Issue installing pdftotext in Python 3.6 on CentOS due to poppler - linux

Question

I'm having some issues getting installing pdftotext in Python 3.6 (Anaconda 5.1.0) on CentOS.
Some quick notes first:
I'm using CentOS 6.7 on VirtualBox
I know it can work because my IT group has it installed on our server. NOTE: I found that our server did have the C++ wrapper installed and I'm trying to figure out how the got it.
I'm trying to get an existing application to work, so I'm not looking for an alternative to pdftotext the library at this time.
I followed the instructions from the github repo and already tried this step:
Fedora, Red Hat, and friends:
sudo yum install gcc-c++ pkgconfig poppler-cpp-devel python-devel redhat-rpm-config
But the problem seems to be around poppler-cpp-devel. I don't see that package within yum search poppler:
============================= N/S Matched: poppler =============================
poppler-devel.i686 : Libraries and headers for poppler
poppler-devel.x86_64 : Libraries and headers for poppler
poppler-glib.i686 : Glib wrapper for poppler
poppler-glib.x86_64 : Glib wrapper for poppler
poppler-qt.i686 : Qt3 wrapper for poppler
poppler-qt.x86_64 : Qt3 wrapper for poppler
poppler-qt4.i686 : Qt4 wrapper for poppler
poppler-qt4.x86_64 : Qt4 wrapper for poppler
poppler.i686 : PDF rendering library
poppler.x86_64 : PDF rendering library
poppler-data.noarch : Encoding files
poppler-glib-devel.i686 : Development files for glib wrapper
poppler-glib-devel.x86_64 : Development files for glib wrapper
poppler-qt-devel.i686 : Development files for Qt3 wrapper
poppler-qt-devel.x86_64 : Development files for Qt3 wrapper
poppler-qt4-devel.i686 : Development files for Qt4 wrapper
poppler-qt4-devel.x86_64 : Development files for Qt4 wrapper
poppler-utils.x86_64 : Command line utilities for converting PDF files
My IT group gave me the instructions of what they had attempted and I tried installing poppler-devel and poppler-glib. But every time I try pip install pdftotext I'm getting the following output:
[root#localhost stack]# pip install pdftotext
Collecting pdftotext
Using cached https://files.pythonhosted.org/packages/21/35/60094dbadd9de2035873390b1cac25e01da605844eba6a07a53a82fa4adc/pdftotext-2.1.1.tar.gz
Building wheels for collected packages: pdftotext
Building wheel for pdftotext (setup.py) ... error
Complete output from command /root/anaconda3/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/tmp/pip-install-1mu2f1n2/pdftotext/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 /tmp/pip-wheel-khm9zova --python-tag cp36:
/root/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/distutils/dist.py:261: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'long_description_content_type'
warnings.warn(msg)
running bdist_wheel
running build
running build_ext
building 'pdftotext' extension
creating build
creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6
gcc -pthread -B /root/anaconda3/compiler_compat -Wl,--sysroot=/ -Wsign-compare -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fPIC -DPOPPLER_CPP_AT_LEAST_0_30_0=0 -I/root/anaconda3/include/python3.6m -c pdftotext.cpp -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/pdftotext.o -Wall
cc1plus: warning: command line option "-Wstrict-prototypes" is valid for Ada/C/ObjC but not for C++
pdftotext.cpp:3:42: error: poppler/cpp/poppler-document.h: No such file or directory
pdftotext.cpp:4:40: error: poppler/cpp/poppler-global.h: No such file or directory
pdftotext.cpp:5:38: error: poppler/cpp/poppler-page.h: No such file or directory
pdftotext.cpp:20: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:20: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of ‘document’ with no type
pdftotext.cpp:20: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘*’ token
pdftotext.cpp: In function ‘void PDF_clear(PDF*)’:
pdftotext.cpp:26: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp:27: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp: In function ‘int PDF_create_doc(PDF*)’:
pdftotext.cpp:66: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp:66: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:67: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp: In function ‘int PDF_unlock(PDF*, char*)’:
pdftotext.cpp:75: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp: In function ‘int PDF_init(PDF*, PyObject*, PyObject*)’:
pdftotext.cpp:105: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp: In function ‘PyObject* PDF_read_page(PDF*, int)’:
pdftotext.cpp:119: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:119: error: expected initializer before ‘*’ token
pdftotext.cpp:120: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:120: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘layout_mode’
pdftotext.cpp:123: error: ‘page’ was not declared in this scope
pdftotext.cpp:123: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp:129: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:129: error: expected initializer before ‘rect’
pdftotext.cpp:130: error: ‘rect’ was not declared in this scope
pdftotext.cpp:133: error: ‘layout_mode’ was not declared in this scope
pdftotext.cpp:133: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:135: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:137: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:138: error: type ‘<type error>’ argument given to ‘delete’, expected pointer
error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1
----------------------------------------
Failed building wheel for pdftotext
Running setup.py clean for pdftotext
Failed to build pdftotext
Installing collected packages: pdftotext
Running setup.py install for pdftotext ... error
Complete output from command /root/anaconda3/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/tmp/pip-install-1mu2f1n2/pdftotext/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /tmp/pip-record-ghuhvuhl/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile:
/root/anaconda3/lib/python3.6/distutils/dist.py:261: UserWarning: Unknown distribution option: 'long_description_content_type'
warnings.warn(msg)
running install
running build
running build_ext
building 'pdftotext' extension
creating build
creating build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6
gcc -pthread -B /root/anaconda3/compiler_compat -Wl,--sysroot=/ -Wsign-compare -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -Wstrict-prototypes -fPIC -DPOPPLER_CPP_AT_LEAST_0_30_0=0 -I/root/anaconda3/include/python3.6m -c pdftotext.cpp -o build/temp.linux-x86_64-3.6/pdftotext.o -Wall
cc1plus: warning: command line option "-Wstrict-prototypes" is valid for Ada/C/ObjC but not for C++
pdftotext.cpp:3:42: error: poppler/cpp/poppler-document.h: No such file or directory
pdftotext.cpp:4:40: error: poppler/cpp/poppler-global.h: No such file or directory
pdftotext.cpp:5:38: error: poppler/cpp/poppler-page.h: No such file or directory
pdftotext.cpp:20: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:20: error: ISO C++ forbids declaration of ‘document’ with no type
pdftotext.cpp:20: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘*’ token
pdftotext.cpp: In function ‘void PDF_clear(PDF*)’:
pdftotext.cpp:26: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp:27: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp: In function ‘int PDF_create_doc(PDF*)’:
pdftotext.cpp:66: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp:66: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:67: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp: In function ‘int PDF_unlock(PDF*, char*)’:
pdftotext.cpp:75: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp: In function ‘int PDF_init(PDF*, PyObject*, PyObject*)’:
pdftotext.cpp:105: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp: In function ‘PyObject* PDF_read_page(PDF*, int)’:
pdftotext.cpp:119: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:119: error: expected initializer before ‘*’ token
pdftotext.cpp:120: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:120: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘layout_mode’
pdftotext.cpp:123: error: ‘page’ was not declared in this scope
pdftotext.cpp:123: error: ‘struct PDF’ has no member named ‘doc’
pdftotext.cpp:129: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:129: error: expected initializer before ‘rect’
pdftotext.cpp:130: error: ‘rect’ was not declared in this scope
pdftotext.cpp:133: error: ‘layout_mode’ was not declared in this scope
pdftotext.cpp:133: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:135: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:137: error: ‘poppler’ has not been declared
pdftotext.cpp:138: error: type ‘<type error>’ argument given to ‘delete’, expected pointer
error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1
----------------------------------------
Command "/root/anaconda3/bin/python -u -c "import setuptools, tokenize;__file__='/tmp/pip-install-1mu2f1n2/pdftotext/setup.py';f=getattr(tokenize, 'open', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('\r\n', '\n');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, 'exec'))" install --record /tmp/pip-record-ghuhvuhl/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile" failed with error code 1 in /tmp/pip-install-1mu2f1n2/pdftotext/
I'm assuming the problem here is that it's looking for the C++ compiled files and I could only get the glib?
What I can look into?

