building Python from source with zlib support

Question

When building Python 3.2.3 from source on Ubuntu 12.04, the zlib module is not available.

I downloaded the official source distribution from python.org, and attempte

Answer 1

I was having the same error while working on MAC

My MAC OS version

$ uname -v
Darwin Kernel Version 13.4.0: Sun Aug 17 19:50:11 PDT 2014; root:xnu-2422.115.4~1/RELEASE_X86_64

python3.4 is used here

Issue(s)

1. zlib not available while using python3.4

   $ python3.4 get-pip.py Traceback (most recent call last): File "get-pip.py", line 20204, in main() File "get-pip.py", line 152, in main bootstrap(tmpdir=tmpdir) File "get-pip.py", line 82, in bootstrap import pip zipimport.ZipImportError: can't decompress data; zlib not available

2. Rebuilding Python fails

   ./configure --with-zlib-dir=/usr/local/lib

... configure: WARNING: unrecognized options: --with-zlib-dir ...

Solution

1. Ensure zlib is installed . By default it will be installed in /usr/lib

   ls /usr/lib/libz.*

If not installed, a. download and install i)from zlib.net site or ii) from a git repo like the below

git clone https://github.com/madler/zlib.git 

or iii). Use the zlib source in the python source directory Modules/zlib

b. Install zlib

./configure --prefix=/usr/local
make
sudo make install 

2.Edit /Module/Setup by uncommenting the line below "#zlib zlibmodule.c -I$(prefix)/include -L$(exec_prefix)/lib -lz "

3.Rebuild the Python3.4 from source again

cd ${PYTHON_SRC_CODE_DIR}  
./configure --prefix=${PYTHON_HOME_DIR}
make
sudo make install 

4.Confirm installation Please note gzip depends on zlib.

nbr_repeation=100
f=open("some_file.txt","at")
for line in range(nbr_repeation): 
    print('[{}] This file will be compressed using python zlib/gzipmodule'.format(line),file=f)

f.close()
f=open("some_file.txt","rt")
import gzip
gz=gzip.open('some_file.gz', 'wt') 
for line in f : gz.write(line)

gz.close() # Like to be clean exit
f.close()  # Like a clean exit

"""confirm the creation of the compressed gzip files"""
import os
print([ (file,os.stat(file)[6],"bytes") for file in os.listdir(".") if file.startswith("some")])