels working.

It worked for me.If anyone facing same problem can try above mentioned method.

Answer 2

The code is using the print function, which in Python 2.7 has to be enabled with

from __future__ import print_function

However, this has to appear in the module being imported, not the code importing the module. nltk appears to assume it will be imported by a Python 3 interpreter.