pip install --upgrade sqlalchemy gives maximum rec

Question

I've tried pip install --upgrade sqlalchemy, python2.7 setup.py install, and after deleting the sqlalchemy folder in site-packages, I've tried pip install sqlalchemy. They all give "RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded in cmp".

  File "C:\Python27\lib\ntpath.py", line 200, in splitext
return genericpath._splitext(p, sep, altsep, extsep)
  File "C:\Python27\lib\genericpath.py", line 102, in _splitext
    sepIndex = max(sepIndex, altsepIndex)
RuntimeError: maximum recursion depth exceeded in cmp

I have also tried to run the setup.py for v0.9 and get the same result. Tried adding a line to setup.py to set max recursion to 10000 and python crashes.

Edit: The traceback is a long repetition of this:

 File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\distribute-0.6.28-py2.7.egg\setuptools\dist.py", line 225, in __init__
    _Distribution.__init__(self,attrs)
  File "c:\python27\lib\distutils\dist.py", line 287, in __init__
    self.finalize_options()
  File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\distribute-0.6.28-py2.7.egg\setuptools\dist.py", line 257, in finalize_options
    ep.require(installer=self.fetch_build_egg)
  File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\distribute-0.6.28-py2.7.egg\pkg_resources.py", line 2029, in require
    working_set.resolve(self.dist.requires(self.extras),env,installer))
  File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\distribute-0.6.28-py2.7.egg\pkg_resources.py", line 580, in resolve
    dist = best[req.key] = env.best_match(req, self, installer)
  File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\distribute-0.6.28-py2.7.egg\pkg_resources.py", line 825, in best_match
    return self.obtain(req, installer) # try and download/install
  File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\distribute-0.6.28-py2.7.egg\pkg_resources.py", line 837, in obtain
    return installer(requirement)
  File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\distribute-0.6.28-py2.7.egg\setuptools\dist.py", line 272, in fetch_build_egg
    dist = self.__class__({'script_args':['easy_install']})
{repeat until max recursion}

Answer 1

Looks like my "distribute" (v0.6xxx) was out of date. I ran

pip install --upgrade distribute 

and it installed 0.7.3.

Then ran pip install sqlalchemy and it installed.

Same problem encountered installing other packages.