Model symlinks not working on Windows (Python 2.7)

[solresol]

It's not exactly spaCy's fault. It looks like it's a pathlib problem creating symlinks on Windows.

Anyway, on a fairly fresh Win2k8 (an Amazon workspaces desktop, in fact) pip install spacy works as long as the compiler is in place.

python -m spacy download en fails with the following error message:

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "c:\python27\lib\runpy.py", line 174, in _run_module_as_main
"main", fname, loader, pkg_name)
File "c:\python27\lib\runpy.py", line 72, in run_code
exec code in run_globals
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\spacy_main.py", line 71, in
plac.Interpreter.call(CLI)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\plac_ext.py", line 1142, in call
print(out)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\plac_ext.py", line 914, in exit
self.close(exctype, exc, tb)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\plac_ext.py", line 952, in close
self._interpreter.throw(exctype, exc, tb)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\plac_ext.py", line 964, in make_interpreter
arglist = yield task
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\plac_ext.py", line 1139, in call
raise(task.etype, task.exc, task.tb)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\plac_ext.py", line 380, in wrap
for value in genobj:
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\plac_ext.py", line 95, in gen_exc
raise(etype, exc, tb)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\plac_ext.py", line 966, in make_interpreter
cmd, result = self.parser.consume(arglist)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\plac_core.py", line 207, in consume
return cmd, self.func(*(args + varargs + extraopts), **kwargs)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\spacy_main.py", line 45, in link
cli_link(origin, link_name, force)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\spacy\cli\link.py", line 14, in link
symlink(origin, link_name, force)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\spacy\cli\link.py", line 50, in symlink
link_path.symlink_to(model_path)
File "c:\python27\lib\site-packages\pathlib.py", line 1167, in symlink_to
self._accessor.symlink(target, self, target_is_directory)
TypeError: symlink() takes exactly 3 arguments (4 given)

I've written up a solution over here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/42914239/spacy-english-model-install-is-failing

I think what's going wrong is that pathlib's symlink function doesn't work correctly on Windows.

Your Environment

• Operating System: Windows
• Python Version Used: 2.7
• spaCy Version Used: 1.7.2
• Environment Information:

[ines]

Thanks for the report and getting to the bottom of this!

That's pretty annoying... just did a quick search and there seem to be some general problems with symlinks and Python 2 on Windows. So we might need to add a little Windows-only workaround. Unfortunately, we don't have a good Windows testing environment at the moment, so I'll be tagging this as "help wanted" in case one of our Windows users wants to give this a go in the meantime (would be much appreciated!).

[lock]

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