Question

I installed matplotlib (1.3.1) and dateutil (1.5) into python site package folder. My python is 2.7.6. My computer is Win 7/64-bit.
When I try to run:
from matplotlib.pylab import *
It still gives me error message "ImportError: No module named dateutil"
How can I fix this? Thanks!

Answer 1

The entire error message is this:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "C:\Python27\Courses\MIT 6.00 Intruduction to CS and Python\lec14.py", line 4, in <module>
import matplotlib
File "C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\__init__.py", line 111, in <module>
raise ImportError("matplotlib requires dateutil")
ImportError: matplotlib requires dateutil

It looks like the matplotlib could not call the dateutil module also, I googled it and could not find a satisfactory answer. It is much appreciated if you can help me.

Answer 2

Generally, when you call a file with only it's name, it needs to be in the same directory that you're in. If I remember correctly, Python has an environmental variable MODULEPATH which is a list of directories to look for modules when they're called without a path. Basically, where is dateutil and where is matplotlib in the file system?

Answer 3

They are all in the folder Python27\Lib\site-packages.

Answer 4

Next thing to check would be to look at C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib and see exactly how it's trying to import dateutil. Have you looked at the FAQ for matplotlib?

Answer 5

The file is C:\Python27\lib\site-packages\matplotlib\__init__.py
The code which raises the problem is
try:
import dateutil
except ImportError:
raise ImportError("matplotlib requires dateutil")

I installed dateutil from http://labix.org/python-dateutil#head-2f49784d6b27bae60cde1cff6a535663cf87497b

So it means I did not install dateutil correctly?

Answer 6

If you just want to play around in python, I believe khan academy has python just sort of built in to their website, and you can even save your stuff too.

https://www.khanacademy.org/cs/new