[gdal-dev] Selecting Python during configuration

[James Hiebert]

Michael,

--with-python sets the path to the python binary that you want to use and while that may not intuitively seem like it sets the install path, it actually does.  If you have multiple separate python binaries installed on the system (e.g. from using virtualenv), generally each one of them has their own separate site-packages directory and when you tell configure which binary you want to use, the binary tells configure where to find the appropriate site-packages directory and where to install gdal.

I did a quick example run of this, just to make sure that I'm right and the workflow is something like this:

1) Setup your separate python binary with virtualenv (or by some other means)

james at granite:~$ virtualenv python-alt
New python executable in python-alt/bin/python
Installing distribute.............................................................................................................................................................................................done.
Installing pip...............done.

2a) At this point you might be able to use pip to download/build/install gdal (you just may not have as much control over the build process)

james at granite:~$ ./python-alt/bin/pip install gdal
Downloading/unpacking gdal
  Downloading GDAL-1.9.1.tar.gz (420Kb): 420Kb downloaded
  Running setup.py egg_info for package gdal
    
Installing collected packages: gdal
  Running setup.py install for gdal
    building 'osgeo._gdal' extension

...

Successfully installed gdal
Cleaning up...
james at granite:~$ ./python-alt/bin/python
Python 2.7.3 (default, Aug  1 2012, 05:16:07) 
[GCC 4.6.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import gdal
>>> gdal.__file__
'/home/james/python-alt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/gdal.pyc'
>>>

2b) Or you can build from the subversion repo

james at granite:~/code/svn/gdal$ ./configure --with-python=$HOME/python-alt/bin/python --prefix=$HOME
...
james at granite:~/code/svn/gdal$ make
...
james at granite:~/code/svn/gdal$ make install
...

At this point you should have all of the gdal goodies in your python install:

james at granite:~/code/svn/gdal$ ls ~/python-alt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/GDAL-2.0.0-py2.7-linux-i686.egg/
EGG-INFO  gdalconst.py  gdalconst.pyc  gdal.py  gdal.pyc  ogr.py  ogr.pyc  osgeo  osr.py  osr.pyc

james at granite:~/code/svn/gdal$ ls ~/python-alt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/GDAL-2.0.0-py2.7-linux-i686.egg/osgeo/
gdal_array.py   _gdalconst.pyc  gdalnumeric.pyc  gdal.pyc      _ogr.py   _ogr.so   osr.pyc
gdal_array.pyc  gdalconst.pyc   _gdal.py         _gdal.so      ogr.py    _osr.py   _osr.so
_gdalconst.py   _gdalconst.so   gdal.py          __init__.py   _ogr.pyc  osr.py
gdalconst.py    gdalnumeric.py  _gdal.pyc        __init__.pyc  ogr.pyc   _osr.pyc

...and you should be able to load the gdal module.

james at granite:~/code/svn/gdal$ ~/python-alt/bin/python
Python 2.7.3 (default, Aug  1 2012, 05:16:07) 
[GCC 4.6.3] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> from osgeo import gdal
>>> gdal.__file__
'/home/james/python-alt/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/GDAL-2.0.0-py2.7-linux-i686.egg/osgeo/gdal.pyc'

Hope that helps.

~James

On Fri, Nov 02, 2012 at 01:01:26AM +0000, Michael Speth wrote:
> Greetings,
> 
>   I am attempting to compile gdal with python support.  However, I don't want
> to use the system installed python; I want to use a locally compiled version of
> python.  I am unable to find how to select the python version to use with the
> gdal install.
> 
>  
> 
> It seems that --with-python doesn't have an option to set the python install
> directory; --with-hdf5 can set the install directory of hdf5.
> 
>  
> 
> Is there a way to set gdal to point to a different install directory for
> python?
> 
>  
> 
> If not, how does gdal find the path to python?  Is it possible to set an
> environment variable (I am compiling on GNU/Linux)?
> 
>  
> 
> Thanks
> 
>  
> 
> --
> 
> Michael Speth
> 
> Research Systems Developer
> 
> Landcare Research
> 
> 
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