Python – Error Installing cx_Oracle on Mac

Just wanted to share a solution that worked for me while resolving an issue installing cx_Oracle on my MacBook. I wanted to connect Python to an Oracle Database. I installed Oracle Instant Client 18c from here. I clicked on “Instant Client for Mac OS X (Intel x86)(32 bit and 64 bit). Then I downloaded following :

- Basic Package - All files required to run OCI, OCCI and JDBC-OCI applications
- The other 2 Downloads under Tools - optional packages.

On Mac, by default these downloads are unzipped. I copied all the files into a Single Folder and updated the .bash_profile with ORACLE_HOME. I made sure that I am able to execute sqlplus. Once done, I started the installation of cx_Oracle. Received the following error :

python -m pip install -U cx_oracle
Collecting cx_oracle
  Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/4b/aa/99e49d10e56ff0263a8927f4ddb7e8cdd4671019041773f61b3259416043/cx_Oracle-7.1.2.tar.gz
Building wheels for collected packages: cx-oracle
  Building wheel for cx-oracle (setup.py) ... error
  Complete output from command /Users/vivek/anaconda3/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/private/var/folders/63/_hp23hwx0kg3f469c_jqwzq00000gn/T/pip-install-kt4hhttb/cx-oracle/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" bdist_wheel -d /private/var/folders/63/_hp23hwx0kg3f469c_jqwzq00000gn/T/pip-wheel-5rm6ofqh --python-tag cp36:
  running bdist_wheel
  running build
  running build_ext
  building 'cx_Oracle' extension
  creating build
  creating build/temp.macosx-10.7-x86_64-3.6
  creating build/temp.macosx-10.7-x86_64-3.6/src
  creating build/temp.macosx-10.7-x86_64-3.6/odpi
  creating build/temp.macosx-10.7-x86_64-3.6/odpi/src
  gcc -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -Wunreachable-code -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -I/Users/vivek/anaconda3/include -arch x86_64 -I/Users/vivek/anaconda3/include -arch x86_64 -DCXO_BUILD_VERSION=7.1.2 -Iodpi/include -Iodpi/src -I/Users/vivek/anaconda3/include/python3.6m -c src/cxoBuffer.c -o build/temp.macosx-10.7-x86_64-3.6/src/cxoBuffer.o
  xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools), missing xcrun at: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun
  error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1
  
  ----------------------------------------
  Failed building wheel for cx-oracle
  Running setup.py clean for cx-oracle
Failed to build cx-oracle
Installing collected packages: cx-oracle
  Running setup.py install for cx-oracle ... error
    Complete output from command /Users/vivek/anaconda3/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/private/var/folders/63/_hp23hwx0kg3f469c_jqwzq00000gn/T/pip-install-kt4hhttb/cx-oracle/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /private/var/folders/63/_hp23hwx0kg3f469c_jqwzq00000gn/T/pip-record-08000fay/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile:
    running install
    running build
    running build_ext
    building 'cx_Oracle' extension
    creating build
    creating build/temp.macosx-10.7-x86_64-3.6
    creating build/temp.macosx-10.7-x86_64-3.6/src
    creating build/temp.macosx-10.7-x86_64-3.6/odpi
    creating build/temp.macosx-10.7-x86_64-3.6/odpi/src
    gcc -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -Wunreachable-code -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -I/Users/vivek/anaconda3/include -arch x86_64 -I/Users/vivek/anaconda3/include -arch x86_64 -DCXO_BUILD_VERSION=7.1.2 -Iodpi/include -Iodpi/src -I/Users/vivek/anaconda3/include/python3.6m -c src/cxoBuffer.c -o build/temp.macosx-10.7-x86_64-3.6/src/cxoBuffer.o
    xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools), missing xcrun at: /Library/Developer/CommandLineTools/usr/bin/xcrun
    error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1
    
    ----------------------------------------
Command "/Users/vivek/anaconda3/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/private/var/folders/63/_hp23hwx0kg3f469c_jqwzq00000gn/T/pip-install-kt4hhttb/cx-oracle/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /private/var/folders/63/_hp23hwx0kg3f469c_jqwzq00000gn/T/pip-record-08000fay/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile" failed with error code 1 in /private/var/folders/63/_hp23hwx0kg3f469c_jqwzq00000gn/T/pip-install-kt4hhttb/cx-oracle/

The relevant error here was “xcrun: error: invalid active developer path (/Library/Developer/CommandLineTools)”, which is related to Xcode. To be honest, searched few solutions on google and finally got a solution which was to run download and install Xcode.

xcode-select --install

Just Download, Install Xcode and the installation went smooth. I can now connect python to an Oracle Database. Task accomplished 🙂

Viveks-MacBook-Air:~ vivek$ xcode-select --install
xcode-select: note: install requested for command line developer tools
Viveks-MacBook-Air:~ vivek$ python -m pip install -U cx_oracle
Collecting cx_oracle
  Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/4b/aa/99e49d10e56ff0263a8927f4ddb7e8cdd4671019041773f61b3259416043/cx_Oracle-7.1.2.tar.gz
Building wheels for collected packages: cx-oracle
  Building wheel for cx-oracle (setup.py) ... done
  Stored in directory: /Users/vivek/Library/Caches/pip/wheels/5f/b1/97/adf672ad4ab215e227ba939604abccc086e16c91b04cccdcd7
Successfully built cx-oracle
Installing collected packages: cx-oracle
Successfully installed cx-oracle-7.1.2

One important point to remember is that while it says cx_oracle installed, while importing the module in Python Prompt or on Jupyter, it is cx_Oracle.