I'm writing some Python numerical code and would like to use some functions from the special module. So far, my code only depends on numpy, which I've found very easy to install in a variety of Python environments. Installing scipy, on the other hand, has generally been an exercise in frustration. Is there a way to get just the special module?
Note, I see now that there is a downloadable scipy package for the Mac, but that hasn't always been the case
I'm not familiar with scipy in particular, but in general, modules for software packages depend on the installation of the package itself. So, yes, I'm pretty sure that you need to install scipy to use the special module.
If you already have the right version of Numpy installed then you could try to just take the source for the special module, stick it in a directory somewhere, add it to your PYTHONPATH, and see if it works. It all depends on its dependencies. If it has dependencies beyond Numpy, then you'll have to install those, and if those have dependencies...
The scipy subpackages can usually be installed individually. Try cd-ing to the "special" directory and running your normal "python setup.py install". The name space for importing should now be special and now scipy.special.