Installation 0.12: ValueError: expected only letters, got 'utf-8'

[Thijs Triemstra <lists@…>]

This is on OSX 10.6.3 with a Python 2.6.5 built from source.

$ sudo easy_install-2.6 trac
install_dir /usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/
Searching for trac
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/trac/
Reading http://trac.edgewall.org/
Reading http://trac.edgewall.org/wiki/TracDownload
Reading http://trac.edgewall.com/
Reading http://projects.edgewall.com/trac
Reading http://projects.edgewall.com/trac/wiki/TracDownload
Best match: Trac 0.12
Downloading http://pypi.python.org/packages/source/T/Trac/Trac-0.12.tar.gz#md5=b60f2b982b749abbb252bee575373c8b
Processing Trac-0.12.tar.gz
Running Trac-0.12/setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-ufbp_T/Trac-0.12/egg-dist-tmp-2TYRAD
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/easy_install-2.6", line 9, in <module>
    load_entry_point('distribute==0.6.13', 'console_scripts', 'easy_install-2.6')()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 1853, in main
    with_ei_usage(lambda:
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 1834, in with_ei_usage
    return f()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 1857, in <lambda>
    distclass=DistributionWithoutHelpCommands, **kw
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/distutils/core.py", line 152, in setup
    dist.run_commands()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/distutils/dist.py", line 975, in run_commands
    self.run_command(cmd)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/distutils/dist.py", line 995, in run_command
    cmd_obj.run()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 342, in run
    self.easy_install(spec, not self.no_deps)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 581, in easy_install
    return self.install_item(spec, dist.location, tmpdir, deps)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 611, in install_item
    dists = self.install_eggs(spec, download, tmpdir)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 800, in install_eggs
    return self.build_and_install(setup_script, setup_base)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 1077, in build_and_install
    self.run_setup(setup_script, setup_base, args)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/command/easy_install.py", line 1066, in run_setup
    run_setup(setup_script, args)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/sandbox.py", line 29, in run_setup
    lambda: execfile(
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/sandbox.py", line 70, in run
    return func()
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/distribute-0.6.13-py2.6.egg/setuptools/sandbox.py", line 31, in <lambda>
    {'__file__':setup_script, '__name__':'__main__'}
  File "setup.py", line 33, in <module>
  File "/tmp/easy_install-ufbp_T/Trac-0.12/trac/util/__init__.py", line 35, in <module>
  File "/tmp/easy_install-ufbp_T/Trac-0.12/trac/util/text.py", line 28, in <module>
  File "/tmp/easy_install-ufbp_T/Trac-0.12/trac/util/translation.py", line 106, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/Babel-0.9.5-py2.6.egg/babel/support.py", line 29, in <module>
    from babel.dates import format_date, format_datetime, format_time, LC_TIME
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/Babel-0.9.5-py2.6.egg/babel/dates.py", line 34, in <module>
    LC_TIME = default_locale('LC_TIME')
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/Babel-0.9.5-py2.6.egg/babel/core.py", line 642, in default_locale
    return '_'.join(filter(None, parse_locale(locale)))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.6/site-packages/Babel-0.9.5-py2.6.egg/babel/core.py", line 763, in parse_locale
    raise ValueError('expected only letters, got %r' % lang)
ValueError: expected only letters, got 'utf-8'

[Christian Boos]

I can reproduce the problem easily by setting LC_TIME to utf-8. But a legal value should be <locale-name>[.<encoding>], e.g. nl_NL.utf-8 (see valid values by using locale -a).

[Thijs Triemstra <lists@…>]

But… out of the box Trac installations using easy_install will fail on OSX? OSX doesn't seem to have a default for LC_TIME. And I don't even know how to set LC_TIME.. Isn't it possible to provide a default?

[Thijs Triemstra <lists@…>]

After issuing:

export LC_TIME=en_GB.UTF-8

it still reports the same error with easy_install.

[Thijs Triemstra <lists@…>]

I just installed a different Python package that also depends on Babel and got the same error so it's definitely not Trac specific but a Babel thing so forget about the 2 previous comments. I might bug Babel about it.

[Thijs Triemstra <lists@…>]

And there's already a ticket for Babel, open for a while now: ​http://babel.edgewall.org/ticket/200.

[anonymous]

The problem was that Babel could not determine the language - it looks for the following environment variables 'LANGUAGE', 'LC_ALL', 'LC_CTYPE' for a locale, eg "en_US". If it does not find such a locale (as it won't on Mac OS X), it somehow picks up UTF-8 and borks. The solution is therefore to set the environment variable to your locale, eg:

export LANGUAGE=en_US