I can't seem to install numpy

Question

I tried to install numpy, but whenever I start my program, I get these messages.

Error importing numpy: you should not try to import numpy from
    its source directory; please exit the numpy source tree, and relaunch
    your python interpreter from there.
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python34\numpy\__init__.py", line 155, in <module>
from numpy.__config__ import show as show_config
ImportError: No module named 'numpy.__config__'

I don't understand what it means by not importing numpy from it's source directory. Where am I supposed to import it from instead?

Answer 1

The error means just what it says. You are probably in C:\Python34 or C:\Python34\numpy when you run python on the command line. Switch to another directory (such as C:\) and run python, then try import numpy and see what happens.

From your comments, it looks like you didn't properly install numpy, just unzipped it into your C:\Python34 directory. The easiest way to install this modules is to visit Christoph Gohlke's Python Extension Packages for Windows Repository and go down to numpy. Download the cp34 file for your version of Python (either 32- or 64-bit). Then, on the command line, switch to your Downloads directory and run, for example

pip install numpy‑1.9.2+mkl‑cp34‑none‑win_amd64.whl

(if you downloaded the 64-bit version) and it should install quite nicely. If you get a Command not found error for pip, make sure you add C:\Python34\Scripts to your PATH environment variable. Once you do that, restart the command line and it should work perfectly.

Gohlke has a ton of pre-compiled modules for Python, mostly relating to scientific computing, and I always check there first before installing from PyPI with pip.