I have terminal access to a VPS running centos 5.9 and default python 2.4.3 installed. I also installed python 2.7.3 via these commands: (I used make altinstall
instead of make install
)
wget http://www.python.org/ftp/python/2.7.3/Python-2.7.3.tgz
tar -xf Python-2.7.3.tgz
cd Python-2.7.3
./configure
make
make altinstall
then I installed node.js from source via these commands:
python2.7 ./configure
make
make install
The problem is, when I use npm install
and try to install a node.js package which requires python > 2.4.3 I get this error:
gyp ERR! configure error
gyp ERR! stack Error: Python executable "python" is v2.4.3, which is not supported by gyp.
gyp ERR! stack You can pass the --python switch to point to Python >= v2.5.0 & < 3.0.0.
gyp ERR! stack at failPythonVersion (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/node-gyp/lib/configure.js:125:14)
gyp ERR! stack at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/node_modules/node-gyp/lib/configure.js:114:9
how should I "pass the --python switch to point to Python >= v2.5.0"?
You can use --python
option to npm like so:
npm install --python=python2.7
or set it to be used always:
npm config set python python2.7
Npm will in turn pass this option to node-gyp when needed.
(note: I'm the one who opened an issue on Github to have this included in the docs, as there were so many questions about it ;-) )
set python to python2.7 before running npm install
Linux:
export PYTHON=python2.7
Windows:
set PYTHON=python2.7
For Windows users something like this should work:
PS C:\angular> npm install --python=C:\Python27\python.exe
Ok, so you've found a solution already. Just wanted to share what has been useful to me so many times;
I have created setpy2
alias which helps me switch python.
alias setpy2="mkdir -p /tmp/bin; ln -s `which python2.7` /tmp/bin/python; export PATH=/tmp/bin:$PATH"
Execute setpy2
before you run npm install
. The switch stays in effect until you quit the terminal, afterwards python
is set back to system default.
You can make use of this technique for any other command/tool as well.
for quick one time use this works,
npm install --python="c:\python27"