serious n00b.. NLTK in python 2.7 and 3.5

[pythlang]

Hey guys, I just joined this site and really hoping someone can at least guide me in the direction I'm supposed to be going after literally spending over 10 hours trying just to figure out how to use Python. I have lots of questions and I've been watching YouTube videos, tutorials, reading, etc just to get a basic understanding of Python in general.

Here is my question:

I've been trying to import NLTK but I am unable to do so and unsure of how to do so.

How do I use NLTK on Python 3.5? I've tried installing on 2.7 and I get permission errors.

Can I use Visual Studio Code to start programming?

What the heck do I do to get started?

Did my ineptitude in creating a virtualenv somehow fail and did I screw up bad?

I'm using a Mac with OS X Sierra and have successfully, as far as I know, downloaded and installed v3.5.

I can post messages, screenshots, whatever you guys need just to get pushed into the right direction.

Thanks so much for your patience in advance.

[Yoriz]

See Installing NLTK
Start with docs.python.org The Python Tutorial

[metulburr]

How do I use NLTK on Python 3.5? I've tried installing on 2.7 and I get permission errors.

Can I use Visual Studio Code to start programming?

What the heck do I do to get started?

Did my ineptitude in creating a virtualenv somehow fail and did I screw up bad?

This seems like more than just "having trouble importing this 3rd party library". Please read through this.

What error permissions are you getting? What are you inputting to get that error? Get started with what? Python in general or using/installing this library?

Can I use Visual Studio Code to start programming?

You can use any IDE you want. You can use a text editor to write code, and execute it via command line/terminal.

[pythlang]

Thanks for the reply. I was launching python before installing through pip.

My question remains:

How do I use Python 3.5 with NLTK and Visual Studio Code?

Below are my commands and errors with a then-successful attempt:

Last login: Wed Oct 19 15:53:04 on ttys000
Jordans-MBP:~ jordan$ which python
/usr/bin/python
Jordans-MBP:~ jordan$ sudo pip install -U nltk
Password:
The directory '/Users/jordanXXX/Library/Caches/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
The directory '/Users/jordanXXX/Library/Caches/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
Requirement already up-to-date: nltk in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages
Jordans-MBP:~ jordan$ sudo pip install -U numpy
The directory '/Users/jordanXXX/Library/Caches/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
The directory '/Users/jordanXXX/Library/Caches/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
Collecting numpy
  Downloading numpy-1.11.2-cp27-cp27m-macosx_10_6_intel.macosx_10_9_intel.macosx_10_9_x86_64.macosx_10_10_intel.macosx_10_10_x86_64.whl (3.9MB)
    100% |████████████████████████████████| 3.9MB 261kB/s 
Installing collected packages: numpy
  Found existing installation: numpy 1.8.0rc1
    DEPRECATION: Uninstalling a distutils installed project (numpy) 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 numpy-1.8.0rc1:
Exception:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-8.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/basecommand.py", line 215, in main
    status = self.run(options, args)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-8.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/commands/install.py", line 317, in run
    prefix=options.prefix_path,
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-8.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_set.py", line 736, in install
    requirement.uninstall(auto_confirm=True)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-8.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_install.py", line 742, in uninstall
    paths_to_remove.remove(auto_confirm)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-8.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/req/req_uninstall.py", line 115, in remove
    renames(path, new_path)
  File "/Library/Python/2.7/site-packages/pip-8.1.2-py2.7.egg/pip/utils/__init__.py", line 267, 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: '/tmp/pip-QpGUII-uninstall/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Extras/lib/python/numpy-1.8.0rc1-py2.7.egg-info'
Jordans-MBP:~ jordan$ import nltk
-bash: import: command not found
Jordans-MBP:~ jordan$ python
Python 2.7.10 (default, Jul 30 2016, 18:31:42) 
[GCC 4.2.1 Compatible Apple LLVM 8.0.0 (clang-800.0.34)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import nltk
>>> nltk.download()
showing info website.X

Thanks for this. I figured but wanted to double check.

[metulburr]

if your using debian based you can get these from the repos

metulburr@ubuntu:~$ sudo apt-cache search nltk
python-nltk - Python libraries for natural language processing
python3-nltk - Python3 libraries for natural language processing
metulburr@ubuntu:~$ 

EDIT:
Whoops... disregard that i just caught you said you were on a mac. 

[pythlang]

Haha, no worries but I will admit I've tried the 

$ sudo apt-get ....

command in desperation

[metulburr]

Jordans-MBP:~ jordan$ sudo pip install -U nltk
Password:
The directory '/Users/jordanXXX/Library/Caches/pip/http' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and the cache has been disabled. Please check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
The directory '/Users/jordanXXX/Library/Caches/pip' or its parent directory is not owned by the current user and caching wheels has been disabled. check the permissions and owner of that directory. If executing pip with sudo, you may want sudo's -H flag.
Requirement already up-to-date: nltk in /Library/Python/2.7/site-packages

pip is defaulted to python2.7 pip...you need to use python3.x pip
I am not sure how to do that on a mac though.

[pythlang]

In order to get to python 3.x I just type

$ python3

---

So after much waiting and patience on your guys' part, I have been able to finally download NLTK.

The only problem is that when I use the shell in IDLE NLTK will not import but if I use Terminal, it will.
IDLE:

>>> import nltk
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<pyshell#71>", line 1, in <module>
    import nltk
ImportError: No module named 'nltk'
>>> import sys
>>> sys.path
['', '/Users/jordanXXX/Documents', '/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/lib/python35.zip', '/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/lib/python3.5', '/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/lib/python3.5/plat-darwin', '/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/lib/python3.5/lib-dynload', '/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/lib/python3.5/site-packages']

Terminal:

Jordans-MBP:~ jordan$ python3
Python 3.5.2 (v3.5.2:4def2a2901a5, Jun 26 2016, 10:47:25) 
[GCC 4.2.1 (Apple Inc. build 5666) (dot 3)] on darwin
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import nltk
>>>

Any suggestions? Do I need to append the path for Python 3.5 to use NLTK?

[Larz60+]

I think you want to use pip3 as well

[pythlang]

Terminal:

Jordans-MBP:~ jordan$ pip3 install -U nltk
Requirement already up-to-date: nltk in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.5/lib/python3.5/site-packages/nltk-3.2.1-py3.5.egg
Jordans-MBP:~ jordan$

So, how would I be able to use NLTK in the shell command since

$ import nltk

does nothing in the shell command IDLE and only works in terminal?

does it even matter if I use the shell command IDLE if i'm using terminal?