Install nltk for Python 3.4 on Mac OS 10.9

Question

I am trying to start nltk running python 3.4 without success. Using the instructions at http://www.nltk.org/install.html :

sudo pip install -U nltk

This works for version 2.7, which is pre-installed on the Mac, however when using

sudo pip3 install -U nltk

to try to install under 3.4, I get the following error:

/usr/local/Cellar/python3/3.4.1_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.4/lib/python3.4/distutils/dist.py:260: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'zip_safe' warnings.warn(msg) /usr/local/Cellar/python3/3.4.1_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.4/lib/python3.4/distutils/dist.py:260: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'test_suite' warnings.warn(msg) /usr/local/Cellar/python3/3.4.1_1/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.4/lib/python3.4/distutils/dist.py:260: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'entry_points' warnings.warn(msg) 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_egg' /private/tmp/pip_build_root/nltk/distribute-0.6.21-py3.4.egg Traceback (most recent call last): File "/private/tmp/pip_build_root/nltk/distribute_setup.py", line 143, in use_setuptools raise ImportError ImportError During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred: Traceback (most recent call last): File "<string>", line 17, in <module> File "/private/tmp/pip_build_root/nltk/setup.py", line 23, in <module> distribute_setup.use_setuptools() File "/private/tmp/pip_build_root/nltk/distribute_setup.py", line 145, in use_setuptools return _do_download(version, download_base, to_dir, download_delay) File "/private/tmp/pip_build_root/nltk/distribute_setup.py", line 125, in _do_download _build_egg(egg, tarball, to_dir) File "/private/tmp/pip_build_root/nltk/distribute_setup.py", line 116, in _build_egg raise IOError('Could not build the egg.') OSError: Could not build the egg. 

Python 3.4 was installed with brew, and both bumpy and setuptools installed correctly. I saw hints of this problem through some points, but no definitive answers.

Answer 1

I just downloaded the 3.0.0b2 .tar.gz file from PyPI , unzipped it and ran

 sudo python3 setup.py install 

in the unpacked directory, and everything works fine. I had the same problem I was trying to install from pip3 . It should also be noted that I use MacPorts for Python and everyone else, but hopefully this will not change the situation.