pip3 have to re-download packages after Permission denied (no sudo)

[cryptogun]

• Pip version: pip 9.0.1
• Python version: python 3.5
• Operating system: Linux Mint 4.4.0-45-generic # 66-Ubuntu SMP Wed Oct 19 14:12:37 UTC 2016 x86_64 x86_64 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Description:

I forget to sudo pip and it takes 30 minutes downloading scipy. Then permission denied...
Now I have to spend another 30 minutes to re-install with sudo.
scipy 47.9MB 27kB/s

What I've run:

pip3 install doc2text

Installing collected packages: PyPDF2, scipy, pytesseract, future, mime, doc2text
  Running setup.py install for PyPDF2 ... error
    error: could not create '/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/PyPDF2': Permission denied

[pradyunsg]

Hi! Thanks for filing this issue!

Have you considered using pip install --user? That is usually much better to do so - it does not try to meddle with your system packages which could potentially break your system, like a sudo pip install can.

About the re-downloading, I'm not the right person to comment on that. :)

[benoit-pierre]

The behavior is expected: the cache directory is not the same when run as root with sudo compared to running with your normal user.

[cryptogun]

Okay. What a quick reply :)
I'll try --user later. But why not make it as default, or print a warning that cmd was not run as root?
That make sense, non-root user can not cache for root user.