Mac Port, Homebrew (and easy_install)

Mac Port:
Recently I tried to installed the HDF and netcdf software on Mac 10.9.2.
1) After installing the dependences HDF5-1.8 manually, I then tried to install the H5PY manually. But I got a problem which seems related to the utilisation of Clang (with gcc/cc compilers) and some long arguments of compilation.

2) I decide to use the Mac Port.

3) I installed the X-code command line (X-code already installed)

3) then installed Mac Port following the recommendation of port web site

4) several commands of Port are useful:
port search: give the list of softwares available for installation
port info software_full_name_in_mac_repertory: gives useful info about the software
port deps software_full_name_in_mac_repertory: gives the dependencies needed for this software
sudo port install software_full_name_in_mac_repertory: install the software
port contents software_full_name_in_mac_repertory: gives where the software is installed

Note:
-- Mac Port installs the softwares in /opt/local/bin , /opt/local/sbin which should be included in the PATH of bash file
-- Mac Port installs the Python softwares in /opt/local/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/lib/python2.7/site-packages, which should be included in the PYTHONPATH of bash file
-- to check where the distribute package is, use the following python command

import site; site.getsitepackages()

5) the H5PY is installed with success by using Mac Port !!


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easy_install:
It is a installation tool of for installing Python in linux and mac.  The path where the softwares can be installed must be defined in the file .pydistutils.cfg. 

For example, I used the following path:

[install]

install_lib = /Users/username/work/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages

#~/Library/Python/$py_version_short/site-packages

install_scripts = ~/work/local/bin

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homebrew:

it is similar to Mac Port and it works well for installing and managing softwares on Mac OSX. This can be installed also easily once the X-code and X-code command line tool are installed. The default path of the installation is in /usr/local, which is different from Mac Port.