Import error for icu in Mac and Ubuntu, although pyicu is installed correctly

Question

I have pyicu installed in both MacOS and Ubuntu 14.04 but it shows ImportError upon importing. For MacOS high sierra output is:

Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
 File "/Users/siddharthdas/venvs/chai/lib/python3.6/site-packages/icu/__init__.py", line 37, in <module>
  from _icu import *
ImportError: dlopen(/Users/siddharthdas/venvs/chai/lib/python3.6/site-packages/_icu.cpython-36m-darwin.so, 2): Symbol not found: __ZNK6icu_6114Transliterator12getTargetSetERNS_10UnicodeSetE
 Referenced from: /Users/siddharthdas/venvs/chai/lib/python3.6/site-packages/_icu.cpython-36m-darwin.so
 Expected in: flat namespace
in /Users/siddharthdas/venvs/chai/lib/python3.6/site-packages/_icu.cpython-36m-darwin.so

and on ubuntu 14.0 this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
 File "<stdin>", line 1, in <module>
 File "/home/hackathon/venvs/grey_worm/lib/python3.4/site-packages/icu/__init__.py", line 37, in <module>
  from _icu import *
ImportError: libicui18n.so.58: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory

score 12 · Accepted Answer · edited May 16 '18 at 08:56

12

I had the same experience when building and installing the pyicu from source in my Mac High Sierra.

The error message Symbol not found: __ZNK6icu_6114Transliterator12getTargetSetERNS_10UnicodeSetE is a sign of shared library mismatch between the ICU version we are using and the one actually used when building the package (Mac has built-in ICU library in /usr/library/libicucore.dylib - which i suspect is used as default during build process).

So, i did the following to get the pyicu up and running with the correct icu lib:

Remove and reinstall icu4c using homebrew (brew remove icu4c and brew install icu4c)
Create a icu-config symlink in standard path (ln -s /usr/local/Cellar/icu4c/61.1/bin/icu-config /usr/local/bin/icu-config)

Clone the pyicu from repo, edit the setup.py file and fill out the entries for 'darwin' under INCLUDES, CFLAGS, LFLAGS, LIBRARIES sections as follows:

INCLUDES = {
    'darwin': ['/usr/local/Cellar/icu4c/61.1/include']
}

CFLAGS = {
    'darwin': ['-DPYICU_VER="%s"' %(VERSION), '-std=c++11']
}

LFLAGS = {
    'darwin': ['-L/usr/local/Cellar/icu4c/61.1/lib']
}

LIBRARIES = {
    'darwin': ['/usr/local/Cellar/icu4c/61.1/lib']
}

Build and install the package, i.e. python3 setup.py build and python3 setup.py install

Note: If you previously had tried (unsuccessfully) build the package, make sure that you clean out the content of the build/ dir first before rebuilding, as the build process seems to skip the creation of new build files if it sees the directory populated with files from previous build.

edited May 16 '18 at 08:56

Siddharth Das

1,057
1
15
33

answered May 16 '18 at 07:32

gandhi_nn

161
1
4

1

The problem persists – Siddharth Das May 16 '18 at 08:54
what is the output of `otool -L /Users/siddharthdas/venvs/chai/lib/python3.6/site-packages/_icu.cpython-36m-darwin.so` ? – gandhi_nn May 16 '18 at 08:55
`/Users/siddharthdas/venvs/chai/lib/python3.6/site-packages/_icu.cpython-36m-darwin.so: /usr/lib/libstdc++.6.dylib (compatibility version 7.0.0, current version 104.1.0) /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1252.50.4)` – Siddharth Das May 16 '18 at 09:26
1

Seems like it's still missing libicu from icu4c. Please find output of the same command from my installation below: `/usr/local/opt/icu4c/lib/libicui18n.61.dylib (compatibility version 61.0.0, current version 61.1.0) /usr/local/opt/icu4c/lib/libicuuc.61.dylib (compatibility version 61.0.0, current version 61.1.0) /usr/local/opt/icu4c/lib/libicudata.61.1.dylib (compatibility version 61.0.0, current version 61.1.0) /usr/lib/libc++.1.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 400.9.0) /usr/lib/libSystem.B.dylib (compatibility version 1.0.0, current version 1252.50.4)` – gandhi_nn May 16 '18 at 09:31
so what to do now? – Siddharth Das May 16 '18 at 11:46
Are you installing pyicu from source or from pip? I think you can try following my steps above if it’s from source. I haven’t reproduce it using pip – gandhi_nn May 17 '18 at 01:09
For me problem also persisted. I started over, and instead of `python3 setup.py install`, i ran `pip3 install -e .`, and it worked. no more `Symbol not found` error :) i've collected my findings here: https://gist.github.com/ddelange/6e04e81b99fae08e817a00515d4a378d – ddelange May 29 '19 at 11:01
This answer worked perfectly for me! Have been trying for many hours, and feels nice to finally have it working. – gocode Mar 18 '20 at 16:20
FWIW none of these instructions worked for me on MacOS Catalina. Wish I could throw PyICU through a plate glass window. – mamacdon May 31 '21 at 15:56

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 29 '19 at 14:23

When installing pycu latest version on macOS (64.2) against python2.7 I did in setup.py as described above:

INCLUDES = {
    'darwin': ['/usr/local/Cellar/icu4c/64.2'],
    'linux': [],
    'freebsd': ['/usr/local/include'],
    'win32': ['c:/icu/include'],
    'sunos5': [],
    'cygwin': [],
}

CFLAGS = {
    'darwin': ['-DPYICU_VER="%s"' %(VERSION), '-std=c++11'],
    'linux': [],
    'freebsd': ['-std=c++11'],
    'win32': ['/Zc:wchar_t', '/EHsc'],
    'sunos5': ['-std=c++11'],
    'cygwin': ['-D_GNU_SOURCE=1', '-std=c++11'],
}

LFLAGS = {
    'darwin': ['-L/usr/local/Cellar/icu4c/64.2/lib'],
    'linux': [],
    'freebsd': ['-L/usr/local/lib'],
    'win32': ['/LIBPATH:c:/icu/lib'],
    'sunos5': [],
    'cygwin': [],
}

LIBRARIES = {
    'darwin': ['/usr/local/Cellar/icu4c/64.2/lib'],
    'linux': [],
    'freebsd': ['icui18n', 'icuuc', 'icudata'],
    'win32': ['icuin', 'icuuc', 'icudt'],
    'sunos5': ['icui18n', 'icuuc', 'icudata'],
    'cygwin': ['icui18n', 'icuuc', 'icudata'],
}

and for the build:

CFLAGS=-I/usr/local/opt/icu4c/include LDFLAGS=-L/usr/local/opt/icu4c/lib python setup.py build
python setup.py install

then I have got PyICU 2.3.1 installed:

Installed /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/PyICU-2.3.1-py2.7-macosx-10.14-x86_64.egg
Processing dependencies for PyICU==2.3.1
Finished processing dependencies for PyICU==2.3.1

Import error for icu in Mac and Ubuntu, although pyicu is installed correctly

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