HOWTO: Install mysql gem on Leopard

Sep 12 ’08

Filed in operating systems, ruby on rails

A while ago, when I upgraded to Rails 2.0, I started getting the annoying "upgrade to the real mysql library" message every time I did anything with rails from the command line. Running rake tasks, running tests, opening a console session, I'd always get the error. When I would try to install the gem (sudo gem install mysql) I'd get the following error:

Building native extensions.  This could take a while...
ERROR:  Error installing mysql:
	ERROR: Failed to build gem native extension.

blah blah blah

*** extconf.rb failed ***
Could not create Makefile due to some reason, probably lack of
necessary libraries and/or headers. Check the mkmf.log file for more
details. You may need configuration options.

Configuration fail!

It seems that this is particular to Leopard. I just discovered the solution in an old post from the RoR blog:

sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386" gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql

We're not quite there — if you try to config.gem 'mysql' in your environment.rb you'll get an error. The solution (thanks to macruby.org is to:

sudo ln -s /usr/local/mysql/lib /usr/local/mysql/lib/mysql

And that's it. Two steps and we're fixed. No more annoying messages.

Command line win!

Conversation in progress…

1. 1

   On September 18th James said:

   Hi, I found your blog on this new directory of WordPress Blogs at blackhatbootcamp.com/listofwordpressblogs. I dont know how your blog came up, must have been a typo, i duno. Anyways, I just clicked it and here I am. Your blog looks good. Have a nice day. James.

2. 2

   On October 17th jonathan said:

   dude, you're the man. after looking at 20+ blogs/forums yours is the only one that works, many thanks

3. 3

   On December 3rd Igor Petrushenko said:

   Hi, all

   The only one thing, which actually works for me:

   sudo gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-config=`which mysql_config5`

   Thank you,
   Sincerely,
   Igor,
   http://www.MyTaskHelper.com

4. 4

   On December 20th Brent Miller said:

   I just got a new 24" iMac, running the latest Leopard; I ran into this problem again while building the new system. This time, with the latest MySQL package (5.1.30), the following command worked:

   sudo env ARCHFLAGS="-arch i386" gem install mysql -- --with-mysql-dir=/usr/local/mysql --with-mysql-config=`which mysql_config`

   This uses Igor's suggestion, but works better for the current MySQL package.

5. 5

   On June 14th Travis said:

   Sweet! Totally fixed the errors I was getting trying to install the mysql gem. Thanks!

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