"'cc' failed with exit status 1" error when install python library

Question:

Like many others, I’m having issues installing a python library (downloaded as a tar, then extracted).

rodolphe-mbp:python-Levenshtein-0.11.2 Rodolphe$ sudo python setup.py install
running install
running bdist_egg
running egg_info
writing requirements to python_Levenshtein.egg-info/requires.txt
writing python_Levenshtein.egg-info/PKG-INFO
writing namespace_packages to python_Levenshtein.egg-info/namespace_packages.txt
writing top-level names to python_Levenshtein.egg-info/top_level.txt
writing dependency_links to python_Levenshtein.egg-info/dependency_links.txt
writing entry points to python_Levenshtein.egg-info/entry_points.txt
reading manifest file 'python_Levenshtein.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
reading manifest template 'MANIFEST.in'
warning: no files found matching '*' under directory 'docs'
warning: no previously-included files matching '*pyc' found anywhere in distribution
warning: no previously-included files matching '.project' found anywhere in distribution
warning: no previously-included files matching '.pydevproject' found anywhere in distribution
writing manifest file 'python_Levenshtein.egg-info/SOURCES.txt'
installing library code to build/bdist.macosx-10.9-intel/egg
running install_lib
running build_ext
building 'Levenshtein' extension
cc -fno-strict-aliasing -fno-common -dynamic -arch x86_64 -arch i386 -g -Os -pipe -fno-common -fno-strict-aliasing -fwrapv -mno-fused-madd -DENABLE_DTRACE -DMACOSX -DNDEBUG -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -Wshorten-64-to-32 -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -Os -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -DENABLE_DTRACE -arch x86_64 -arch i386 -pipe -I/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/include/python2.7 -c Levenshtein.c -o build/temp.macosx-10.9-intel-2.7/Levenshtein.o
clang: error: unknown argument: '-mno-fused-madd' [-Wunused-command-line-argument-hard-error-in-future]
clang: note: this will be a hard error (cannot be downgraded to a warning) in the future
error: command 'cc' failed with exit status 1

As suggested elsewhere, I tried entering in terminal “ARCHFLAGS=-Wno-error=unused-command-line-argument-hard-error-in-future sudo python setup.py install”, but no success.

Is there a way around this issue that seems to have appeared with xcode 5.1?

Asked By: Lucien S.

||

Answers:

Installing with (inside of the program folder you pulled down)

sudo -E python setup.py install

did the job!

Answered By: Lucien S.

Run these two lines in your shell before you build:

export CFLAGS=-Qunused-arguments
export CPPFLAGS=-Qunused-arguments

Those exports tell the compiler to ignore unused arguments rather than complaining about them.


The reason seems to be that Python is compiling modules using the options that it was built with, except one of those options no longer works in mavericks:

the clang 3.4 Apple is shipping defaults to erroring on unknown flags, but CPython builds modules using the same set of flags it was compiled with originally.

(from: https://stackoverflow.com/a/22315129/65295)

Lots of people are running into this:

Answered By: Seth

For me the issue was that I had just upgraded XCode and needed to install the command line tools (see this answer).

After running xcode-select --install my python library installed fine.

Answered By: YPCrumble