Command errored out with exit status 1 while installing the editable env for qiskit terra

Question

I was installing the editable version of qiskit-terra from source in my conda environment using the following command

pip install -e .

and I got the following error:

ERROR: Command errored out with exit status 1:
 command: 'C:\Users\Tanya Garg\Anaconda3\envs\fixissueenv\python.exe' -c 'import sys, setuptools, tokenize; sys.argv[0] = '"'"'C:\\Users\\Tanya Garg\\qiskit-terra\\setup.py'"'"'; __file__='"'"'C:\\Users\\Tanya Garg\\qiskit-terra\\setup.py'"'"';f=getattr(tokenize, '"'"'open'"'"', open)(__file__);code=f.read().replace('"'"'\r\n'"'"', '"'"'\n'"'"');f.close();exec(compile(code, __file__, '"'"'exec'"'"'))' develop --no-deps
     cwd: C:\Users\Tanya Garg\qiskit-terra\
Complete output (13 lines):
running develop
running egg_info
writing qiskit_terra.egg-info\PKG-INFO
writing dependency_links to qiskit_terra.egg-info\dependency_links.txt
writing requirements to qiskit_terra.egg-info\requires.txt
writing top-level names to qiskit_terra.egg-info\top_level.txt
reading manifest file 'qiskit_terra.egg-info\SOURCES.txt'
reading manifest template 'MANIFEST.in'
warning: no files found matching 'test\python\pickles\*.pickle'
writing manifest file 'qiskit_terra.egg-info\SOURCES.txt'
running build_ext
building 'qiskit.transpiler.passes.routing.cython.stochastic_swap.utils' extension
error: Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 or greater is required. Get it with "Microsoft C++ Build Tools": https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/visual-cpp-build-tools/

What does this error mean and how can I address it?

Answer 1

It looks like the error message suggests to install Microsoft Visual C++ 14.0 or greater by following the link: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/visual-cpp-build-tools/ . So I would first check to see if you have Microsoft Visual C++ and what version of that you do have, and if you don't have it or have an older version, then try exiting your conda environment, installing/updating it, and installing the editable version of qiskit-terra again with the commands taken from the Qiskit documentation at https://qiskit.org/documentation/contributing_to_qiskit.html#install-qiskit-terra :

conda activate name-of-env
pip install cython
pip install -r requirements-dev.txt
pip install -e .

Make sure that you are in the qiskit-terra directory before you execute these commands.(If you have already installed cython and the developer requirements, then you can skip those commands.)