Syntax Error

[wesbaker]

When I added vcprompt to my prompt, I keep seeing this error

File "/home/nomad/bin/vcprompt", line 541                                     
    from __future__ import with_statement
SyntaxError: from __future__ imports must occur at the beginning of the file

[djl]

I'm unable recreate this on any version of Python from 2.5.0 to the 2.7 alphas.

Which version of Python and vcprompt are you running?

[wesbaker]

Python 2.6.4 and I'm using this version of vcprompt (http://github.com/xvzf/vcprompt/raw/master/bin/vcprompt); just downloaded it today.

[djl]

A few things to try:

• Try to run it manually (i.e. python ~/bin/vcprompt)
• Try adding the .py extension to the file and run it again

Failing those, how is your prompt configured?

[wesbaker]

Here's my config file. I've commented out the prompt with vcprompt for the moment, but it's still there. As a heads up, I'm using zsh.

autoload -U colors
colors
setopt prompt_subst
PROMPT='%{$fg[yellow]%}%n%{$reset_color%}:%~ %{$fg[green]%}→ %{$reset_color%}'
# PROMPT='%{$fg[yellow]%}%n%{$reset_color%}:%~ %{$fg[green]%}$(vcprompt)→ %{$reset_color%}'

# Set RPROMPT to have info show up on the right, too.

#############################
# Other Options

# setopt PRINT_EXIT_VALUE

setopt CORRECT
setopt CORRECTALL

setopt hist_ignore_dups     # ignore duplication command history list
setopt share_history        # share command history data
setopt HIST_IGNORE_SPACE
setopt APPEND_HISTORY # write history only when closing
setopt EXTENDED_HISTORY # add more info

# Other tabbing options
# setopt NO_AUTO_MENU
# setopt BASH_AUTO_LIST

#############################
# Variables

# Quote pasted URLs
autoload url-quote-magic
zle -N self-insert url-quote-magic

HISTFILE=~/.zsh_history
SAVEHIST=10000
HISTSIZE=10000

REPORTTIME=10 # Show elapsed time if command took more than X seconds
LISTMAX=0 # ask to complete if top of list would scroll off screen

# Load completions for Ruby, Git, etc.
autoload compinit
compinit

# Make CTRL-W delete after other chars, not just spaces
WORDCHARS=${WORDCHARS//[&=\/;\!#%\{]}

bindkey -e

[djl]

Well, I'm stumped :(

I'm pretty sure it's not a problem with vcprompt. I've tested on OS X, Ubuntu and FreeBSD Python builds and it worked without issue.

Does Python still choke if you run a really simple script? Something like this should be enough:

#!/usr/bin/env python
from __future__ import with_statement
with open('/dev/null', 'w') as devnull:
    devnull.write('wtf is going on?')

If that doesn't work, then it may be a problem with your Python build but I have no idea what would cause it.

[wesbaker]

I'm getting a pretty strange error:

from: can't read /var/mail/__future__
test: 3: Syntax error: "(" unexpected

I'm going to try tinkering with my copy of Python.

[djl]

Weird. It looks like vcprompt is being run as a shell script instead of a Python script.

If you run /usr/bin/env python does it drop you into a Python REPL?

[wesbaker]

Yeah, it seems to.

[djl]

Crazy.

It's definitely not a syntax error in vcprompt (if it was, I'd also be seeing the error) but I'll leave this open for now.

The only thing I can think of now is that /usr/bin/env python isn't returning the correct Python interpreter.

Try hard-coding the path to your Python binary as the shebang line:

#!/path/to/bin/python