SQLite-Ruby and Cygwin: Problem and Solution

[Erik Veenstra]

I had a problem installing SQLite-Ruby under Cygwin. But we
solved the problem...

Installing SQLite (sqlite-2.8.15.tar.gz) itself was no problem:
"./configure ; make ; make install" worked, as expected.

Installing SQLite-Ruby with "gem install sqlite-ruby-2.2.2.gem"
didn't work. It couldn't find the header files or library or
whatever of SQLite, although SQLite itself (the command line
tool) worked on an existing database.

I added just one single line to ext/extconf.rb ('dir_config(
"sqlite", "/usr/local" )'), compiled the whole thing and build
the gem. This one was indeed installable!

If you encountered the same problem, here is the "script".

Maybe something for the sqlite-ruby maintainers to correct?

Thanks for this great library. I like it.

The combination of SQLite as back end, WXRuby or RubyWebDialogs
as front end and Ruby itself for the logic, gives us a 100%
platform agnostic way of building applications. We at least
cover Linux, Windows and Cygwin. I don't know anything about OS
X, Solaris or other systems.

Oh, by the way: Did I already mention that both SQLite and
WXRuby (and RubyWebDialogs, of course) are detected and
embedded by RubyScript2Exe?...

gegroet,
Erik V.

----------------------------------------------------------------

$ tar xzf sqlite-ruby-2.2.2.tar.gz

$ cd sqlite-ruby-2.2.2/

$ cd ext/

$ vi extconf.rb # !!! Add: dir_config( "sqlite", "/usr/local" ) !!!

$ ruby extconf.rb
checking for main() in -lsqlite... yes
checking for sqlite.h... yes
checking for sqlite_open() in -lsqlite... yes
creating Makefile

$ make
gcc -g -O2 -I. -I/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i386-cygwin
-I/usr/lib/ruby/1.8/i386-cygwin -I. -DHAVE_SQLITE_H -I/usr/local/includ
e -c sqlite-api.c
gcc -shared -s -Wl,--enable-auto-import,--export-all
-L"/usr/local/lib" -L"/usr/lib" -o sqlite_api.so sqlite-api.o -lr
uby -lsqlite -lsqlite -lcrypt

$ cd ..

$ touch README

$ gem build sqlite-ruby.gemspec
Attempting to build gem spec 'sqlite-ruby.gemspec'
Successfully built RubyGem
Name: sqlite-ruby
Version: 2.2.2
File: sqlite-ruby-2.2.2.gem

$ gem install sqlite-ruby-2.2.2.gem
Attempting local installation of 'sqlite-ruby-2.2.2.gem'
Building native extensions. This could take a while...
ruby extconf.rb install sqlite-ruby-2.2.2.gem
checking for main() in -lsqlite... yes
checking for sqlite.h... yes
checking for sqlite_open() in -lsqlite... yes
creating Makefile

make
make: Nothing to be done for `all'.

make install
install -c -p -m 0755 sqlite_api.so
/usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/sqlite-ruby-2.2.2/lib
Successfully installed sqlite-ruby, version 2.2.2
Installing RDoc documentation for sqlite-ruby-2.2.2...
----------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Jamis Buck]

I had a problem installing SQLite-Ruby under Cygwin. But we
solved the problem...

Installing SQLite (sqlite-2.8.15.tar.gz) itself was no problem:
"./configure ; make ; make install" worked, as expected.

Installing SQLite-Ruby with "gem install sqlite-ruby-2.2.2.gem"
didn't work. It couldn't find the header files or library or
whatever of SQLite, although SQLite itself (the command line
tool) worked on an existing database.

I added just one single line to ext/extconf.rb ('dir_config(
"sqlite", "/usr/local" )'), compiled the whole thing and build
the gem. This one was indeed installable!

Non-standard install locations are problematic for compiled gems (like
sqlite-ruby). If you installed by hand, you could easily specify the
necessary "--with-sqlite-lib" and "--with-sqlite-include" parameters
to the install script, but with gems..

Chad, Jim, et. al.: is there a way (or could there be a way) to allow
the gem command to take optional parameters that get passed through
directly to the extconf.rb script?

- Jamis

 

[Erik Veenstra]

I added just one single line to ext/extconf.rb

Non-standard install locations are problematic for compiled
gems (like sqlite-ruby). If you installed by hand, you could
easily specify the necessary "--with-sqlite-lib" and
"--with-sqlite-include" parameters to the install script, but
with gems..

Non-standard location? "/usr/local/bin" and "/usr/local/lib"
seem pretty standard to me... That's what SQLite decided to
use, anyway.

Thanks.

gegroet,
Erik V.

 

[Jamis Buck]

Non-standard location? "/usr/local/bin" and "/usr/local/lib"
seem pretty standard to me... That's what SQLite decided to
use, anyway.

As compared to "/usr/bin" and "/usr/lib", I meant. By default, that's
what the mkmf.rb lib uses. You can pass parameters to specify
otherwise (--with-sqlite-lib, etc) to extconf.rb, but not to the gem
utility. Yet. To my knowledge.

- Jamis

 

[Jim Weirich]

Jamis Buck said:

Non-standard install locations are problematic for compiled gems (like
sqlite-ruby). If you installed by hand, you could easily specify the
necessary "--with-sqlite-lib" and "--with-sqlite-include" parameters
to the install script, but with gems..

Chad, Jim, et. al.: is there a way (or could there be a way) to allow
the gem command to take optional parameters that get passed through
directly to the extconf.rb script?

Just add the extconf.rb options to the gem install command after a "--".

See http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/106092

 

[Jamis Buck]

Jamis Buck said:

Just add the extconf.rb options to the gem install command after a "--".

See http://blade.nagaokaut.ac.jp/cgi-bin/scat.rb/ruby/ruby-talk/106092

Wonderful! I should have known you gems guys would already have
figured this one out.

So, for future reference, if you are installing sqlite-ruby via gems
and you have sqlite installed in a location other than /usr, try:

gem install sqlite-ruby -- --with-sqlite-lib=/usr/local/lib
--with-sqlite-include=/usr/local/include

- Jamis

 

[Erik Veenstra]

So, for future reference, if you are installing sqlite-ruby

via gems and you have sqlite installed in a location other
than /usr, try:

gem install sqlite-ruby -- --with-sqlite-lib=/usr/local/lib
--with-sqlite-include=/usr/local/include

Worked flawlessly on another machine!

I still thing that /usr/local/[bin,lib,include] are common
places for installing software and that they have to be used
automatically. I bet you have good reasons for not doing so...
Please, enlighten me!

Thanks.

gegroet,
Erik V.

 

[Jamis Buck]

So, for future reference, if you are installing sqlite-ruby
via gems and you have sqlite installed in a location other
than /usr, try:

gem install sqlite-ruby -- --with-sqlite-lib=/usr/local/lib
--with-sqlite-include=/usr/local/include

Worked flawlessly on another machine!

I still thing that /usr/local/[bin,lib,include] are common
places for installing software and that they have to be used
automatically. I bet you have good reasons for not doing so...
Please, enlighten me!

No reason. I'm just arbitrary by nature.

Seriously, though, the reason it wasn't there already was because
(using Gentoo, as I do) things like sqlite on my machine get installed
into /usr/bin (etc.), and thus I've never had any problems with it.
And no one (until now) has reported problems.

So, assuming the change you recommended won't break *my* setup
(*grin*) I'll go ahead and make the change.

Thanks.

No, thank YOU.

gegroet,
Erik V.

- Jamis