---

layout: default

title: QuantLib-Python Installation on Linux

---

<h1 class="center">QuantLib-Python installation on Linux</h1>

<h2>Installation from PyPI (recommended)</h2>

<p>If you don't need to modify the wrappers, you can install a

precompiled wheel from PyPI. Once you have activated the Python

environment you want to use, make sure you have the latest version

of <code>pip</code> by running:</p>

<pre>

python -m pip install -U pip

</pre>

<p>(note that your Python interpreter might be named <code>python3</code> instead) and then run:</p>

<pre>

python -m pip install QuantLib

</pre>

<p>If a wheel is available for your system (which is likely)

it will be installed and you will be able to leave this page and use

it right away; if not, you'll have to compile it yourself as described

in the next section.</p>

<h2>Installation from a released version</h2>

<p>The following assumes that you already installed

QuantLib; instructions are available

at <a href="https://www.quantlib.org/install/linux.shtml">https://www.quantlib.org/install/linux.shtml</a></p>

<h3>Setup</h3>

<p>Before compiling the wrappers, you'll need to set up an appropriate

environment:</p>

<ul>

<li>Some of the commands you'll run will need to

invoke <code>quantlib-config</code> (which was installed with

QuantLib) to find out what flags should be passed to the compiler

and linker; they will also include the additional include

directories you might have specified when you built QuantLib, so

you'll be covered even if you have, say, Boost in a non-standard

place. This means that you must ensure

that <code>quantlib-config</code> is in your executable path.</li>

<li>You'll need to install a few Python modules. It's good practice

to install them in a new virtual environment, to avoid possible

conflicts with your system Python installation. This also helps

in case you have multiple versions of Python on your machine. You

can create the virtual environment with

<pre>

python3 -m venv .venv

</pre>

and activate it with

<pre>

. .venv/bin/activate

</pre>

(mind the single dot at the beginning of the line.) Once the

environment is active, run

<pre>

pip install setuptools build tox pytest

</pre>

If you're using <code>conda</code> to manage your environments,

you know what to do instead.

</li>

<li>You'll also need the Python development files installed (that

is, <code>python.h</code> and so on). They might be available by

default; but if not, you'll have to figure out how to get them. On

Ubuntu, for instance, you would install them with:

<pre>

sudo apt-get install python3-dev

</pre>

Similar packages should be available for most other

distributions.</li>

<li>Contrary to popular belief, working from a released

tarball <strong>doesn't require you to have SWIG

installed</strong>.</li>

</ul>

<h3>Compilation</h3>

<p>You can download released QuantLib-SWIG versions from GitHub

at <a href="https://github.com/lballabio/QuantLib-SWIG/releases">https://github.com/lballabio/QuantLib-SWIG/releases</a>.

You should download the same version as the version of QuantLib you

installed; for the sake of example, I'll use version 1.36 which is

the most recent version at the time of this writing.

</p>

<p>Once you have the tarball, extract it by executing</p>

<pre>

tar xzf QuantLib-SWIG-1.36.tar.gz

</pre>

This creates a folder <code>QuantLib-SWIG-1.36</code>;

enter it and configure QuantLib by executing:

<pre>

cd QuantLib-SWIG-1.36

./configure

</pre>

<p>After configuration, you can run

<pre>

cd Python

make

</pre>

<p>This will create a binary wheel in the <code>dist</code> directory.

To check that it works, run</p>

<pre>

make check

</pre>

<p>from the <code>Python</code> directory (you should already be there).</p>

<p>Once you're done, you can take the wheel and install it

with <code>pip</code> in the environment of your choice.</p>

<h2>Installation from a git repository</h2>

<p>If you want to compile from a checkout of a git repository (such as

the official one

at <a href="https://github.com/lballabio/quantlib-swig">https://github.com/lballabio/quantlib-swig</a>,

or a fork of it that you might have created) you'll need an additional

step at the beginning of the process. Before running

the <code>./configure</code> script, you'll have to create it by

executing</p>

<pre>

./autogen.sh

</pre>

<p>To do this, you'll need automake, autoconf and libtool. Again,

they're packaged for most Linux distributions; on Ubuntu, you would

get them by running</p>

<pre>

sudo apt-get install automake autoconf libtool

</pre>

<p>After the execution of <code>./autogen.sh</code>, the installation

proceeds as in the previous section. Note, though, that in this case

you'll need SWIG available; you can download and install it

from <a href="http://swig.org">http://swig.org</a>. At the time of

this writing, the wrappers use SWIG 4.3.0.</p>