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pythonmacospython-wheel

Installing a python wheel file, '*.whl" results in " ... is not a supported wheel on this platform"

I have Anaconda running with Python 2.7.10 on Mac OSX 10.9.5. I'm trying to install a package called "Fiona".

I entered:

sudo pip install Fiona-1.6.0-cp27-none-macosx_10_6_intel.macosx_10_9_intel.macosx_10_9_x86_64.ma‌​cosx_10_10_intel.macosx_10_10_x86_64.whl

Result:

The directory '/Users/ronaldbjork/Library/Caches/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag. Fiona-1.6.0-cp27-none-macosx_10_6_intel.macosx_10_9_intel.macosx_10_9_x86_64.mac‌​osx_10_10_intel.macosx_10_10_x86_64.whl **is not a supported wheel on this platform.**

It was suggest that -H be used:

So I entered:

sudo -H pip install Fiona-1.6.0-cp27-none-macosx_10_6_intel.macosx_10_9_intel.macosx_10_9_x86_64.ma‌​cosx_10_10_intel.macosx_10_10_x86_64.whl

Result:

Fiona-1.6.0-cp27-none-macosx_10_6_intel.macosx_10_9_intel.macosx_10_9_x86_64.mac‌​osx_10_10_intel.macosx_10_10_x86_64.whl **is not a supported wheel on this platform**
Solution

  • Python wheels is a way to distribute binary packages.

    How that works is that the maintainer of a project compiles the project (usually with C extensions and such) on each of the supported platforms (e.g. Windows, Mac, linux, etc) and then ships the package directly with the compiled binary code.

    The advantage is that the when installing the package, as long as the wheel was compiled on the same platform, all installation needs to do is simply unpack a tar file and whala, package is installed. Pretty cool. This especially has dramatic effects on rather big packages with lots of C code such as numpy:

    (test) ❯❯❯ time pip install numpy
Collecting numpy
  Using cached numpy-1.9.2-cp34-cp34m-macosx_10_6_intel.macosx_10_9_intel.macosx_10_9_x86_64.macosx_10_10_intel.macosx_10_10_x86_64.whl
Installing collected packages: numpy
Successfully installed numpy-1.9.2
        2.50 real         1.37 user         0.38 sys

    As you can see, numpy installed in 2.5 seconds!!! If you ever installed it from source, this is pretty crazy and awesome!

    Anyway, back to your problem. So the reason you are getting ... is not a supported wheel on this platform is because the package you are installing was not compiled on the same platform as you are installing it on therefore you cannot install from wheel and need to install from source which will compile the code at installation time.

    As long as you have a pretty recent pip, you should be able to simply do:

    pip install Fiona==1.6.0

    which will then use a wheel if it can, or install from source if wheel cannot be used.