Python pip unable to locate pyodbc

Question

Using virtualenv and just trying to install pyodbc. All resources I can find claim this should be extremely straightforward. After all the basic installs of MySQL, etc., jus

Answer 1

There is an "easier" way to install pyodbc on windows in a virualenv using easy_install:

• download latest pyodbc installer for windows
• activate your virtualenv

• easy_install pyodbc-3.0.7.win32-py2.7.exe

as used for pywin32 see: How can I use pywin32 with a virtualenv without having to include the host environment's site-packages folder?

Answer 2

Both --allow-unverified and --allow-external take package name as an argument.

From pip help install:
--allow-external <package>   Allow the installation of a package even if it
                             is externally hosted
--allow-unverified <package> Allow the installation of a package even if it 
                             is hosted in an insecure and unverifiable way

• --allow-external requires an argument (name of th external to allow).
• Same goes for --allow-unverified too .
• With pip install --allow-external pyodbc, you are allowing the external called pyodbc

• pip install --allow-external pyodbc pydodbc is what you need, first pyodbc allows that external, second one actually tells pip which package to install.

  From pip help install: --allow-external Allow the installation of a package even if it is externally hosted --allow-unverified Allow the installation of a package even if it is hosted in an insecure and unverifiable way

So your usage should be

pip install <pkg> --allow-unverified <pkg> --allow-external <pkg>

or the little confusing:

pip install --allow-unverified <pkg> --allow-external <pkg> <pkg>

DO NOT use --allow-all-external when you just want to allow one and not ALL. It kills the whole purpose of putting in the security check.

Answer 3

Running pip install --allow-external pyodbc --allow-unverified pyodbc pyodbc will work if the PyPI directory structure is correct.

Based on the pip.log output when I originally posted this answer, I think that package's website directory structure was broken. You can always work around this type of problem by specifying the URL of the package like pip install https://storage.googleapis.com/google-code-archive-downloads/v2/code.google.com/pyodbc/pyodbc-3.0.7.zip, links for different versions are described here.

Answer 4

I just tried installing pyodbc as well and hit the same wall. I think the problem you and I both hit is that --allow-external consumes the next argument as well. So you actually need to write:

sudo pip install --allow-external pyodbc pyodbc

I then hit another error about unverified sources so that command that actually worked for me was:

sudo pip install --allow-external pyodbc --allow-unverified pyodbc pyodbc

Note that once that was done the permissions on the installed files prevented normal users from access pyodbc. So I went in manually adjusted the permissions on all installed packages (seemed easier than finding just the files needed by pyodbc).

cd /usr/local/lib/python2.7/
chmod -R o=g dist-packages

As per the suggestion of EMS I have added an issue to the Pip bug tracker. It can be found at:

https://github.com/pypa/pip/issues/1893

Answer 5

FWIW, on ms windows anything other than installing the binary (windows install) for me was cumbersome in a windows/cygwin hybrid environment.

I opted to use pypyodbc as it's pure python and didn't require any changes for my windows/linux development. It can be seen as an almost drop-in replacement for pyodbc with no compilation needed, and of course can be installed easily with pip install pypyodbc.

Answer 6

I had success when installed with

sudo pip install --allow-external pyodbc --allow-unverified pyodbc pyodbc

However, I also needed the unixodbc-dev package in order for pyodbc to actually compile.