Re: [nodejs] SyntaxError: invalid syntax - while installing 0.8.1

[Ben Noordhuis]

On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 3:19 AM, neojp <then...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey guys,
>
> I'm running Node 0.6.15 on CentOS with Python 2.4.3 and for some reason, I'm
> getting this weird error while trying to install 0.8.1
> Does anyone have any idea on what can I do about it?
>
> $ cd node-v0.8.1
> $ ./configure
>   File "./configure", line 266
>     o['default_configuration'] = 'Debug' if options.debug else 'Release'
>                                           ^
> SyntaxError: invalid syntax

You need to use python 2.6 or 2.7.

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Jun 29, 2012, at 20:23, Ben Noordhuis wrote:

> On Sat, Jun 30, 2012 at 3:19 AM, neojp wrote:
>>
>> I'm running Node 0.6.15 on CentOS with Python 2.4.3 and for some reason, I'm
>> getting this weird error while trying to install 0.8.1
>> Does anyone have any idea on what can I do about it?
>>
>> $ cd node-v0.8.1
>> $ ./configure
>> File "./configure", line 266
>> o['default_configuration'] = 'Debug' if options.debug else 'Release'
>> ^
>> SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>
> You need to use python 2.6 or 2.7.

Shouldn't the configure script print a friendlier message if a wrong version of python is used?

[Ben Noordhuis]

Chicken/egg problem. configure is a python script, it's the python
interpreter that raises the error.

I guess we could wrap it in a shell script that checks the python
version but I don't find that very appealing. The build requirements
are clearly documented in the README but that's not the main reason: I
don't like layers upon layers, it makes debugging harder.

[Matt]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 9:43 PM, Ben Noordhuis <in...@bnoordhuis.nl> wrote:

> Shouldn't the configure script print a friendlier message if a wrong version of python is used?

Chicken/egg problem. configure is a python script, it's the python
interpreter that raises the error.

I guess we could wrap it in a shell script that checks the python
version but I don't find that very appealing. The build requirements
are clearly documented in the README but that's not the main reason: I
don't like layers upon layers, it makes debugging harder.

There are some decent answers here to this problem: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/446052/python-best-way-to-check-for-python-version-in-program-that-uses-new-language-f

[Isaac Schlueter]

Yeah, we could wrap it in a very simple Python script that checks the
version, and then pulls in the "real" configure script.

It's not great, but it'd be better than relying on bash or something.

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[r...@tinyclouds.org]

On Fri, Jun 29, 2012 at 6:23 PM, Ben Noordhuis <in...@bnoordhuis.nl> wrote:
> You need to use python 2.6 or 2.7.

It would be preferable to support Python 2.5 in our build scripts if
possible. Does GYP?

[Ben Noordhuis]

Not anymore. They made 2.6 a requirement some months ago.

[neojp]

Thanks Ben, I'll update Python and let you know if this fixes my problem.

It is funny though, I couldn't find any requirements information on the site. Obviously I didn't look at the README.md on Github, but so far, I've installed node in so many boxes and never thought about what version of Python was required, or that Python was required at all.

I totally agree about not wanting to have a python version check wrapper on top of the real configure. But, having a requirements info in the download link at the website would have saved me some time.

Thank you guys, you rock the server side Javascript world.

[Ben Noordhuis]

That's a good idea. I've opened an issue for it[1].

[1] https://github.com/joyent/node/issues/3604

[Ben Noordhuis]

On Tue, Oct 9, 2012 at 1:07 AM, Dean Flory <deanfl...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I just received this after installing Python 2.7.3:
>
>> # ./configure

>> File "./configure", line 347
>> o['default_configuration'] = 'Debug' if options.debug else 'Release'
>> ^
>> SyntaxError: invalid syntax
>
>

> And I'm guessing it's playing a part in why I can't install the newest
> version of Node.js since I can't get past ./configure (where other
> packages/installs succeeded when ./configure was entered).

You may have installed python 2.7 but you're not using it, otherwise
you wouldn't be getting that error. :-)

Try this:

$ python2.7 configure
$ make PYTHON=python2.7

Replace python2.7 with whatever the binary is really called.