# Installing Genshi

Contents

# 1 Prerequisites

- Python 2.3 or later (2.4 or later is strongly recommended)
- Optional: Setuptools 0.6a2 or later

Setuptools is only required for the template engine plugin, which can be used to integrate Genshi with Python web application frameworks such as Pylons or TurboGears. Genshi also provides a Setuptools-based plugin that integrates its internationalization support with the Babel library, but that support can also be used without Setuptools being available (although in a slightly less convenient fashion).

# 2 Installing via `easy_install`

If you have a recent version of Setuptools installed, you can directly install Genshi using the easy_install command-line tool:

    $ easy_install Genshi

This downloads and installs the latest version of the Genshi package.

If you have an older Genshi release installed and would like to upgrade, add the `-U` option to the above command.

# 3 Installing from a Binary Installer

Binary packages for Windows and Mac OS X are provided for Genshi. To install from such a package, simply download and open it.

# 4 Installing from a Source Tarball

Once you've downloaded and unpacked a Genshi source release, enter the directory where the archive was unpacked, and run:

    $ python setup.py install

Note that you may need administrator/root privileges for this step, as this command will by default attempt to install Genshi to the Python `site-packages` directory on your system.

Genshi comes with an optional extension module written in C that is used to improve performance in some areas. This extension is automatically compiled when you run the `setup.py` script as shown above. In the case that the extension can not be compiled, possibly due to a missing or incompatible C compiler, the compilation is skipped. If you'd prefer Genshi to not use this native extension module, you can explicitly bypass the compilation using the `--without-speedups` option:

    $ python setup.py --without-speedups install

For other build and installation options, please consult the easy_install and/or the Python distutils documentation.

# 5 Support

If you encounter any problems with Genshi, please don't hesitate to ask questions on the Genshi mailing list or IRC channel.