python - pip install UnicodeDecodeError

9
votes

When I'm trying to install beautifulsoup4 on my new notebook (Win 7 64) using pip, I get this error:

Cleaning up...
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\basecommand.py", line 122, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\commands\install.py", line 278, in run

    requirement_set.prepare_files(finder, force_root_egg_info=self.bundle, bundl
e=self.bundle)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\req.py", line 1234, in prepare_files
    req_to_install.assert_source_matches_version()
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\req.py", line 464, in assert_source_ma
tches_version
    % (display_path(self.source_dir), version, self))
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0x9e in position 58: ordinal
 not in range(128)

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Python27\lib\runpy.py", line 162, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
    exec code in run_globals
  File "C:\Python27\Scripts\pip.exe\__main__.py", line 9, in <module>
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\__init__.py", line 185, in main
    return command.main(cmd_args)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\pip\basecommand.py", line 161, in main
    text = '\n'.join(complete_log)
UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0x9e in position 73: ordinal
 not in range(128)

I use: pip install beautifulsoup4 command

Do you have an idea where could be the problem?

PS: The notebook was used for presentations before get it, so there are programs in multiple languages installed.

4
pythonwindowspip
have you tried easy_install? - Selva
@Selva After I've read your advice, I tried it and it works! Thank you! But I'm still wondering why PIP throws error. - Milano
python-packaging-user-guide.readthedocs.org/en/latest/… this is will give you some idea - Selva
In my case, changing the cmd.exe terminal to UTF-8 worked - José

4 Answers

4
votes

This is because your current working directory contains non-ascii characters. E.g.:

$ pwd
$ /home/abuser/Загрузки

This issue is still present in pip 1.5.6 and this is awful. So, you can avoid patching pip and just change your working dir.

24
votes

Or simply, you can run the following command on your system right before pip install, and voila:

export LC_ALL="en_US.UTF-8"
7
votes

This is a known issue with pip with an unreleased (as of 26/11/2014) fix. Since you are using Python 2.7, you can manually patch pip for now.

0
votes

In my case it was caused because where were non US-ASCII letters in requirements.txt