Tried to install pyyaml today but got a couple nasty errors.

$ sudo easy_install  pyyaml
Searching for pyyaml
Reading http://pypi.python.org/simple/pyyaml/
Reading http://pyyaml.org/wiki/PyYAML
Best match: PyYAML 3.10
Downloading http://pyyaml.org/download/pyyaml/PyYAML-3.10.zip
Processing PyYAML-3.10.zip
Running PyYAML-3.10/setup.py -q bdist_egg --dist-dir /tmp/easy_install-8Co0C6/PyYAML-3.10/egg-dist-tmp-FYdiLy
build/temp.macosx-10.7-intel-2.7/check_libyaml.c:2:18: error: yaml.h: No such file or directory
build/temp.macosx-10.7-intel-2.7/check_libyaml.c: In function ‘main’:
build/temp.macosx-10.7-intel-2.7/check_libyaml.c:5: error: ‘yaml_parser_t’ undeclared (first use in this function)
...
lipo: can't open input file: /var/tmp//ccxDQipT.out (No such file or directory)

and

libyaml is not found or a compiler error: forcing --without-libyaml
(if libyaml is installed correctly, you may need to
 specify the option --include-dirs or uncomment and
 modify the parameter include_dirs in setup.cfg)

Fortunately, after piecing together a couple posts, the fix is easy. Use the following command to install PyYAML.

sudo python -m easy_install pyyaml

We must install this way because the problem is a bug in an Python’s setuptools. Its been fixed in later versions, but for now this did the trick for me.

Resources

• http://pyyaml.org/ticket/186
• http://pyyaml.org/ticket/94
• http://andreasjacobsen.com/2008/10/10/using-python-setuptools-on-the-mac/

Today, I was working from my parent’s home in Arkansas where we don’t have broadband, so my Mac was offline. I tried to start Eclipse and it just popped a dialog mentioning a log file with no other message.

After a bit of searching the errors in the log, Stack Overflow came to the rescue.

just add an alias for localhost to the network interface:

sudo ifconfig en0 alias 127.0.0.1

That’s all you have to do, really.

About a week ago, I lost my Kindle. This makes me sad. After tracking it on security cameras until it left the film of vision (left in cart at grocery store), I’ve devised a last ditch effort. Remember that convenience method of emailing documents to your kindle? Well, I’ve just created a PDF pleading for its return, including my contact info. Will it work? Maybe not, but it can’t hurt either. You can do this yourself.

1. Write a “please return my Kindle” note in MS Word. I used size 20 font, all caps, and short sentences. Continued…

I’m learning so many new things at BrightTag! Among them, I’m helping develop a new service in node.js. After piecing together a few articles online about using node for asynchronous testing of REST services, I thought I’d share the testing setup I’d settled on, in case it can help you. The setup is written for vowsjs and can easily be tailored to your situation. I’ve tried to make heavy use of asynchronization, macros, and contextualized requests. In the case below, I was integration-testing an oauth security middleware (simplified here for, well, simplicity). Continued…

Today, I had to remove 650 instances of a line matching a certain pattern scattered across 145 different XML files. Not a pleasant task. (If you’re wondering, I’m deprecating a field in the XML DTD and wished to remove all current instances).

Just to save you all the searching and debugging, here is the final form and my notes.

egrep -rl '^<pattern>$' * | xargs sed -i .bak '/^</pattern><pattern>$/d'
</pattern>

Continued…

At the request of one of my AP Computer Science students, I’m posting a few solutions to a simple loop problem in Java. The question reads:

How many times are the following loops executed?

for(int i=0; i<10; i++)
   for(int j=0; j<i ; j++)
      System.out.println(i*j);

The possible options are A) 100, B) 20, C) 10, or D) 45.

Now, there are a few ways you can go about solving this problem. Continued…