lxml cannot import element etree

Question

I downloaded the source of lxml.
then unpacked it
typed "python setup.py install".

==> everything went fine.

but now typing :

import lxml

i get:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "lxml.py", line 1, in <module>
    from lxml import etree
  File "/Soft/fox_dev/dev/ut1u3h/dev/lxml.py", line 1, in <module>
    from lxml import etree
ImportError: cannot import name etree

Before you offer me any solution, I must tell you, our sys admins and network admins are control/Sercurity freaks.

I am not root
I cannot reach any url outside the company ( from the server on which i'm trying to install lxml on )

for example I tried to install pip:

>> python get-pip.py
Downloading/unpacking pip
  Cannot fetch index base URL https://pypi.python.org/simple/
  Could not find any downloads that satisfy the requirement pip
Cleaning up...
No distributions at all found for pip
Storing debug log for failure in /Home/ut1u3h/.pip/pip.log

I have a windows machine which can reach the web. Then I can transfer files from it to the linux server via sftp.

Any idea/solution ?

EDIT

ok I tried: http://lxml.de/build.html

first :

make inplace
python setup.py install

now if depending on the path on which I open the python interpreter, either it works or I get the above error. I've added the source too the pythonpath... but it does not chang anything !

EDIT2: solution

Please don't hurt me... the final solution: do not put a file named lxml.py in the directory from which you are trying to import lxml... rather name your test lxml_test.py !!!!

Maybe add the output folder to your python path, not the source folder? — Has QUIT--Anony-Mousse, Feb 14 '14 at 13:07
I see you solved this, but still have a question: since you are not root, how did you install it? Inside virtualenv? — Messa, Feb 14 '14 at 13:27
well, I copied the tarball somewhere I can. then i did the "make inplace" and "setup install" steps. Note that my python site-packages is not in its usual location but in a path I can reach, which I added to my pythonpath. — user2346536, Feb 14 '14 at 13:31
yes I do. Someone else had installed them a while ago. they are in usr/lib so this must have been with the help of a sysadmin — user2346536, Feb 14 '14 at 13:46
+1 for the discovery that having a file name "lxml.py" in the same directory as the script running "import lxml" does Bad Things. That was my problem too. — George Adams, Dec 02 '15 at 21:47

boyden · Answer 1 · 2017-05-18T05:07:19.840

-2

probably you change the default python version python2.7 to other like python3.6, as we all known that some modules are different between the two versions, and some modules work bad with python3+, so you can reset your python version to 2.7

if you are using ubuntu, you can do as follows:

$ rm /usr/bin/python
$ ln -s /usr/bin/python2.7 /usr/bin/python

edited May 18 '17 at 05:07

answered May 17 '17 at 16:23

boyden

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lxml cannot import element etree

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