My simple Ruby mishaps

I ran into a problem installing the latest ruby version - 2.7.0 - at the time of this writing.

I was using rbenv, so when I ran the following command on my Linux Ubuntu system:

$ rbenv install 2.7.0

I got the following console output:

Downloading ruby-2.7.0.tar.bz2...
-> https://cache.ruby-lang.org/pub/ruby/2.7/ruby-2.7.0.tar.bz2
Installing ruby-2.7.0...

BUILD FAILED (Ubuntu 18.04 using ruby-build 20200115-8-g73b926b)

Inspect or clean up the working tree at /tmp/ruby-build.20200210091058.6452.C1da1m
Results logged to /tmp/ruby-build.20200210091058.6452.log

Last 10 log lines:
tool/config.guess already exists
tool/config.sub already exists
checking build system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking host system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking target system type... x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
checking for gcc... gcc
checking whether the C compiler works... no
configure: error: in `/tmp/ruby-build.20200210091058.6452.C1da1m/ruby-2.7.0':
configure: error: C compiler cannot create executables
See `config.log' for more details

My gcc was up-to date and all related libraries were installed, so this was confusing.

Turns out my problem was simply a ruby script I wrote that interfered with the gcc configurations during installation.

I wrote a ruby script called ld (list directories), that displayed a list of directories of all my projects grouped into certain environments. I did this so I could simply copy and paste the directory path so I could code in vim. I saved it under [~/bin], which was recommended for user-defined scripts.

I noticed when I tried to compile a C file, it would display the same output as the ld script. When I browsed through the config.log, in the log it gave the same output:

 94 configure:4056: checking whether the C compiler works
 95 configure:4078: gcc  -I/home/user/.rbenv/versions/2.7.0/include  -L/home/user/.rbenv/versions/2.7.0/lib  conftest.c  >&5
 96 /home/user/.rbenv/versions/2.6.1
 97 /home/user/Documents/Coding
 98 /home/user/Documents/Coding/Ruby
 99 /home/user/Documents/Coding/Ruby/practice
100 /home/user/Documents/Coding/Ruby/fun/Ruby-Fun
101 /home/user/Documents/Coding/Ruby/practice/the_well_grounded_rubyist/
102 /home/user/Documents/Coding/Ruby/Rails
103 /home/useruser/Documents/Coding/Ruby/Rails/practice
104 /home/user/Documents/Coding/Ruby/Rails/work
105 /home/useruser/Documents/Coding/Rust
106 /home/user/Documents/Coding/Rust/Practice
107 configure:4082: $? = 0
108 configure:4120: result: no
*Removed for brevity*
126 configure:4125: error: in `/tmp/ruby-build.20200210093603.8012.htWj9f/ruby-2.7.0':
127 configure:4127: error: C compiler cannot create executables
128 See `config.log' for more details

Line 95 tried to check whether the C compiler works. Line 96 until 106, displayed the output of my ld script. Thus I'm assuming configure resulted to a no.

I renamed my script, and all was well. I'm not sure if there was a name clash or something, but after renaming it, my problem was solved. A simple script I wrote to help me navigate my directories easily via my terminal gave me a headache for a better part of a day.

What I learned, and hopefully what you can pick up from this, is to be more vigilant and aware of decisions when configuring user-defined settings not to clash with system-defined settings. A simple solution to a simple problem.

p.s. After years of being a member, this is my first post. A getting-my-feet-wet kind of post. I finally decided to get out there and share and contribute. I hope to post more on my journey to mastering ruby.

Au revoir...

Oz

Comments

[rhymes]

Hi Dan, glad you decided to post!

ld is the name of one of the oldest Unix based tools. It's the linker, basically the tool which creates executables after compilation.

As your bin is probably at the top in the list of items in PATH (as it should be), the building of Ruby was picking up your script instead of the Unix tool.

If you type which ld you'll find out where the default ld resides. Don't forget to use which for future scripts when you decide their names so you don't risk clashing with the operating system in the future ☺️

[Dan C.]

Hi @rhymes . It makes sense now, so noob of me.

Thanks for suggesting which. While troubleshooting, I tried locate ld which returned thousands upon thousands of results that contained ld in the name.

Now I know. Thanks for the tip.