install pyicu 64 on macOS with python2

Question

I first installed icu4c from the Homebrew formula:

$ brew install icu4c
$ ls /usr/local/Cellar/icu4c/
64.2

then setup the flags accordingly:

export ICU_VERSION=64
export PYICU_INCLUDES=/usr/local/Cellar/icu4c/64.2/include
export PYICU_LFLAGS=-L/usr/local/Cellar/icu4c/64.2/lib

and then install PyIcu from pip:

$ pip install pyicu
Successfully installed pyicu-2.3.1

but when importing: python -c "import icu" I get the error

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "<string>", line 1, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/icu/__init__.py", line 37, in <module>
    from _icu import *
ImportError: dlopen(/usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/_icu.so, 2): Symbol not found: __ZN6icu_638ByteSink15GetAppendBufferEiiPciPi
  Referenced from: /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/_icu.so
  Expected in: flat namespace
 in /usr/local/lib/python2.7/site-packages/_icu.so

Answer 1

I had the same issue on MacOS, I resoled it by using an older version of pyicu=1.9.7

$ pip install pyicu=1.9.7