Question

I am trying to run the following script in my virtualenv:

(python2.7.2-gonvaled1)gonvaled@lycaon:~/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1$ couchy.py
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/gonvaled/projects/bin/couchy.py", line 46, in <module>
    from   couchdb_support           import CouchdbLists
  File "/home/gonvaled/projects/test_project/python_modules/couchdb_support.py", line 3615, in <module>
    from   asterisk_support          import AsteriskSupport
  File "/home/gonvaled/projects/test_project/python_modules/asterisk_support.py", line 4, in <module>
    from   starpy_support                   import AmiCommand
  File "/home/gonvaled/projects/test_project/python_modules/starpy_support.py", line 7, in <module>
    from   starpy                    import manager, fastagi, utilapplication, menu
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/starpy/utilapplication.py", line 2, in <module>
    from basicproperty import common, propertied, basic, weak
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/basicproperty-0.6.12a-py2.5-linux-i686.egg/basicproperty/common.py", line 159, in <module>
    from basictypes import datedatetime_types as ddt
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/basicproperty-0.6.12a-py2.5-linux-i686.egg/basictypes/datedatetime_types.py", line 4, in <module>
    from dateutil import parser 
  File "/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/python_dateutil-2.1-py2.5.egg/dateutil/parser.py", line 8
    from __future__ import unicode_literals
SyntaxError: future feature unicode_literals is not defined

So somehow python is trying to import from:

/usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages/starpy/utilapplication.py

This does not make any sense. My virtualenv is very clean:

(python2.7.2-gonvaled1)gonvaled@lycaon:~/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1$ python
Python 2.7.2 (default, Mar 29 2012, 00:31:29) 
[GCC 4.2.4 (Ubuntu 4.2.4-1ubuntu4)] on linux2
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import sys
>>> sys.path   
['', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7/site-packages/setuptools-0.6c11-py2.7.egg', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7/site-packages/pip-1.1-py2.7.egg', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7/site-packages/Twisted-12.0.0-py2.7-linux-i686.egg', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7/site-packages/zope.interface-3.8.0-py2.7-linux-i686.egg', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7/site-packages/basicproperty-0.6.12a-py2.7-linux-i686.egg', '/home/gonvaled/projects/gonvaled_settings', '/home/gonvaled/django_apps', '/home/gonvaled/projects/test_project/ipc', '/home/gonvaled/projects/test_project/python_modules', '/home/gonvaled/projects/test_project/gdata', '/home/gonvaled/projects/callisto/libraries', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python27.zip', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7/plat-linux2', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7/lib-tk', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7/lib-old', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7/lib-dynload', '/usr/local/python/2.7.2/lib/python2.7', '/usr/local/python/2.7.2/lib/python2.7/plat-linux2', '/usr/local/python/2.7.2/lib/python2.7/lib-tk', '/home/gonvaled/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1/lib/python2.7/site-packages']

And:

(python2.7.2-gonvaled1)gonvaled@lycaon:~/.virtualenvs/python2.7.2-gonvaled1$ pip freeze
CouchDB==0.9dev
DateUtils==0.5.1
Twisted==12.0.0
basicproperty==0.6.12a
pystache==0.4.0
python-dateutil==2.1
pytz==2012b
simplejson==2.4.0
six==1.1.0
starpy==1.0.0a12
wsgiref==0.1.2
zope.interface==3.8.0

So to summarize: python is importing from /usr/lib/python2.5/site-packages even though I am inside a virtualenv. How can this be?

Answer 1

Try running the script as:

$ python couch.py

in your activated virtualenv. Depending on your system and the first line (the shebang line) of the file, you may not be running in the Python you think you are.