Missing distribution spec error using pip install from requirements

Question

I have just created a fresh virtualenv into which I want to run my pip install. However, I'm getting this error:

raise ValueError("Missing distribution spec", line)
ValueError: ('Missing distribution spec', '/path/to/dir/requirements.txt')

My requirements.txt:

Django==1.3
Jinja2==2.6
MySQL-python==1.2.3
PIL==1.1.7
Pygments==1.5
Sphinx==1.1.3
Werkzeug==0.8.3
django-debug-toolbar==0.9.4
django-excel-response==1.0
django-extensions==0.8
docutils==0.9.1
ipython==0.12
wsgiref==0.1.2

What is going wrong?

Answer 1

You must be doing something wrong. Something like: pip install path/to/requirements.txt, but the requirements file must be passed with -r argument:

pip install -r path/to/requirements.txt

Hugs.

Answer 2

I'd like to complete the answer if anyone runs in the same variant as I did: I was running everything on a Windows environment (windows 7). Under powershell, I had ran

pip freeze > requirements.txt

When I tested on a new virtualenv, I had the same error as above. The problem was an encoding issue (ugh): make sure the requirements.txt file is written in UTF-8 (without BOM). Notepad++ or sublime text can make sure of that.

Hope it helps anyone else for the which the answer above was not enough.

Answer 3

My issue ending up being that in some terminals, – and - look exactly the same. I had –r and it threw this error. You want -r.