Install pandas in a Dockerfile

Question

I am trying to create a Docker image. The Dockerfile is the following:

# Use the official Python 3.6.5 image
FROM python:3.6.5-alpine3.7

# Set the working directory to /app
WORKDIR /app

# Get the 
COPY requirements.txt /app
RUN pip3 install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt

# Configuring access to Jupyter
RUN mkdir /notebooks
RUN jupyter notebook --no-browser --ip 0.0.0.0 --port 8888 /notebooks

The requirements.txt file is:

jupyter
numpy==1.14.3
pandas==0.23.0rc2
scipy==1.0.1
scikit-learn==0.19.1
pillow==5.1.1
matplotlib==2.2.2
seaborn==0.8.1

Running the command docker build -t standard . gives me an error when docker it trying to install pandas. The error is the following:

Collecting pandas==0.23.0rc2 (from -r requirements.txt (line 3))
  Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/46/5c/a883712dad8484ef907a2f42992b122acf2bcecbb5c2aa751d1033908502/pandas-0.23.0rc2.tar.gz (12.5MB)
    Complete output from command python setup.py egg_info:
    /bin/sh: svnversion: not found
    /bin/sh: svnversion: not found
    non-existing path in 'numpy/distutils': 'site.cfg'
    Could not locate executable gfortran
    ... (loads of other stuff)
    Command "python setup.py egg_info" failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-install-xb6f6a5o/pandas/
The command '/bin/sh -c pip3 install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt' returned a non-zero code: 1

When I try to install a lower version of pandas==0.22.0, I get this error:

Step 5/7 : RUN pip3 install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt
 ---> Running in 5810ea896689
Collecting jupyter (from -r requirements.txt (line 1))
  Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/83/df/0f5dd132200728a86190397e1ea87cd76244e42d39ec5e88efd25b2abd7e/jupyter-1.0.0-py2.py3-none-any.whl
Collecting numpy==1.14.3 (from -r requirements.txt (line 2))
  Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/b0/2b/497c2bb7c660b2606d4a96e2035e92554429e139c6c71cdff67af66b58d2/numpy-1.14.3.zip (4.9MB)
Collecting pandas==0.22.0 (from -r requirements.txt (line 3))
  Downloading https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/08/01/803834bc8a4e708aedebb133095a88a4dad9f45bbaf5ad777d2bea543c7e/pandas-0.22.0.tar.gz (11.3MB)
  Could not find a version that satisfies the requirement Cython (from versions: )
No matching distribution found for Cython
The command '/bin/sh -c pip3 install --no-cache-dir -r requirements.txt' returned a non-zero code: 1

I also tried to install Cyphon and setuptools before pandas, but it gave the same No matching distribution found for Cython error at the pip3 install pandas line.

How could I get pandas installed.

Answer 1

I could create the Docker image now. There must have been some version incompatibilities between FROM python:3.6.5-alpine3.7 and pandas. I changed the Python version to FROM python:3, then it worked fine (also had to downgrade the pillow version to 5.1.0).