No module named 'readline' when starting "python"

[Joachim_W_]

I see 3 other forum posts about problems with readline but with different symptoms. I installed l_python35_pu_2017.0.035 using install_GUI.sh and the "install as current user" option. After sourcing ".../bin/activate" and starting "python" on the command line, I get the following error message:

$ python                                                                                                                                                                                  
Python 3.5.2 |Intel Corporation| (default, Oct 20 2016, 03:10:33)                                                                                                                                              
[GCC 4.8.2 20140120 (Red Hat 4.8.2-15)] on linux                                                                                                                                                               
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.                                                                                                                                         
Intel(R) Distribution for Python is brought to you by Intel Corporation.                                                                                                                                       
Please check out: https://software.intel.com/en-us/python-distribution                                                                                                                                         
Traceback (most recent call last):                                                                                                                                                                             
  File "/etc/pythonstart", line 7, in <module>                                                                                                                                                                 
    import readline                                                                                                                                                                                            
ImportError: No module named 'readline'                                                                                                                                                                        
>>>            

(Also note that the local python system under $HOME/intel/... should not run /etc/pythonstart but provide its own start-up script under $HOME/intel/.../etc/. My /etc/pythonstart is for a system-wide Python 2 installation. (I also have a system-wide Python 3 installation. It uses /etc/python3start. It differs in what name is used for the history file and whether or not exceptions occurring when writing the history are ignored. Therefore, I don't think the version of pythonstart is the reason for the readline problem. The /etc issue is a separate problem. The readline module clearly should be available in any Python installation.)

I tied "conda update conda" from the sticky "Known Issues" and, inspired by https://software.intel.com/en-us/forums/intel-distribution-for-python/topic/623391, tried installing libreadline version 5 in addition to version 6 but this did not change the above message.

$ ls -l /lib64/libreadline* /usr/lib*/libreadline*
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     18 Nov 25 11:49 /lib64/libreadline.so.5 -> libreadline.so.5.2                                                                                                                       
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 267624 Oct  7 16:52 /lib64/libreadline.so.5.2                                                                                                                                           
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     18 Nov 24 19:06 /lib64/libreadline.so.6 -> libreadline.so.6.3                                                                                                                       
-rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 301032 Oct 18 12:55 /lib64/libreadline.so.6.3                                                                                                                                           
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root     25 Nov 24 19:40 /usr/lib64/libreadline.so -> /lib64/libreadline.so.6.3  

This is on OpenSUSE Leap 42.2 (fresh install in a new VM).

Hope you find this report useful.

Best,

JJ

[Robert_C_Intel]

Hi JJ,

Intel Python does not include readline because it is uses GPL code, and the license is not compatible with the MKL library. We have found a way to provide a readline without GPL and are working on providing it in a future release. For a workaround, you can use the anaconda python but still use the rest of Intel's packages:

conda remove --force python
conda install -c anaconda python

Intel python does not explicitly read /etc/pythonstart. It will load the file pointed to by the PYTHONSTARTUP environment variable. I booted a fresh opensuse VM and see that PYTHONSTARTUP points to /etc/pythonstart. Anaconda python has the same behavior so I don't think we can change it without breaking behavior for others.

Sorry for the delay in responding, it was Thanksgiving holiday in US.

Robert

[Koltsakis__Efthymios]

Well I tried the suggestion above but it proved catastrophic

(root) mimis@goldberg:~/learning/INTEL/Intel_Python_2.7$ conda remove --force python      
Fetching package metadata .............

Package plan for package removal in environment /opt/intel/intelpython2:

The following packages will be REMOVED:

   python: 2.7.14-intel_2 intel [intel]

Proceed (/n)? y

(root) mimis@goldberg:~/learning/INTEL/Intel_Python_2.7$ conda install -c anaconda python
bash: /opt/intel/intelpython2/bin/conda: /opt/intel/intelpython2/bin/python: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

now I need to reinstall intel python

Mimis

[Koltsakis__Efthymios]

This does not work in my case:

mimis@goldberg:~/learning/INTEL/Intel_Python_2.7$ conda remove --force python
Fetching package metadata .............

Package plan for package removal in environment /opt/intel/intelpython2:

The following packages will be REMOVED:

   python: 2.7.14-intel_2 intel [intel]

Proceed (/n)? y

mimis@goldberg:~/learning/INTEL/Intel_Python_2.7$ conda install -c anaconda python
bash: /home/opt-relief/intel/intelpython2/bin/conda: /opt/intel/intelpython2/bin/python: bad interpreter: No such file or directory

Mimis

[Yuan__Zhihao]

pip install gnureadline  # this is a statically linked version for python

But TBO, if you want a better interactive Python shell, just go look up ptpython.