Homebrew install libxml2 with python modules

Good morning,

I'm trying to install libxml2 with python modules. I have tried the following:

brew install --with-python libxml2                                                                  
==> Downloading ftp://xmlsoft.org/libxml2/libxml2-2.8.0.tar.gz
Already downloaded: /Users/brandon/Library/Caches/Homebrew/libxml2-2.8.0.tar.gz
==> ./configure --prefix=/usr/local/Cellar/libxml2/2.8.0 --without-python

As you can see... even with the --with-python flag, it is still configuring the source without python!

At the end of the install, homebrew says:

Generally there are no consequences of this for you.
If you build your own software and it requires this formula, you'll need
to add its lib & include paths to your build variables:

    LDFLAGS  -L/usr/local/Cellar/libxml2/2.8.0/lib
    CPPFLAGS -I/usr/local/Cellar/libxml2/2.8.0/include

When I try to install the gnome-doc-utils package:

Gnome-doc-utils requires libxml2 to be compiled
with the python modules enabled, to do so:
  $ brew install libxml2 --with-python

So obviously I tried again...

╰─ brew install libxml2 --with-python
Error: libxml2-2.8.0 already installed

I'm still new to this... so any help would be greatly appreciated.

Solution

First, you cannot install libxml2 because you already successfully installed it, so you will first need to uninstall it.

brew uninstall libxml2

Next you will need to edit the brew formula - which is simple enough to do --

type brew edit libxml2 and change the line

system "./configure", "--prefix=#{prefix}", "--without-python"

to this:

system "./configure", "--prefix=#{prefix}", "--with-python"

This does not fix the problem with the brew formula, but it does force the flag "--with-python", so the next time you type brew install libxml2 it will install the python libraries.

If you need to reset the formula (undo your changes), simply type brew update