Cannot Build parselmouth in Docker (CMake/Build Toolchain Issues)

[reedajorgy]

I am trying to install the praat-parselmouth Python package in a Docker container based on python:3.12, but the build fails due to CMake and build toolchain issues. Here are the details:

What I did:

• Installed all required system dependencies (build-essential, ninja-build, cmake, etc.).
• Built and installed the Praat binary from source.
• Upgraded pip, setuptools, wheel, cmake, and scikit-build via pip.
• Attempted to install praat-parselmouth using pip install --no-cache-dir --verbose --no-build-isolation praat-parselmouth.

What ended up happening

• The build fails with errors related to CMake and pybind11:
  • CMake error:
    CMake Error at pybind11/CMakeLists.txt:8 (cmake_minimum_required): Compatibility with CMake < 3.5 has been removed from CMake.
  • Sometimes, the build system cannot find the Ninja generator or other build tools.
  • The wheel for praat-parselmouth fails to build, and the installation aborts.

parselmouth previously built seamlessly as per the documentation, but I am not sure where to go from here

Relevant logs:

CMake Error at pybind11/CMakeLists.txt:8 (cmake_minimum_required):
  Compatibility with CMake < 3.5 has been removed from CMake.
...
ERROR: Failed to build installable wheels for some pyproject.toml based projects (praat-parselmouth)

I tried

• Ensured latest CMake is installed via pip and system package manager.
• Installed all build dependencies, including ninja-build, scikit-build, and libgtk-3-dev.
• Verified CMake version is >= 3.5.
• Tried both with and without --no-build-isolation.

also, here is my system info

• Docker base image: python:3.12
• OS: Debian-based (from official Python image)
• CMake version: 3.29.3 (from pip)
• pip version: 25.1.1

Any help would be greatly appreciated :)

[YannickJadoul]

Hi, @reedajorgy, and sorry for the mess/confusion!

The latest version of CMake seems to be dropping backwards compatibility for older versions. So there's a couple of places in where I need to backport this pybind11 commit, probably: pybind/pybind11#4719. It should just be as simple as updating a couple of cases of 3.4 to 3.5, but I haven't had the time yet to fully understand if there is anything else I need to take into account.

See also commit 9d9d3a4 in #143.

Alternatively, just use a slightly older version of CMake for now ;-)

[reedajorgy]

I am still a bit lost, sorry I am a bit new to this :)

Could you perhaps email me at rjorgensen6@gatech.edu so I can send you my info and error logs? That would be very helpful, thank you.

[YannickJadoul]

Should be fixed in 0.4.6, now! Let me know and reopen this issue if it's not fixed!

[reedajorgy]

Thank you so much!

…

On Mon, 9 Jun 2025 at 02:40, Yannick Jadoul ***@***.***> wrote: *YannickJadoul* left a comment (YannickJadoul/Parselmouth#144) <#144 (comment)> Should be fixed in 0.4.6, now! Let me know and reopen this issue if it's not fixed! — Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#144 (comment)>, or unsubscribe <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/BGPODRUVTGWUGKAESBS3RRT3CRROXAVCNFSM6AAAAAB5LYMCX2VHI2DSMVQWIX3LMV43OSLTON2WKQ3PNVWWK3TUHMZDSNJUGE3DQMZVGI> . You are receiving this because you were mentioned.Message ID: ***@***.***>