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.

And you have installed the wheel package as Thomas' answer advises? — Martijn Pieters
– Martijn Pieters, Commented Oct 30, 2014 at 22:10
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. — hunter
– hunter, Commented Jan 21, 2016 at 2:49

Thomas Orozco · Accepted Answer · 2016-06-08 10:18:50Z

312

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...".

edited Jun 8, 2016 at 10:18

answered Oct 30, 2014 at 22:08

Thomas Orozco

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8 Comments

vitiral Over a year ago

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 Over a year ago

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

vitiral Over a year ago

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.

Oliver Over a year ago

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.

Ryu_hayabusa Over a year ago

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

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geographika · Accepted Answer · 2015-01-09 19:43:15Z

171

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

answered Jan 9, 2015 at 19:43

geographika

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4 Comments

vitiral Over a year ago

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

JamesD Over a year ago

@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

eseglem Over a year ago

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.

haridsv Over a year ago

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.

luckydonald · Accepted Answer · 2016-04-12 00:09:01Z

40

Update your setuptools, too.

pip install setuptools --upgrade

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

edited Apr 12, 2016 at 0:09

answered Apr 24, 2015 at 16:42

luckydonald

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1 Comment

nycynik Over a year ago

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

jbg · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-14 17:58:16Z

15

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.

answered Jan 14, 2016 at 17:58

jbg

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Comments

Tombart · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-11 04:49:25Z

11

Update your pip first:

pip install --upgrade pip

for Python 3:

pip3 install --upgrade pip

answered Apr 11, 2018 at 4:49

Tombart

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1 Comment

theferrit32 Over a year ago

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

theo-brown · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-24 16:07:52Z

5

Throwing in another answer: Try checking your PYTHONPATH.

First, try to install wheel again:

pip install wheel

This should tell you where wheel is installed, eg:

Requirement already satisfied: wheel in /usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages

Then add the location of wheel to your PYTHONPATH:

export PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/wheel

Now building a wheel should work fine.

python setup.py bdist_wheel

edited Jul 24, 2019 at 16:07

answered Aug 17, 2017 at 7:44

theo-brown

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Bart Dorlandt · Accepted Answer · 2017-12-24 18:11:02Z

4

It could also be that you have a python3 system only. You therefore have installed the necessary packages via pip3 install , like pip3 install wheel.

You'll need to build your stuff using python3 specifically.

python3 setup.py sdist
python3 setup.py bdist_wheel

Cheers.

answered Dec 24, 2017 at 18:11

Bart Dorlandt

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Aigrefin · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-25 16:10:56Z

2

I tried everything said here without any luck, but found a workaround. After running this command (and failing) : bazel-bin/tensorflow/tools/pip_package/build_pip_package /tmp/tensorflow_pkg

Go to the temporary directory the tool made (given in the output of the last command), then execute python setup.py bdist_wheel. The .whl file is in the dist folder.

answered Jun 25, 2017 at 16:10

Aigrefin

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