pypa/pip · error · PylockValidationError

Name {name!r} is not normalized

Error message

Name {name!r} is not normalized

What it means

Raised as PylockValidationError by _validate_normalized_name in packaging.pylock when a package 'name' field is not in PEP 503 normalized form (lowercase, runs of [-_.] collapsed to a single '-', no other characters). pylock requires names already normalized so comparisons are unambiguous.

Source

Thrown at src/pip/_vendor/packaging/pylock.py:232

    except Exception as e:
        raise PylockValidationError(e, context=f"{key}[{len(result)}]") from e
    return result


def _get_required_sequence_of_objects(
    d: Mapping[str, Any], target_item_type: type[_FromMappingProtocolT], key: str
) -> Sequence[_FromMappingProtocolT]:
    """Get a required list value from the dictionary and convert its items to a
    dataclass."""
    if (result := _get_sequence_of_objects(d, target_item_type, key)) is None:
        raise _PylockRequiredKeyError(key)
    return result


def _validate_normalized_name(name: str) -> NormalizedName:
    """Validate that a string is a NormalizedName."""
    if not is_normalized_name(name):
        raise PylockValidationError(f"Name {name!r} is not normalized")
    return NormalizedName(name)


def _validate_path_url(path: str | None, url: str | None) -> None:
    if not path and not url:
        raise PylockValidationError("path or url must be provided")


def _path_name(path: str | None) -> str | None:
    if not path:
        return None
    # If the path is relative it MAY use POSIX-style path separators explicitly
    # for portability
    if "/" in path:
        return path.rsplit("/", 1)[-1]
    elif "\\" in path:
        return path.rsplit("\\", 1)[-1]
    else:

View on GitHub (pinned to d7d0d0a394)

Solutions

1. Normalize the name with packaging.utils.canonicalize_name before writing it to the lockfile.
2. Regenerate the lockfile with a tool that emits normalized names.
3. Replace '_', '.', ' ' with '-' and lowercase the string before passing it.
4. Catch PylockValidationError and report which name failed normalization.

Example fix

# before
name = \"My_Package\"
# after
name = \"my-package\"

from packaging.utils import canonicalize_name

def is_normalized(name: str) -> bool:
    return canonicalize_name(name) == name

import re
_norm_re = re.compile(r'^[a-z0-9]+(-[a-z0-9]+)*$')

def is_normalized_name(name: str) -> bool:
    return bool(_norm_re.match(name))

from packaging.pylock import PylockValidationError
try:
    PylockFile.from_dict(data)
except PylockValidationError as e:
    if 'not normalized' in str(e):
        data['name'] = canonicalize_name(data['name'])

When it happens

Trigger: Loading pylock.toml with name = \"My_Package\" (underscore), name = \"MyPackage\" (CamelCase), name = \"my..package\" (double dot). The normalized form would be 'my-package'.

Common situations: Generating a lockfile from project metadata without applying canonicalize_name; mixing normalized and raw names across dependencies; copy-pasting a project name from pyproject [project].name into pylock.

Related errors

• Unexpected type {type(value).__name__} (expected {expected_t
• Unexpected type {type(value).__name__} (expected Sequence)
• Unexpected type {type(item).__name__} (expected {expected_it
• path or url must be provided
• At least one hash must be provided

AI-assisted analysis of pypa/pip@d7d0d0a394 (2026-08-04). Data as JSON: /data/errors/5d507e95c607c3d0.json. Report an issue: GitHub.