sdl.h error when installing pygame on Mac?

Question

I'm trying to install pygame.

My envrionment is

macOS 10.14.6 Mohave

Python 3.7.4 (downloaded from python.org)

I'm following the instructions on the Pygame site, namely using

pip install pygame

However this is failing with a fatal error, which can be summarised as fatal error:SDL.h filenot found The full install output is shown below.

Running setup.py install for pygame ... error
ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
 command: /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/bin/python3 -u -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/private/tmp/pip-install-mtm_fm2t/pygame/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/private/tmp/pip-install-mtm_fm2t/pygame/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' install --record /private/tmp/pip-record-vrvsxslr/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile
     cwd: /private/tmp/pip-install-mtm_fm2t/pygame/
Complete output (219 lines):
running install
running build
running build_py
creating build
creating build/lib.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8
creating build/lib.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8/pygame
copying src_py/surfarray.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8/pygame
copying src_py/sysfont.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8/pygame
copying src_py/_camera_vidcapture.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8/pygame

...whole bunch of copying removed for brevity...

copying examples/pixelarray.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8/pygame/examples
copying examples/dropevent.py -> build/lib.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8/pygame/examples
running build_ext
building 'pygame.gfxdraw' extension
creating build/temp.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8
creating build/temp.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8/src_c
creating build/temp.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8/src_c/SDL_gfx
gcc -Wno-unused-result -Wsign-compare -Wunreachable-code -fno-common -dynamic -DNDEBUG -g -fwrapv -O3 -Wall -arch x86_64 -g -DENABLE_NEWBUF=1 -I/NEED_INC_PATH_FIX -I/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/include/python3.8 -c src_c/gfxdraw.c -o build/temp.macosx-10.9-x86_64-3.8/src_c/gfxdraw.o
In file included from src_c/gfxdraw.c:33:
In file included from src_c/pygame.h:32:
src_c/_pygame.h:216:10: fatal error: 'SDL.h' file not found
#include <SDL.h>
         ^~~~~~~
1 error generated.
---
For help with compilation see:
    https://www.pygame.org/wiki/MacCompile
To contribute to pygame development see:
    https://www.pygame.org/contribute.html
---
error: command 'gcc' failed with exit status 1

ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1: 
   /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/bin/python3 -u -c 'import sys, 
   setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'/private/tmp/pip-install- 
   mtm_fm2t/pygame/setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'/private/tmp/pip-install- 
  mtm_fm2t/pygame/setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' install --record /private/tmp/pip-record-vrvsxslr/install-record.txt --single-version-externally-managed --compile Check the logs for full command output.

The file SDL.h does exist when I search in finder, so i don't know why this install is failing.

I've tried the following to solve this but with no success.

1. installing with pip3 install pygame
2. installing with pip3 install pygame--2.0.0_dev4 option
3. And i've even tried downloading the SDL2 source and compiling.

They all fail (the SDL make fails chronically with errors around lzma.h

Has anyone got pygame running on macOS and Python 3.7.4 and can provide a list of detailed instructions and pre-requisites.

Answer 1

I just struggled with this same issue and was finally able to install pygame on a Mac with Mojave by using this command line:

pip3 install pygame --only-binary :all:

This will install a precompiled version of pygame and thus avoids the issue with missing header files (like SDL.h in your error message) which is occurring because pip is trying to compile pygame from source code that looks for these headers in /usr/include. With the latest updates to Mojave and Catalina, Apple no longer has a /usr/include directory. I did check the version of pygame installed with the --only-binary option and see it is a 2.0.0 dev version but so far it seems to work.

Answer 2

I was able to solve this issue by using easy_install pygame instead of pip. I suspect that it has something to do with python 3.8.

Answer 3

I struggled a lot in installing pygame on macOS Catalina. I tried creating the virtual env as well as many other options but Nothing worked for me. The default python is located in /usr/bin/python while the python3 that I installed is located in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/bin/python3 so instead of using pip install pygame i triedeasy_install-3.8 pygame and it worked for me and when I opened the bin folder in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8 location it has an easy_install-3.8 file. I do not know much about it but I think it has something to do with the python3.8