Can't install gensim

Question

When trying to install gensim (with pip install and setup install), it gives me this error:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "setup.py", line 19, in <module>
    import ez_setup
  File "C:\Users\User\Desktop\gensim-0.8.7\ez_setup.py", line 106
    except pkg_resources.VersionConflict, e:
                                        ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax

How can I solve this

Answer 1

I've never worked in Gensim, but I'm pretty sure the problem is that you have incompatible versions of it and Python. The below code uses Python 2.x. syntax.

except pkg_resources.VersionConflict, e:

In Python 3.x. however, you use as instead of ,:

except pkg_resources.VersionConflict as e:

Below is a demonstration written in Python 3.x.:

>>> try:
...     1/0
... except ZeroDivisionError, e:
  File "<stdin>", line 3
    except ZeroDivisionError, e:
                            ^
SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>>>
>>> try:
...     1/0
... except ZeroDivisionError as e:
...     print(e)
...
division by zero
>>>

As you can see, it is your exact same error.

So, to fix the problem, you need to fix the versions. Either set Python to version 2.x. or get a version of Gensim that runs with Python 3.x.

---

I'm going to move the comment into my post because it is important. Here is the link to Gensim for Python 3.x.