Fortunately I don’t need to write a long blog post, this guy did it for me. It’s kind of alarming this post is from 2 years ago and the docs are still a major problem.

I’ve got a gripe with every language (who doesn’t?) but this is really killing me. Such great potential.

I did run into an issue where I’d get the error ‘Variable references empty selection: ${project_loc}”, but a quick google brought me to a solution here.

I only had PDT installed, which doesn’t come with the Ant tools. You just need to install the Eclipse Java Development Tools. Found that tip on Stack Overflow.

Otherwise, a great tutorial on how to get working with Eclipse and Python.

These instructions are based on the ones found on the NumPy site, but I’m summarizing things for my own use later on.

First, you’ll need to install the Fortran compiler for OSX (gFortran). Fortunately there’s a Fortran universal binary installer.

Next, get the NumPy source. You can find it on Sourceforge.

Now, build with gFortran.

python setup.py build –fcompiler=gnu95
python setup.py install

Enjoy!

I’ve been getting this error:

configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables

I haven’t been able to figure out what’s wrong yet – anyone have any ideas? I’ve got XCode Tools installed, I’ve compiled Apache, PHP and Memcached without issue (prior to Snow Leopard Update).

Help, anyone?

Edit: I just found a post in the Apple discussion boards about this being a Snow Leopard specific issue. The suggestion is to install XCode off the Snow Leopard disc. I’ve reinstalled XCode, and now it successfully runs the configure command.

## the first test will use an int, which is immutable.
class test1:
	i = 0
	def add(self):
		self.i = self.i + 1

t = test1()
t.add()
t2 = test1()
t2.add()
t3 = test1()
t3.add()

## this will output 1, cool
print t3.i

## Lets try it again with a dictionary - which is a mutable type
class test2:
	i = {} ## lets use a dictionary
	def add(self, str):
		self.i[str] = 1;

t = test2()
t.add('hi');
t.add('steve');
print t.i
# Will print the expected:
# {'steve': 1, 'hi': 1}

t2 = test2()
t2.add('bacon')
print t2.i

# But this prints:
# {'steve': 1, 'hi': 1, 'bacon': 1}
# Unexpected, in most languages

## it's necessary to define test2 in the following manner to avoid this weirdness

class test2:
	def __init__(self):
		self.i = {}
	def add(self, str):
		self.i[str] = 1;

t = test2()
t.add('hi');
t.add('steve');
print t.i
# Will print the expected:
# {'steve': 1, 'hi': 1}

t2 = test2()
t2.add('bacon')
print t2.i		

# Will now print the expected:
# {'bacon': 1}

Reading the link above is a good idea if you’re interested to know why something works the way it does.

Traceback (most recent call last):
File “./phpsh”, line 20, in
import readline

OK, seems easy enough. So I compiled python with readline support.

./configure –prefix=/usr/local/python –enable-readline

I change the PATH variable in my .bash_profile to point to the /usr/local/python directory first, and source’d it to get the new PATH settings. Still get the same error.

Usually at this point I’d like to tell you what was wrong, and how I fixed it. But you know what – I never figured it out. I just installed the python binary from python.org. And it works.

Sometimes it’s just not worth fighting the battle.