xattr: ImportError: No module named pkg_resources

I was trying to run xattr on macOS Catalina 10.15.2 and the error occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/xattr", line 8, in <module>
    from pkg_resources import load_entry_point
ImportError: No module named pkg_resources

So I tried the solution given by @cwc and installed the latest version of setuptools

pip install -U setuptools

Requirement already up-to-date: setuptools in ./opt/anaconda3/envs/general/lib/python3.7/site-packages (45.1.0)

I also installed setuptools using pip3

pip3 install -U setuptools

Requirement already up-to-date: setuptools in /Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.8/lib/python3.8/site-packages (45.1.0)

Besides, I tried the methods above in different conda environments with Python 3.6.10 and 3.7.4, but the problem was not solved. Any ideas as to this problem?

Answer

xattr as included in Catalina uses the system-installed Python 2.7. (As shown by the head command below.) So you need to make sure that version is set up correctly.

$ head /usr/bin/xattr
#!/System/Library/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/2.7/Resources/Python.app/Contents/MacOS/Python

Make sure python is using the system default version:

$ which python
/usr/bin/python

Then, run the following commands

$ python -m ensurepip --default-pip
$ python -m pip install --upgrade pip setuptools wheel
$ python -m pip install --upgrade xattr==0.6.4
$ /usr/bin/xattr

Using pip in this way means that the the module is being run from site-packages directly, and will not clobber any other pip on your system (i.e. from Python 3.7)