Answer 1

pdftotext should be in poppler-utils, so try yum install poppler-utils
EDIT: Hmm. There's a package called pypoppler available for CentOS 6 in the EPEL repository, which describes itself as "Python bindings for the Poppler PDF rendering library." I see no indication that it includes poppler/cpp/{anything}, but you can give it a try. (You may need to install pycairo first.)
Failing that, you might try installing an earlier version of pdftotext (e.g. pip install pdftotext==1.0.0) to find one compatible with CentOS 6. The earliest version came out in June of 2017, though, so that may not help.
I don't suppose you're interested in upgrading to CentOS 7?

Answer 2

There actually is a proper CentOS 7 package. It is not enough to install the poppler-devel package as it does not include the CPP header files that is required and you simply need to install the poppler-cpp and poppler-cpp-devel packages:
yum install poppler-cpp poppler-cpp-devel
After this you can pip/pip3 install the pdftotext package without custom compiling and setting environment path variables.

Answer 3

I found the solution to this. By following the instructions for installing libpoppler-cpp from this link, I was able to successfully install the pdftotext.
Following the instructions from this repo:
On CentOS
On CentOS the libpoppler-cpp library is not included with the system so we need to build from source. Note that recent versions of poppler require C++11 which is not available on CentOS, so we build a slightly older version of libpoppler.
# Build dependencies
yum install wget xz libjpeg-devel openjpeg2-devel
# Download and extract
wget https://poppler.freedesktop.org/poppler-0.47.0.tar.xz
tar -Jxvf poppler-0.47.0.tar.xz
cd poppler-0.47.0
# Build and install
./configure
make
sudo make install
By default libraries get installed in /usr/local/lib and /usr/local/include. On CentOS this is not a default search path so we need to set PKG_CONFIG_PATH and LD_LIBRARY_PATH to point R to the right directory:
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/lib"
export PKG_CONFIG_PATH="/usr/local/lib/pkgconfig"