Python 2.7, PIP: "Failed building wheel for ..."

Question

First time using pip, trying to use the python-docs-samples tutorial library. When I run the "python -m pip install -r requirements.txt" command, a lot of scripts are pulled in, but then I get a series of "Failed building wheel" errors. One of these is shown in the attached code block (please pardon the hand-entered word-wrap linebreaks).

What is the problem? Anyone seen this before? I have not altered any parts of the library or the code that uses it, and I'm using Python 2.7.12 which is supposed to have good built-in support for PIP.

  Running setup.py bdist_wheel for PyYAML ... error   Complete output from command C:\users\owner\python-docs-samples\env\Scripts\python.exe  -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='c:\\users\\owner\\appdata\\local\\temp\\ pip-build-86ysrg\\PyYAML\setup.py';exec(compile(getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__) .read().replace('\r\n', '\n'), __file__, 'exec'))" bdist_wheel -d c:\users\owner\appdata \local\temp\tmpljy6z0pip-wheel- --python-tag cp27:   running bdist_wheel   running build   running build_py   creating build   creating build\lib.win32-2.7   creating build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\composer.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\constructor.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\cyaml.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\dumper.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\emitter.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\error.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\events.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\loader.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\nodes.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\parser.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\reader.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\representer.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\resolver.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\scanner.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\serializer.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\tokens.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   copying lib\yaml\__init__.py -> build\lib.win32-2.7\yaml   running build_ext   creating build\temp.win32-2.7   creating build\temp.win32-2.7\Release   checking if libyaml is compilable   error: [Error 2] The system cannot find the file specified    ----------------------------------------   Failed building wheel for PyYAML   Running setup.py clean for PyYAML 

Answer 1

Install Common Dependencies

sudo apt-get install build-essential autoconf libtool pkg-config python-opengl python-pil python-pyrex python-pyside.qtopengl idle-python2.7 qt4-dev-tools qt4-designer libqtgui4 libqtcore4 libqt4-xml libqt4-test libqt4-script libqt4-network libqt4-dbus python-qt4 python-qt4-gl libgle3 python-dev 

Answer 2

For me, this issue was resolved on Ubuntu 16 by upgrading pip:

pip install --upgrade pip