Sometimes python modules are not installed

[hadjian]

Hi Community,

I installed v2.11.1 from pip and I am running Linux. It installed into my home folder at ~/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/visidata/. With some tables, vd shows me an error that it cannot find some module, e.g. xlrd.

I don't know the python packaging system well enough, but it doesn't seem to install all modules as a dependency. Also it doesn't seem to check the version, as I had an old version of one module installed and it threw an exception because of an API mismatch.

Is this by design, or am I doing something wrong? From pip show visidata:

Name: visidata
Version: 2.11.1
Summary: terminal interface for exploring and arranging tabular data
Home-page: https://visidata.org
Author: Saul Pwanson
Author-email: [email protected]
License: GPLv3
Location: /home/hadjian/.local/lib/python3.8/site-packages
Requires: importlib-metadata, python-dateutil
Required-by:

[anjakefala]

Hi @hadjian!

We intentionally do not install the format dependencies. VisiData supports a lot of formats, most which an individual user might not be interested in, some which have quite complex dependencies.

Some package mantainers have opted to install a list of dependencies for the most used formats. If we had a reliable way to poll users, they might actually appreciate the most common dependencies installed via the PyPI installed. At least making an extras available for them.

Here are all of the supported formats and the dependencies you install for them.

Your other point was about pinning minimum versions. You are right that this would be good practice. We welcome anyone to open a PR adding minimum version supports for any dependency. Throughout my work, I will try to add them, too.

[hadjian]

Thanks for the explanation! If there is a dependency mismatch, I know where to look now.