Why can I not create a wheel in python?

Question

Here are the commands I am running:

$ python setup.py bdist_wheel
usage: setup.py [global_opts] cmd1 [cmd1_opts] [cmd2 [cmd2_opts] ...]
   or: setup.py --help [cmd1 cmd2 ...]
   or: setup.py --help-commands
   or: setup.py cmd --help

error: invalid command 'bdist_wheel'

$ pip --version
pip 1.5.6 from /usr/local/lib/python3.4/site-packages (python 3.4)

$ python -c "import setuptools; print(setuptools.__version__)"
2.1

$ python --version
Python 3.4.1

$ which python
/usr/local/bin/python

Also, I am running a mac with homebrewed python

Here is my setup.py script: https://gist.github.com/cloudformdesign/4791c46fe7cd52eb61cd

I'm going absolutely crazy -- I can't figure out why this wouldn't be working.

Solution 1

Install the wheel package first:

pip install wheel

The documentation isn't overly clear on this, but "the wheel project provides a bdist_wheel command for setuptools" actually means "the wheel package...".

Solution 2

I also ran into the error message invalid command 'bdist_wheel'

It turns out the package setup.py used distutils rather than setuptools. Changing it as follows enabled me to build the wheel.

#from distutils.core import setup
from setuptools import setup

Solution 3

Update your setuptools, too.

pip install setuptools --upgrade

If that fails too, you could try with additional --force flag.

Solution 4

I also ran into this all of a sudden, after it had previously worked, and it was because I was inside a virtualenv, and wheel wasn’t installed in the virtualenv.

Solution 5

Update your pip first:

pip install --upgrade pip

for Python 3:

pip3 install --upgrade pip

View more solutions

Comments

[Martijn Pieters]

And you have installed the wheel package as Thomas' answer advises?

[hunter]

I have the same problem. But it seems that i didn't use sudo before the commend. After use the commend with administrate permission. it worked.

[vitiral]

So that spit out the file: nioblocks-1.01-cp34-cp34m-macosx_10_9_x86_64.whl -- will this work with any OS, or is there something else I have to do to get it to work? (the "package" is just a bunch of dependencies for pip to install right now)

[Thomas Orozco]

@GarrettLinux I wouldn't know, I'm sorry, but I'd encourage you to ask a separate question for that ; )

[vitiral]

I fixed that problem too -- adding any file to the setup.py file gave it a general wheel. Check out the updated code in my question for example.

[vitiral]

yup, I had that problem at one time as well! Very important, and the error message is poor.

[JamesD]

@geographika yes this is command also the documentation on docs.python.org/2/distutils/setupscript.html would replicate the issues you are seeig as it uses disutils

[nycynik]

my setuptools was removed, or something was wrong. So I had to do : pip install setuptools --upgrade --force

[eseglem]

May also be necessary to change from distutils.core import Extension, Command to from setuptools import Extension, Command at least for package I was working with.

[Oliver]

You can get the OP's error even with wheel installed, if the setup.py somehow uses distutils instead of setuptools (as was case for me), see the answer by geographika.

[haridsv]

I got this error for pycrypto and it wasn't even importing setup. However, I added from setuptools import setup at the beginning and it fixed the issue.

[Ryu_hayabusa]

For me the problem was old version of pip. fixed by pip install --upgrade pip

[CodeBrew]

One may also need sudo pip install wheel if encountering permission problems.

[vitiral]

@CodePlumber my favorite is pip install wheel --user for installing "globally".

[theferrit32]

This is the most useful answer now. Newer versions of pip install don't use bdist_wheel, so just upgrading pip worked for me, without needing to install/update setuptools or wheel

[La Cordillera]

I was having the same issue, and pip install wheel didn't do anything, but conda install wheel solved it.