Virtualenv: site.getusersitepackages() function missing from virtualenv embedded site.py

Created on 2 Oct 2015 · 10Comments · Source: pypa/virtualenv

Python 2.7 has a builtin function called getusersitepackages() inside the 'site' module:
https://docs.python.org/2/library/site.html#site.getusersitepackages

However, it seems that when one creates a virtualenv, an embedded version of this site.py file is installed in the environment:
https://github.com/pypa/virtualenv/blob/develop/virtualenv_embedded/site.py
This version doesn't have getusersitepackages().

These causes scripts that rely on this functionality to fail.
(More specifically, the installation of e.g. this package using Homebrew for Mac:
https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew-science/blob/master/neuron.rb)

Source

wvangeit

👍1

Most helpful comment

I found thonny installed in a virtualenv didn't work and went hunting to land on this issue. It seems you can just add the functions copied from the standard distribution into the virtualenv's site.py for a workaround. At least that has worked for my case.

--- py36/lib/python3.6/site.py  2017-08-17 08:14:16.364110854 -0600
+++ thonny/lib/python3.6/site.py    2017-08-16 13:18:24.240013957 -0600
@@ -306,6 +306,43 @@

     return True

+def getuserbase():
+    """Returns the `user base` directory path.
+
+    The `user base` directory can be used to store data. If the global
+    variable ``USER_BASE`` is not initialized yet, this function will also set
+    it.
+    """
+    global USER_BASE
+    if USER_BASE is not None:
+        return USER_BASE
+    from sysconfig import get_config_var
+    USER_BASE = get_config_var('userbase')
+    return USER_BASE
+
+def getusersitepackages():
+    """Returns the user-specific site-packages directory path.
+
+    If the global variable ``USER_SITE`` is not initialized yet, this
+    function will also set it.
+    """
+    global USER_SITE
+    user_base = getuserbase() # this will also set USER_BASE
+
+    if USER_SITE is not None:
+        return USER_SITE
+
+    from sysconfig import get_path
+
+    if sys.platform == 'darwin':
+        from sysconfig import get_config_var
+        if get_config_var('PYTHONFRAMEWORK'):
+            USER_SITE = get_path('purelib', 'osx_framework_user')
+            return USER_SITE
+
+    USER_SITE = get_path('purelib', '%s_user' % os.name)
+    return USER_SITE
+
 def addusersitepackages(known_paths):
     """Add a per user site-package to sys.path

mwichmann on 17 Aug 2017

👍2

All 10 comments

This also seems to affect installing llvm using Homebrew for Mac Yosemite:
https://github.com/Homebrew/homebrew/blob/master/Library/Formula/llvm.rb

The errors:

==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/llvm-3.6.2.yosemite.bottle.1.tar.gz

################################################################## 100.0%

==> Pouring llvm-3.6.2.yosemite.bottle.1.tar.gz
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'getusersitepackages'
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "", line 1, in
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'getusersitepackages'

dixon1e on 16 Jan 2016

This also affects other brew installed packages. My problem was with gdal.

EmilStenstrom on 5 Mar 2016

We are also having this issue which restricts us to use virtualenv. Any milestones ?

rajim17 on 9 Mar 2016

I've had this problem installing Postgis through brew

$ brew install postgis
==> Installing dependencies for postgis: proj, geos, json-c, libpng, jpeg, giflib, libtiff, lzlib, libgeotiff, freexl, libxml2, liblwgeom, libsp
==> Installing postgis dependency: proj
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/proj-4.9.2.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100,0%
==> Pouring proj-4.9.2.el_capitan.bottle.tar.gz
🍺  /usr/local/Cellar/proj/4.9.2: 52 files, 5.9M
==> Installing postgis dependency: geos
==> Downloading https://homebrew.bintray.com/bottles/geos-3.5.0.el_capitan.bottle.1.tar.gz
######################################################################## 100,0%
==> Pouring geos-3.5.0.el_capitan.bottle.1.tar.gz
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'getusersitepackages'
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'getusersitepackages'

jakul on 30 Mar 2016

I have this problem too; Is there a workaround?

tomkerswill on 22 Apr 2016

Also faced the same issue....Anyone has good suggestions?

==> Pouring wxpython-3.0.2.0.el_capitan.bottle.1.tar.gz Traceback (most recent call last): File "<string>", line 1, in <module> AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'getusersitepackages' Traceback (most recent call last): File "<string>", line 1, in <module> AttributeError: 'module' object has no attribute 'getusersitepackages' ==> Caveats Python modules have been installed and Homebrew's site-packages is not in your Python sys.path, so you will not be able to import the modules this formula installed. If you plan to develop with these modules, please run: mkdir -p echo 'import site; site.addsitedir("/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages")' >> homebrew.pth

ywang04 on 30 Apr 2016

More likely than not, its related to a native .dylib that is compiled for wrong architecture.

Try running
brew install -vd <package>
To confirm if it breaks at the point of .dylib being ID'd. If yes, you might want to try reinstall from source:

brew install -vd --build-from-source <package>

If that doesn't work either, there may be a problem with how source package builds dylibs. In my case, SWIG script was simply broken , determined with

otool -L /usr/local/.../broken.dylib

Or, it might be something completely unrelated. -vd should help trace it down though. Can also happen if python paths are strange in the current shell, or you are running brew from virtualenv

kaidokert on 25 Nov 2016

👍1

--- py36/lib/python3.6/site.py  2017-08-17 08:14:16.364110854 -0600
+++ thonny/lib/python3.6/site.py    2017-08-16 13:18:24.240013957 -0600
@@ -306,6 +306,43 @@

     return True

+def getuserbase():
+    """Returns the `user base` directory path.
+
+    The `user base` directory can be used to store data. If the global
+    variable ``USER_BASE`` is not initialized yet, this function will also set
+    it.
+    """
+    global USER_BASE
+    if USER_BASE is not None:
+        return USER_BASE
+    from sysconfig import get_config_var
+    USER_BASE = get_config_var('userbase')
+    return USER_BASE
+
+def getusersitepackages():
+    """Returns the user-specific site-packages directory path.
+
+    If the global variable ``USER_SITE`` is not initialized yet, this
+    function will also set it.
+    """
+    global USER_SITE
+    user_base = getuserbase() # this will also set USER_BASE
+
+    if USER_SITE is not None:
+        return USER_SITE
+
+    from sysconfig import get_path
+
+    if sys.platform == 'darwin':
+        from sysconfig import get_config_var
+        if get_config_var('PYTHONFRAMEWORK'):
+            USER_SITE = get_path('purelib', 'osx_framework_user')
+            return USER_SITE
+
+    USER_SITE = get_path('purelib', '%s_user' % os.name)
+    return USER_SITE
+
 def addusersitepackages(known_paths):
     """Add a per user site-package to sys.path

mwichmann on 17 Aug 2017

👍2

This is an old thread but still comes up in Google results so I am leaving this tip here:

ALWAYS deactivate virtualenv before using brew

(That's what I have learned to do)

For other cases (if for some reason you _need_ to have virtualenv activated at the same time), try @mwichmann 's tip ;)

hangtwenty on 17 Oct 2017

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