On OS X El Capitan I can not upgrade a python package dependent on the six compatibility utilities NOR can I remove six

Question

I am trying to use scrape, but I have a problem.

from six.moves import xmlrpc_client as xmlrpclib

ImportError: cannot import name xmlrpc_client

Then, I tried pip install --upgrade six scrape, but:

  Found existing installation: six 1.4.1
    DEPRECATION: Uninstalling a distutils installed project (six) has been deprecated and will be removed in a future version. This is due to the fact that uninstalling a distutils project will only partially uninstall the project.
Uninstalling six-1.4.1:
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip/basecommand.py", line 211, in main
status = self.run(options, args)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip/commands/install.py", line 311, in run
root=options.root_path,
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_set.py", line 640, in install
requirement.uninstall(auto_confirm=True)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_install.py", line 716, in uninstall
paths_to_remove.remove(auto_confirm)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip/req/req_uninstall.py", line 125, in remove
renames(path, new_path)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip/utils/__init__.py", line 315, in renames
shutil.move(old, new)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 302, in move
copy2(src, real_dst)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 131, in copy2
copystat(src, dst)
  File "/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/shutil.py", line 103, in copystat
os.chflags(dst, st.st_flags)

OSError: [Errno 1] Operation not permitted: '/var/folders/3h/r_2cxlvd1sjgzfgs4xckc__c0000gn/T/pip-5h86J8-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/six-1.4.1-py2.7.egg-info'

Answer 1

Quick Fix:

I just got around what I think was the same problem. You might consider trying this (sudo, if necessary):

pip install scrape --upgrade --ignore-installed six

Github is ultimately where I got this answer (and there are a few more suggestions you may consider if this one doesn't solve your problem). It also seems as though this is an El Capitan problem.

Also, this technically might be a duplicate. But the answer the other post came up with was installing your own Python rather than relying on the default osx Python, which strikes me as more laborious.

---

Longer, Real Fix:

Eventually I ran into a situation where I actually needed to upgrade six in order to install some other libraries, at which point ignoring wasn't enough. The easiest way to upgrade six for me was to not use pip, but instead to manually download the .tar.gz from the six page, decompress, move to the newly decompressed six package directory, and run the installation manually (sudo, if necessary):

python setup.py install

Thanks to this answer for the guidance.